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Misconfigured Webserver, Threats to Call FBI
the_harlequin writes "The Register is reporting that a city manager threatened to call the FBI over a misconfigured webserver. From the article: "The heartland turned vicious this week when an Oklahoma town threatened to call in the FBI because its web site was hacked by Linux maker CentOS. Problem is CentOS didn't hack Tuttle's web site at all. The city's hosting provider had simply botched a web server."
"
If you don't remove this inflamitory comment I'm calling the FBI!
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
He forgot the 1s but the tilda was creative.
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Overheard at the city council meeting:
"Someone unplugged my keyboard- Call the FBI Alice!!!"
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
This just confirms what we Texans have known for years...(ducking for cover).
Haha, I love how each of the Manager's replies show a complete ignorance of the previous, helpful message from the CentOS tech. I had a similar situation trying to explain to my uncle (who I was building a site for) about how SMTP works and why mail forwarding only worked before we changed his nameservers (since he only bought domain names and not hosting). I spent a painstaking 20 minutes explaining it in layman's terms, only for him to pause then say, "My email isn't working". The CentOS guy should get a medal for keeping so calm here.
That's nothing. Over the years I've been the victim of some ruthless Native American terrorist organization that always seems to hack my webpage within minutes of installing the server.
This guy's the limit!
For some reason, this reminds me of the time that a woman called my branch of the company and said: "We're all out of paper over here... could you fax some over?"
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
...to complain about a DDOS attack. Behold, the power of Slashdot!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The Department of Records must have the name of the website wrong and confused it with Buttle instead of Tuttle, we will correct it as soon as possible. In the mean time, we do not apologize for disrupting your webserver, and we will not reimburse you one penny nor will we fix the damage caused.
My computer is routinely hacked by Microsoft, should I call. It happens at least once a month, sometimes weekly. I have another one that is hacked by commies, I know they are commies, they use GPL.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
I have contacted the City's network administrator wnd he has done nothing to install your CentOS software. I have contacted our Internet provider and they know nothing about your software. I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation.
Hmm... 22 years as a manager, maybe. As if that counted for anything. Then, to make matters worse, he talked to a 'network administrator', who thanks to MS always refering to windows admins as 'network administrators' is a just a windows admin. A case of the blind leading the blind. Or, the windows admins leading the windows users.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
"The CentOS guy should get a medal for keeping so calm here."
Why? I never got one. I do however have a lovely ulcer collection.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Isn't it gratifying and re-assuring to know that we have public officials who are intelligent and qualified enough to read an error page, and then savvy enough to: a) look up the company's web site, and then b) effectively and efficiently manage the problem to the satisfaction of all parties involved. We should bestow him with praises.
Rest assured people of Oklahoma, your IT is in good hands!
...but, alas, they do not have email!
Can you imagine?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
its a mistake, it was supposed to read BUTTLE....
I like microcars
To: citymgr@cityoftuttle.org
Subject: Need your help in entertaining the tech community
Jerry,
I understand that you have 22 years of experience computer systems engineering and operation are are computer literate. I need your help in entertaining the Internet technical community.
I think it would be hilarious if we loaded the default page on on a web server for the city (one with instructions on how to fix the problem) and then complained about it to the the maker of the operating system. Yuk, yuk! We can even (get this) whine that all the computers in the building show the same default page when you surf to the site. Bwaaahhhaaahhhaaa! Then (I can hardly contain myself) let's accuse the poor saps of hacking our server and threaten to call the FBI!!! Teeehhheeehhheeee!
Oh, oh, my sides hurt. This is going to be great. You setup the server and I'll.... Oh, I'm just reading slashdot and see that you already done it. Well, I guess you thought of it before me. Good one.
Here is a recent picture of our hero, Jerry, and here is a picture of him during his earlier years.
[alk]
I found the problem... Jerry has an MBA. that explains it all.
Be sure that if you email him, to use crayon type fonts and only primary colors.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
My website looks just fine.
How's he ever going to learn if we just make fun of him? I, for one, sent him a CentOS DVD and a kind note supporting him in his time of public embarrassment.
Come to think of it, why doesn't every one do that?
Hello, I have recently read the news story concerning recent terrorist attacks on your web site on http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/27/ 135221 and on http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/24/tuttle_cen tos/
Thank you for hours of entertainment for me and my family.
I hereby nominate you for the "Pompous Arrogant Prick 2006" award.
Best of luck on your "War On Terrorism (TM)".
Yeah you Texans know a lot.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Unfortunately, some people are below average when it comes to statistics.
Um, sir, I don't think 'computer literacy' refers merely to the ability to read text on computers...
http://outcampaign.org/
I have to give the guy a lot of credit for being helpful. If it were me, I'm afraid I would have said "OK, OK, we'll get it off there in the next update cycle", then blacklisted his email address and let him figure it out himself.
:)
Then I would have posted it on slashdot while the error page was still up for additional comic relief
some of my favourite - it really happened to me - IT customer service stories.
I spent a year or so working in a retail computer outlet in a large discout chain (I blame Apple for this, it was during their flirtation with selling Apples through non-reseller chains). It was during the same period that IBM compatibles changed from 5.25" to 3.5" floppy drives. I had a customer come in and buy a new 3.5" drive one afternoon. The following day they came back with the drive asking for a replacement, as it was clearly faulty. They complained that they had installed in into thier computer and tried to use their exisiting disks in it and none had worked. After further enquiy, it turned out that they had found their 5.25" disks had not fitted in the drive, so they had cut them down with a pair of scissors to make them fit, having done so, they found the new drive incapable to read them.
Same place, different customer. Came in wanting a warranty replacement on their new keyboard, it was giving erratic multi-keystroke responses. The keyboard was bent with a tire track across it.
Same place, yet another customer. Sold them a new PC with a fax modem as one of the items on the component list. The following weekend they came back into the store to find me. They had a question, could I perhaps show them on the floor demonstration unit where to load the fax paper.
Same place (I hated the place with a vengence), different customer. Came in with their brand new Apple Powerbook demanading a warranty replacement. It was a PB 180 (I think) with the grey rectangular power brick adaptor. The computer had shorted out and they demended that Apple replace it. The AC adaptor no longer had the block transformer on the end of the cable, instread it had a standard 3 pin plug on the end. When asked why this was the case, they said that the block had not fitted to the powerpoint on thier skirting board, so they had cut it off (the transformer) and installed the new plug on the end of the cable. They could now understand why I refused to process the claim as a warranty issue.
Different place, different customer. Was asked to do an insurance assessment on repairing a computer which had been sprayed with a chemical fire extinguisher some weeks earlier, it had not been cleaned in the interim...
I've got dozens more, but they're my favourites. So glad I don't do retail any more.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
In my case, I was working in field service for a small factory automation manufacturer (this was nearly 20 years ago, now). We get a call that a customer is having a problem with their system failing the security check at start-up.
At that time, our software was copy-protected by means of a parallel port dongle that absolutely would NOT work correctly if there was a printer daisy-chained off the dongle, and the printer was turned off. Because this was an entirely predictable failure mode, the error message read something like: "Security verification error. Make sure your software key is installed on the parallel port, and ENSURE THAT THE PRINTER IS TURNED ON (if you have one)"
So the first question I ask the guy when he gets transferred over to me is whether or not he has the key installed, and whether his printer is turned on. "Of course it is - I wouldn't be calling if I hadn't already checked that!". So I ask him exactly what the error message is, and he tells me it's the one I paraphrased above, which you will recall only happens if your printer is turned off.
Now, it's possible that his key has gone bad in a way that no other key we've had fail before ever has, but it doesn't seem terribly likely to me, so I ask him if he can check to make sure the little green light on the printer is illuminated. He claims that it is, and starts getting very agitated about how much of a problem it is for him that he can't run the analysis he needs to run, and we need to fix this pronto.
So, I load a new printer, a new key, a new cable, and anything else that might be useful into the company van, and drive out to this factory (2.5 hours one way). When I get there, I go into the plant, turn on the printer, and drive back.
Total time onsite: less than 5 minutes
Total drive time: 6 hours (rush-hour on the way back)
Total cost to customer: $350 (or about $600 in today's dollars)
1 hour minimum labor @ $50/hour
6 hours drive time @ $50/hour
[[ insert your own "priceless" MasterCard advertisement here ]]