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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."
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After reading through the exchange on the CentOS site, I think he's going to regret making that statement. Normally, a dunderhead bureaucrat like this would try to sue or claim these e-mails shouldn't have been made public, but with this little statement on file...
I'd call the guy a "dumbass", but he's not necessarily stupid, just ignorant and bullheaded. Of course, ignorant and bullheaded do a very good impersonation of stupid when combined.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Well, probably 22 years on the mainframe a few decades ago. He doesn't know a thing about anything that isn't green and black and/or involve punch cards. I see a lot of those around where I work, although most of them are smart enough to know their skills are outdated, and don't pretend to know these new(er) technologies. Not this guy apparently.
CentOS should send the city a bill for their tech support time. After all, they wasted the time of a primary developer whose time could be spent much better. Of course the chance of the bill getting paid is slim to none but it is the thought that counts, right? I hope Johnny Hughes found the man's ignorance as funny as I do and was not overly annoyed with the knucklehead.
Switching to Linux can be an adventure!
One day old Master Huang and one of his disciples were buying tea at the herb shop. The master noticed the clerk had made a mistake in adding up the bill and corrected him.
"Master," said the disciple, "truly your skill in calculation is supreme. You are indeed most 'abacus literate'."
"Nonsense!" replied the master,"Those with skill in such things do not bandy such ignorant terms. They simply practice the calculations most useful to them. The shopkeeper is well served by performing sums; the tax collector, proportions; the architect and geomancer square roots, and so forth. There are basic skills all must learn as part of their trade, it is true. But beware of those who bost they are 'abacus literate': there is no magic that transforms a shopkeeper into an architect, or a tax collector into a master of feng shui. That is the cant of impostors and quacks."
"But Master Li's students boast they are 'abacus literate'," objecte the student. "What must I do to equal them?"
"I suppose," considered the Master, "you must learn to read an abacus."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In a Gaussian distribution (which is true of most human characteristics), the three averages are the same number, so it is impossible for a significant majority to be above any average.
here's the difference. You would of called the ISP. he called CentOS, because the default Apache install page for CentOS and the default webpage has a link back CentOS.
That's like the default Apache install page on a Mac contains a link to www.apple.com. and The default page on IIS contains a link to www.microsoft.com
if you saw an error page that IIS and a link to MSFT would you call MSFT, and Yell at them for Hacking your website?
If my homepage failed to appear I too would call the ISP. He called the company whose link was visible, not the ISP.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
With luck they will not be someone who reports to this fool, but one way or another they'll probably feel the heat more than necessary. There are few things more frightening in a workplace than a fool who is shown up to be a fool. His retribution is likely to be epic.
First of all, I live in Oklahoma City(which I suppose isn't that big).
The building I work in has more people in it than the entire population of Tuttle.
Tuttle is tiny, more work goes into managing a single starbucks than a city that size(and probably makes more money).
Call it what you like, but the paper was published in 1999 by the American Psychological Association
e .html
http://www.phule.net/mirrors/unskilled-and-unawar
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Sadly, however, not every org has the resources to hire a firm to do their IT for them.
In my experience most businesses cannot afford NOT to have someone competent in charge of their IT. It doesn't need to be a full time job, a few hours per month is often plenty. The alternative is to have the "Office Guru", you know, they guy that has an X-Box at home and bought something on Ebay once, deal with it. The problem is that he/she probably has a real job they are supposed to be doing and will spend hours dealing with issues that would take a professional a few minutes to fix and will probably ignore any kind of preventitive maintence.
The thttpd (a lightweight Apache alternative) author has a similar story, but with more stupidity involved (see email history in link): thttpd author's "Attack of the Repo Men"
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Dear Mayor Lonnie Paxton:
/ 135221
h p?id=2
I am writing to formally complain about the abusive behavior of Mr. Jerry A. Taylor, one of your highest profile City Managers. As of this morning's publication of an Information Technology news service titled Slashdot (see links below), I can assure you that he (and, by association, your town of Tuttle, Oklahoma) is the topic of derisive conversations throughout the entire computing systems world. Quite frankly, Mr. Taylor's alleged "22 years in computer systems engineering and operation," his unwillingness to consider the advice of professional peers, his inability to comprehend simple systems documentation, and his hair-trigger willingness to contact the FBI whenever your town suffers WEB server configuration issues, cast great doubts in regard to both Tuttle's IT infrastructure, as well as your town's slogan: "The Place Where People Grow Up - Friendly!" This is very bad publicity, Mr. Paxton. Until this morning, it's true that hardly anyone outside of Oklahoma knew where Tuttle even was. However, now millions of people know about Tuttle for all the wrong reasons. As a consequence, I am only half joking when I state that I would hardly be surprised to see your town spoofed without mercy on an upcoming episode of The Daily Show, for example. This is THAT big an issue.
In any event, I must commend the representative from CentOS.org, Mr. Johnny Hughes. Time and time again, as Mr. Taylor become increasingly impossible to deal with, as Mr. Taylor's words became more and more threatening (at one point, Mr. Taylor went so far as to report that "I have no fear of the media, in fact I welcome this publicity" - a statement which I believe he will soon regret, if he doesn't already), Mr. Hughes remained both patient and calm and did everything he could -- and I can't state this with enough emphasis, even though this was clearly neither an issue with CentOS.org, nor Mr. Hughes -- to help resolve Mr. Taylor's problem.
I use CentOS on a daily basis and I am positively grateful for the philanthropic efforts of this superhuman organization. I am extremely disappointed with your office because Mr. Hughes clearly did not deserve Mr. Taylor's unmindful harassment. To resolve this injustice, at the very least, I encourage you to prevail upon Mr. Taylor to publicly acknowledge an admission of discourtesy toward both CentOS.org and Mr. Hughes himself, accompanied by a written expression of regret. Your town should consider itself fortunate that CentOS.org, to date, has not issued you an invoice for payment of software technical support.
Thanks very much for your attention. I sincerely wish that we could be communicating under much more favorable conditions.
For your reference, here are some links referred to earlier:
Original story posted on Slashdot:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/27
What is Slashdot and how large is it's following in the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot
CentOS's coverage of the abuse:
http://wwwf.centos.org/127_story.html?storyid=127
What CentOS is:
http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.p
What LINUX is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
Yours Sincerely,
Several years ago I was talking to a guy whose sister worked at the E-Systems division near here. Seems his sister started as a secretary there and being able to pick up the basics of Microsoft Office well enough to help out the more confused secretaries who had their typewriters replaced by computers find their way sufficiently to type and print what they could have typed out on their typewriters in the first place. She got the reputation as the problem solver for MS Office to the extent that she couldn't keep up with her own secretarial duties for answering others questions. Deeming her more valuable as a clutch to the clueless E-Systems promoted her to "Software Engineer" at 3x her original salary and hired another secretary to do her secretarial work.
Remembering this makes me wonder about Jerry Taylor's job path to "22 years in computer systems engineering and operation" at E-Systems. Was he the only one in his department who could find the on switches?