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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."
"
He forgot the 1s but the tilda was creative.
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.
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
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...but, alas, they do not have email!
Can you imagine?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The tendency of the average person to believe he or she is better-than-average is known as the "above-average effect," and it flies in the face of logic... by definition, it is impossible for a majority of people to be above average. The more incompetent someone is in a particular area, the less qualified that person is to assess anyone's skill in that space, including their own. Here is the summary of the study. http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=406
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
The PHB in question is the city manager. According to him: "My door is always open and I answer all calls."
So... here's his info: City Manager Jerry A. Taylor, and his email address: citymgr@cityoftuttle.org.
Note that I am not "exposing" anything, all of this info comes directly from the publically available cityoftuttle.org website.
PS. I can't believe we fried centos.org but not cityoftuttle.org.
If you noticed on his bio at the website - he was a manager for E-Systems. This is the way E-Systems managers manage - the yell about everything - get absolutely nothing done but yelling - but yell they do - until someone comes along and fixes it for them. He is classic E-Systems - everyone in the defense industry know about them - and has had to put up with their management technique. Finally the rest of you can start to deal with them too...
From one of Taylor's letters:
"I have no fear of the media, in fact I welcome this publicity."
You think he still welcomes it today?
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Or even an MCSE. If you're going to knock us, get the term right.
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.
The guy's website provides further proof for the "low IQ and use of Comic Sans" correlation.
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!
While the general response is to call for his incompetent head on a plate (not undeserved), we as a community should be making an effort to be polite to this idiot. If we want to continue the march of linux, we need to be prepared to deal with incompetence and people like this in a warm fashion, and mock them later with dignity and respect. If all he gets are threats, harrassing calls etc, he's going to assume that all linux people are alike, and that we're all terrorists and hackers. Please, if you're going to email/call/mock him, do so with dignity and respect as a member of the community. Don't prove him right by getting on his level. We're all better than him, so act like it.
Sorry, Builder, but all this shows is that incompetents shouldn't be left in charge of IT. I would say it demonstrates the exact opposite of what you say. Clearly the city manager is unqualified and ignorant. The open source project helped him -- for free -- even when he threatened litigation! Ultimately, CentOS solved the problem for him too, outdoing the ISP he presumably pays.
I would argue that this furthers the cause significantly, and as an aside, encourages towns to take IT seriously.
Here is a recent picture of our hero, Jerry, and here is a picture of him during his earlier years.
[alk]
My website looks just fine.
This just confirms what we Texans have known for years...(ducking for cover).
You really have to worry about a place that feels it needs to reassure people that 'Oklahoma is OK'.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Since CentOS are down, I have mirrored the whole exchage at http://jaduncan.net/centos-vs-city-of-tuttle.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
Um, sir, I don't think 'computer literacy' refers merely to the ability to read text on computers...
http://outcampaign.org/
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.
At least it wasn't "Buttle". ;)
-=fshalor
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,
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