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Manager Disables Web Server by Sneaking Away Xbox
nz17 writes "While the administrator is away the managers will play. A custom Web server went missing at an unnamed public university, but who was the culprit? The department manager. Thinking that the Linux Web server (which used a Microsoft Xbox for its hardware) was a normal game console, he snuck the device out of the server room and home for his son to play over the holiday weekend. The philosophy students who used the server for their class were not amused."
What were they doing with it, sitting around asking 'what is the sound of 1 Xbox playing?' Philosophy kids don't actually DO anything, esp. on weekends, so whats all the outrage?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
And this is news how?
Was a great story when it came out in 2006!
I heard this one way back in 2004. Old story is old.
OLD news
Another reason to run Windows servers.
No more stupid stories, please.
1 - The manager, for messing with something he's not qualified to touch, but he's the boss.
2 - The administrator, because he's not the boss.
To be fair, the administrator shouldn't have used a game console to host a university web server, or at least he should have put clear signs of what that piece of hardware function was, but I'm pretty sure the manager should be accounted too, for entering a production data center and removing a piece of hardware.
At least this line actually made me laugh:
wow. talk about slow news.
This articles is waaay back from May 28, 2006.
http://www.object404.com
It didn't surprise me when I saw this 2-year-old news item on Digg yesterday, but here? Sheesh...
Is the xbox cheaper than the old celeron in the basement?
Btw: stuff that matters, duh.
| (ceci n'est pas une pipe)
Why does Slashdot post things that are two years old as news? Does anyone RTFA?
Keep the damn idle OFF the front page! At the VERY least, let me block it!
What?
http://www.technudgelive.com/linux/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/linuxbox.jpg
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
"Sure, you have got a PhD. Just don't touch anything".
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
So why can't they just use one for the sever?
News for nerds, stuff that matters.
You'll notice that it doesn't say, "News for people with ten-second attention spans, inconsequential bullshit from two years ago."
Why the hell was the server running on an Xbox?
:P)
I mean, it might be a funny thing, a cool home-made project or a public internet demostration but serously.. running an university server on an XBox? WTH were they thinking? [ironic]I guess the university doesn't get enough founds to buy a proper server so teachers have to take its personal entertainment servers to work or otherwise they can have a server for their classes.[/ironic]
Guess what? The manager should be awarded for discovering a critical security risk (surely what he was intending to demostrate in the first place
...why the department manager didn't confiscate this XBox as contraband.
Seriously, what's a game console doing in the server room? There are no other alternatives? No leftover hardware (PIII-almost-anything, P4-anythinbg at-all, Athlon-ditto) more than capable of doing the job?
The article was replete with references to the lack of respect management had for the proletariat IT staff, blahblahblahblahblah. Feh.
Labeling equipment in the server room is crucial. How about a decent label if, for no other reason, after a fire or some other event, you can contact the functional owner(s) and inform them of the survival or demise of their precious server.
-ps: this isn't one of those XBoxen that gets red rings so often, is it? Hopefully it would be really more reliable than the 'old' Dell P4 they probably snuck away to run their 'real' web server...
There is more than one thing wrong in this story.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
He did what no philosophy student could. He proved that the box exists!
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
There's no way that was cost effective, unless someone pulled it out of the trash. A generic "white" box could easily be had for under $200, and would be far more suitable for a server.
The admin got what he deserved. The IT Manager was right to pull that piece of crap out of the rack.
It would have been worse if it were an XBox 360. We all know how friggin' reliable they have been.
The admin is no hero here. He was a stupid fool from the start.
But at least this will give them a chance to talk to the media, where they can work in the complaint that no one seems to want to hire philosophy students (the only know job seems to become philosophy teachers).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I guess those Philosophy students never heard the saying, "Shit Happens, Get a Helmet".
"Guys i've discovered a critical security risk!!"
"What is it then?"
"ME!!!!"
FRA: STFU GTFO
This was on digg TWO days before posting here. If you guys can't keep your content original, I suggest you make way for somebody that can, Taco.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
... there is a philosophy lesson in all this .... somewhere...
Instead of playing on the Xbox with his son, he should perhaps read him some fairy tales.
Many fairy tales emphasize the importance of not messing with things you don't understand and not taking other people's possessions.
(Here's another hint from the fairy tales: if the Xbox doesn't turn into a beautiful princess after the first kiss, stop kissing it. I don't know what it means, but it seemed relevant.)
I work at a university, and while money is often tight it's not THIS tight. Their "IT staff" sounds like its comprised of a bunch of little boys. Who'd choose to run an official department service off an Xbox? Even if the "IT staff" are kids - if the department can afford paying them even minimum wage, it can easily afford an inexpensive computer/server.
If this is true, it sounds more like a bunch of kids playing at IT. It's not just the use of the Xbox; but they also apparently didn't tell anyone which box was the web server. How could you not label a server?
#DeleteChrome
You guys are slacking. Not a single snarky comment "proving" how this is MS fault somehow?
Why does idle define Arial as a default font? Slashdot has, for years, just defined sans-serif, and respected what the browser has set for it.
serves him right
Way to bring up a story from 2006.
I like the week old articles from Popular Mechanics too. Every month a bunch of blog entries inspired by PM articles (and I'm sure other quality magazines) get posted here. It is pretty frustrating reading a quality magazine, then... a blog version. Then I can debate with a bunch of tards that didn't read either one, and don't comprehend the topic.
/. to damned trade journals.
I don't know why I come here anymore. It might be because I like writing, and you dumb assholes make me feel like Ernest Fucking Hemingway. I swear that is the only thing I get out of this.
You should all watch the news, or get some good magazine subscriptions. Read about the industry you work in, or business in general, or just read a damned book once in a while. You'll learn FAR more about real world IT, and spend less time looking at advertising if you'd all switch from
The stoy is fake, and for Slashdot editors to present it as real just makes them look even dumber than usual.
because your ignorance overflows like liquid chocolate.
is that original??
funny
Shouldn't they have been be more philosophical about it?
No sig today...