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Manager Disables Web Server by Sneaking Away Xbox

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the solve-with-a-post-it-note dept.

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."

41 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Philosophy students by Gothmolly · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Philosophy students by nomadic · · Score: 5, Funny

      Philosophy kids don't actually DO anything, esp. on weekends, so whats all the outrage?

      Umm, hello, they play the xbox. Without the "web server" they can't do that anymore.

    2. Re:Philosophy students by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      'what is the sound of 1 Xbox playing?' Segggggggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

    3. Re:Philosophy students by ch-chuck · · Score: 4, Funny

      whats all the outrage?

      We, the students of the university philosophical society demand that you do, or do not, return the Xbox webserver !

      --
      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
    4. Re:Philosophy students by Raistlin77 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, it was 2 years, and even the link in the summary goes to that 2 year old story. -

    5. Re:Philosophy students by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      According to the Stoics, it never really belonged to them in the first place.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    6. Re:Philosophy students by houstonbofh · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They consider if the web server is actually down, or if they just perceive it to be down.

    7. Re:Philosophy students by uglyduckling · · Score: 4, Funny

      We demand that we may (or may not be) the philosophy students. We demand clearly-defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

    8. Re:Philosophy students by The_Rook · · Score: 3, Funny

      the philosophy students demand that there may, or may not, be an xbox server.

      --
      when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
    9. Re:Philosophy students by Macgrrl · · Score: 2, Funny

      We demand clearly-defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

      Well... it is a Microsoft product, so you get the uncertainty and doubt as a given with a side serve of fear...

      --
      Sara
      Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
  2. The article is dated May 28, 2006 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And this is news how?

    1. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by Rurik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think we need to start slashbombing the submitters of these articles. I doubt /. has a backlog of submissions two years old, so people need to stop submitting old crap to this site.

      We're looking at YOU, nz17

    2. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by xaxa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How do we ignore idle./. stories? I'd like to turn them off the same way I can turn off Apple stories (for instance).

    3. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by somersault · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Since this is the idle channel and I keep seeing your name/ID popping up I'd like to say how cool I think it is :p I wonder if xa maps to 988 in any way. Anyway, I thought you could specify how important stories from different sections are to you? For example for me the gaming stories show the title but not the summary. I can't even remember what the settings were like when I did that, they may have made them more comprehensive by now.

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      which is totally what she said
    4. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by brianosaurus · · Score: 2, Insightful

      $ grep slashdot /etc/hosts
      127.0.0.1 idle.slashdot.org
      $

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      blog
    5. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by Khyber · · Score: 3, Informative

      You must be new here. Old shit on the weekends is the norm for this site.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    6. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by leamanc · · Score: 4, Funny

      How did you post here then? Running a local cached copy of idle.slashdot.org? :-)

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      :q!
    7. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by garett_spencley · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Won't take the story off the main page though. Will just prevent you from being able to (successfully) click on the Read More link.

      I don't mind Idle but I agree that there should be a way to filter it from the main page like all the other sections. Seems absolutely ridiculous that there isn't.

    8. Re:The article is dated May 28, 2006 by Eponymous+Bastard · · Score: 2, Informative

      What? You don't have GreaseMonkey installed?

  3. Linux on Xbox by noz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Another reason to run Windows servers.

    1. Re:Linux on Xbox by smchris · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Since it's on Windows IT Pro, I assume that is the intended tone. "Business don't try anything innovative like those stupid, penny-pinching colleges."

  4. Please, Please Stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No more stupid stories, please.

    1. Re:Please, Please Stop by Bryan+Ischo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm afraid you're not going to get your wish. I had an email discussion with CmdrTaco on this subject last summer. He basically admitted that during the 'lull time' of U.S. summer, they have to scrape around for articles to post because summer time means far fewer cool university publications, and businesses release fewer products and stuff during summer as well.

      I specifically complained about kdawson and the drivel that he posts but CmdrTaco defended him by saying that he (CmdrTaco) though that he (kdawson) did 'a pretty good job' as an editor.

      Really, at that point, I realized that there is nothing that anyone can do. I mean, if you can defend kdawson's editing and story submission quality, then I guess you can defend anything.

      I don't know how long the average user lasts on Slashdot before getting fed up and moving on; the first 5 years I read Slashdot it steadily improved in quality but the last 5 years have been all downhill. I'm really starting to reach my limit of tolerance for it. Many days I say to myself, "that's it, I'm not reading Slashdot at all anymore", but old habits die hard and I keep coming back.

    2. Re:Please, Please Stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What I can't understand is how people take a boring article on /. so goddamn personal.

      You are not entitled to anything. If you think it's boring, don't waste your time on it. It is just that simple.

      This is really the same as "if you don't like what's on right now, change the channel". Don't spend your time crying like a child in the forums about how you want everything to be a certain way. Just fuck off and read the next article.

      Christ you people are sad. Go play on digg where that crybaby shit is the norm.

    3. Re:Please, Please Stop by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I'm afraid you're not going to get your wish. I had an email discussion with CmdrTaco on this subject last summer.

      I used to send corrections to them -- typos, dupes, factual errors, and such. About half the time they did then fix them. But Taco was very bitchy and unappreciative about it. I realised I was just being an unpaid proofreader for lazy jerks who didn't give a shit, so I gave up. Now I just ignore their errors or snark about them in the comments.

      The comment moderation is the thing that makes the site work, so interesting comments float up. But they failed to take the next step, allowing moderation of the articles themselves so crappy articles can be filtered out. (WTF is it with the tags that have been in beta for a year or so -- how do they expect anyone to take it seriously when they don't implement them in any real way?)

      Of course, if they had editors who 1) read the articles and 2) spent 5 minutes checking them before posting, the site would not be such an embarrassment.

  5. Re:Oooold by zappepcs · · Score: 4, Funny

    And Aesop says the lesson of the story is: If it's not yours, leave it the FUCK alone already! If you don't, they will write about how stupid you are for years to come.

    --
    Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
  6. Holiday Qualitay by TheRedSeven · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...is low as usual--a two-year old article, posted to Idle, makes the front page.

    At least this line actually made me laugh:

    excrement encountered the rotary cooling device
  7. Aaaagghhh! Make it stop! by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keep the damn idle OFF the front page! At the VERY least, let me block it!

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    What?
    1. Re:Aaaagghhh! Make it stop! by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I can't block it off the front page. It's a spam bucket taking up valuable space. It's not on the list of things I CAN block. Make it an option, and I'll keep quiet. One of the things that made the site better than most was the lack of garbage like this. Now it's just becoming some cutesy teenybopper site. Just you watch the kind of people this will attract as the tech articles drift off into the background. It's already happening. And the look of the idle page is positively ghastly. The pink ponies look better than this. Tell you what, I won't go to or comment on any more idle pages that pop up and just fire off a nasty letter to the editor for what it's worth. For those of you that are with me on this, you can help by not renewing your subscriptions. This is a true sign of deterioration and dumbing down of Slashdot. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted. Bummer to see it end this way. Now, excuse me. I have to go catch up on my Y&R tapes.

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      What?
    2. Re:Aaaagghhh! Make it stop! by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Funny

      (Score:0, Offtopic)

      Oh jeeze! Modded by an idle worshiper. Go back to facebook, or wherever the hell you came from. We don't want you in our sandbox.

      Slashdot is being AOLed. It's worse than death

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      What?
  8. Reminds me of the old saying... by Noryungi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "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)
  9. Re:OLD by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny
    I know! Let's do something more fun.

    Let's post some Scientology documents!

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  10. A old desktop likey is faster then the x-box by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So why can't they just use one for the sever?

  11. XBox Server... WTF? by Alphasite · · Score: 2

    Why the hell was the server running on an Xbox?

    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 :P)

    1. Re:XBox Server... WTF? by MikeFM · · Score: 2, Funny

      I have to agree. What the heck are they doing using an XBOX as their web server. Why not just plug the coffee machine in too so you can at least run Java. Doh.

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
  12. Kudos to the admin by Goalie_Ca · · Score: 4, Funny

    He did what no philosophy student could. He proved that the box exists!

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    Go canucks, habs, and sens!
  13. Re:My question is.... by menace3society · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My guess would be that years ago some CS people got a small grant to buy an Xbox and put Linux on it, as a sort of exercise in hacking. It's all well an exciting the first time you do it, but afterwards all you've got is another Linux server, only in an XBox case. So they put it in a server room, set it up to host the philosophy department's webpage, and forgot about it.

    What bugs me the most is that someone who is an IT department manager saw something in the server room that was plugged in, on the network, and turned on, and decided to turn it off and disconnect it without so much as asking someone.

    Every time I start thinking that the rivalry between techies and suits in IT is overstated, I hear about something like this.

  14. Re:Fucking Digg submissions by ChowRiit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who cares what's been or not been on Digg? I read slashdot for my tech news, if they started only publishing stories that hadn't been published anywhere else, we wouldn't get much news...

    Now, a 2 year old Idle story being forced onto everyone's front page, that's a better thing to moan about...

  15. Re:philosophy students were not amused by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nonsense. There's plenty of work for philosophy students in retail.

  16. Re:WTF - An X-BOX?! by hiruhl · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dean, to the computer science department: "Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for software licenses and expensive hardware and stuff? Why couldn't you be like the math department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper."

  17. Re:My question is.... by Arimus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know people will do some stupid things, but my bs detecter tells me it's one of those urban legends.

    If only... A long while back I was working as a programmer with 3 days in the office and 2 at home. One day while working at home I noticed our CM system had dropped off the face of the earth...

    Drove into work and found that a manager who was using the table in the corner of our lab had decided the server was too noisy while he was trying to work and unplugged it.

    And before people say why wasn't in a server room, the fact it was in our secure lab and was part of the lab development lan and not the wider 'corporate' lan meant it was fine where it was (it had UPS installed, tape backup, multiple powersupplies - the bloody manager unplugged the power leads from all 3 power supplies....)
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    --- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.