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San Fran Hunts For Mystery Device On City Network
alphadogg writes "With costs related to a rogue network administrator's hijacking of the city's network now estimated at $1 million, city officials say they are searching for a mysterious networking device hidden somewhere on the network. The device, referred to as a 'terminal server' in court documents, appears to be a router that was installed to provide remote access to the city's Fiber WAN network, which connects municipal computer and telecommunication systems throughout the city. City officials haven't been able to log in to the device, however, because they do not have the username and password. In fact, the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services isn't even certain where the device is located, court filings state."
Power cycle it with a city-wide EMP.
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
I'd think that a red device would be easy to spot in a server room.
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
...his boss whom he considered an idiot...I'd have to agree with that assessment
Second that motion. I'd say these guys are like the Marx Brothers of network administration, except they don't know the Secret Woid, so it looks like they're a couple notches down.
As Indy deciphered the symbols, he found the correct sequence of tiles to push. The huge stone door slowly opened. Indy grabbed a torch and headed inside. At the end of the long room, there it was on the throne: A massive server. It was archaic, and it appeared to be attached to a punch card reader. Along the sides of the room, there were two rows statutes of archers pointed at the center. Indy made his way slowly to the monitor and keyboard of the server. He brushed away the dust and hit the spacebar. The screen turned on slowly and it displayed:
SCO Server 1.0
Your license has expired. You owe use $699.
>_
Suddenly the archers rotated positions and were aimed at Indy.
"Oh boy."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I recall hearing a story about a Sun Sparcstation 2 at my old college that had accidentilly got sealed inside a wall by construction folks when re-working the building the CS lab was in to eliminate a few closets for structural support reasons.. nobody could find it (shock!), but kept using it as a DNS server for another six years. It was found about 2 years after it stopped responding to ping when some component (nvram?) let out, and it started beeping after a power flicker.
Hey, at least they didn't say "Frisco".
I CAN find a wireless device It's called Radio direction finding, with the right gear you can do it, and I have located 802.11g devices with it. It's not hard.
so you may start calling me SUPERMAN.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Did they try the Rouge Admin's office. It's probably that beige box under his desk... Either that or he made up the device and it does not exist, he's laughing at them ripping the place apart trying to find it :D
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
Um, that's actually an easy one-- he'd zap it with his heat ray vision and then if it stopped, he found it... if not, well-- Ooops!
Why can't he be a bad guy AND be surrounded by morons-- you know, the old "bad guy surrounded by morons" routine...???
No no. "The City" is quite clearly "The City of London". And no where near San Francisco. (I wonder if they use Cisco hardware though, which might make the San Fran - Cisco more apt)
Huh? London is only about 142 miles SE from San Francisco and with a population of about 2000 people barely qualifies as a city, let alone "The City" moniker.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
You mean like the VP of the United States? That has been done before.
City of SF Admins, if this proves to be your resolution, you owe me $150 for 1 hour of my time. Sorry, I do not bill in lower increments.
I know nobody RTFAs, but the city is spending $1 million on consultants to rebuild the network, so sorry a guy like is just too cheap for this project.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
There are now dozens of cars packed full of cheetos cheap laptops and foul smelling individuals travelling near, or perhaps at the speed limit, towards san francisco. They're full of people thinking the same thing, "Shit if they can't find a wired device, they sure as hell can't find a wireless one!"
All they have to do is look for the small black box with a lone, onerous blinking red LED.
I find it difficult to understand how a blinking red LED would constitute a heavy burden.
I can see it now, the mythical nethack terminus of San Fran, with it is the power to control the settings for the city...if you can find it.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
Unless your name is "Superman", there's no real way to find exactly where wireless devices are, as far as I know.
So does the blue and red spandex underwear come with the radio signal triangulation gear, or do you have to pay extra?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
A: When you have engine trouble at 35,000 feet, you start emptying your bank account
Routine operations takes little skill. It is the ability to revolve a crises that distinguishes an excellent employee from a mediocre one.
Why can't he be a bad guy AND be surrounded by morons-- you know, the old "bad guy surrounded by morons" routine...???
Dark Helmet: Who is he?
Colonel Sandurz: He's an asshole sir.
Dark Helmet: I know that! What's his name?
Colonel Sandurz: That is his name sir. Asshole, Major Asshole!
Dark Helmet: And his cousin?
Colonel Sandurz: He's an asshole too sir. Gunner's mate First Class Philip Asshole!
Dark Helmet: How many asholes do we have on this ship, anyway?
[Entire bridge crew stands up and raises a hand]
Entire Bridge Crew: Yo!
Dark Helmet: I knew it. I'm surrounded by assholes!
[Dark Helmet pulls his face shield down]
Dark Helmet: Keep firing, assholes!
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
and changed the MAC address to C0:FF:EE:C0:FF:EE
or
FE:ED:C0:ED:BA:BE ...
Just saying
I went to a boarding school in Kenya for high school. The system of bells ran across the campus of several hundred acres and many buildings in a closed loop, with all the bells in series. The system ran through the main office, with the Super Secure Bell System locked in a cabinet there so nobody could access it. Penalty for messing with the system of bells was said to be expulsion.
The problem was, that all you had to do to get all the bells on campus to ring was to wire the loop back into the mains.
We took a clock from the darkroom in the photo lab, and ran two wires through the face plate. We then ran another strip of wire along the minute hand, so whenever the minute hand swept by a certain point on the clock every hour, it would complete the circuit for about 30 seconds and ring every bell on campus.
We then hid this contraption under a pile of wood in the attic of the wood shop. Right after convocation when I could no longer be expelled, I ran into the building and turned it on.
Apparently the bells rang off and on mysteriously for most of the next month of holiday until they managed to follow the loop and find the device. Good times.
www.clarke.ca
Their clients, for reasons best left undisclosed, could not upgrade...Start with being 60-1600 meters below the ocean surface...
Good job, tightlips ;)
He may be incredibly bull-headed and lacking social self preservation techniques, but he may have been technically right.
I'm guessing he has a four digit slashdot UID!
Free Martian Whores!
hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
Hissssss
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
I'd mod you up, but you have to say 'swordfish' first.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Their clients, for reasons best left undisclosed, could not upgrade...Start with being 60-1600 meters below the ocean surface...
Good job, tightlips ;)
I knew Atlantis was somewhere.
At my previous job (optical network equipment manufacturer, now defunct,) we ran a nifty TSR web server with a single fake news release webpage. Surprisingly, the TSR app would continue running even after logging out. We left it running on a lab computer for about a week before making the internal URL available. When we announced it, it took about 20 minutes before a team of IT guys barged through the lab doors. They chased wall plate tags, right up to the machine in question.
ITguy1: This is it.
ITguy2: It's not logged in.
ITguy3: Double check the wall plate number.
ITguy1: Yep, that's it. But nobody's logged in?
ITguy2: Pull the cable. [*yank*]
ITguy1: (on phone) That's it? Okay, good.
ITguy3: That's it? Fuck it, take the whole machine.
With that, they grabbed the whole machine and took off. Took them a day or two to figure out what was happening. The couldn't pin it on anyone, as there had been numerous log-ins on the lab machine. However, the gave us a knowing nod of the head and a shake of the finger. I do believe that they appreciated the prank, but couldn't officially say so.
When I leave, though, I'm planning on EARNING the blame I'm sure to get :)
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Um, do what any network admin does with a rouge device.
Apply it to the cheeks and go out on the town?
Seriously, when I finally leave my current job I'm going to be very disappointed if my name isn't cursed out on a weekly basis for at least a year.
$30 it's the boss's desktop machine.
Cheeky: What's the password ... ...
Dildo: Yeah, that's what I said, what's the password
Bobo: Why are you asking me, I'm asking you
Cheeky: You're asking who?
Dildo: Hu doesn't know
Hilarity ensues??
I must be missing some key information here, but if the thing has an IP address, they should be able to track it down to the nearest router/switch and follow the cabling, no ? It's not like the thing is sitting in some guy's closet.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Old joke, many variants:
The new _____ finds a note from his predecessor: "There are two envelopes in the upper drawer. When you are in trouble for the first time, open the first envelope. When you are in a big trouble for the second time, open the second envelope." In a couple of years he got into trouble, opened the first envelope he got from his predecessor and read: "Blame everything on me." He did so and got out of trouble. A couple years later he got into a big trouble again and opened the second envelope. It said: "Prepare two envelopes..."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Because I'm a...dumbass and didn't think about it....
Or could it be that you just didn't care, Lord Apathy?
db
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen