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Wednesday, June 12th, 2002
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10:57 am
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| Tuesday, March 19th, 2002
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2:27 pm - Cooking Up Trouble
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The Linux systems administrator has it in for me. I can tell because he's removed all my admin privileges from his Linux boxes and routed my username to log in to the GUEST account home with no access to parent directories. He was slightly pissed because prior I renamed VI and made a script in it's place which ran the renamed VI and the piped the saved file out to /dev/null. It took him two weeks checking hard drive write protection before he noticed my login while reviewing logs around the time the problem began occuring. Mental note: Never log on under my username.
But as if this retaliation wasn't enough for him, he's now suggesting to the boss that all server responsibilties be moved to the Linux systems to cut down on upgrade costs. Whats more, the boss has bought it before I know anything about the discussions, and I return to my lunch break to find my Bastard-HQ powered down and a note on the desk about my new role overseeing the cafeteria staff.
Quick, decisive action is required.
Seeing as it's not lunch-time anymore and the staff have no work to oversee, I amble to the penguin zone. The Linux Admin is down in the basement with his girlfriend, a Debian server named Sasha. As I progress down the stairs I open a patch panel and disconnect a terminating network connection... carefully closing it again and producing a tamper-proof DO NOT OPEN sticker from my pocket, to replace the one I just ripped in half.
A few seconds later the Tux-zealot rushes up the stairs, network probe in hand to find why every packet is being lost. He wants to avoid complaint calls as much as I do. He freezes as he sees me.
"What did you touch?" he snarls accusingly.
"Nothing!" doing my best impression of innocence.
He checks the panel cover and the intact sticker and proceeds to open it for checking while I continue down the stairs, mumbling about getting something from the basement storeroom.
Quick as a flash I head into his server room. I copy hosts.deny to an obscure location and add in the words "sex", "teen" and "hot" into the denied site address list. I edit httpd.conf (using mcedit, as I'm not sure he's fixed VI yet) to reflect the changes, then remove all traces of my presence from the log files and wander back toward the stairwell.
"What did you get from the storeroom?" he asks, suddenly suspicious, noticing my empty hands.
"Oh, that. You'll find this funny! I wandered all the way down there looking for something, only to discover I already had some in my shirt pocket!"
I pull out the roll of "DO NOT OPEN" stickers, toss them to him and leave him to ponder the implications. It's like rubbing salt into wounds.
Twenty minutes later I'm in the cafeteria in my "over-seeing" job, swapping the SUGAR and SALT labels on all the containers and have just finished emptying ceyenne pepper into the coffee maker (hence having my own coffee making machine in my prior bastard-HQ), when the penguin zealot comes rushing in. He's obviously very upset.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SYSTEMS?!" he demands.
"Nothing. Like I said, I found what I needed."
"The boss says half his websites aren't coming up any more!"
I'm genuinely suprised.
"Only half?"
After calming him down some, I convince him to accompany me to the boss's office. Only an hour under Linux control and the boss has already been losing net access? Terrible!
"Which sites aren't working?" I ask.
"Umm.. a lot of them. All the sites I frequently visit," he wafles extremely vaguely. I assume he means his porn sites all return SERVER NOT AVAILABLE.
"Well, lets just go through the history and.."
"No! That won't be necessary! I know they're not working!" he jumps in hastily, comfirming my suspicions.
I try to bring up hotmail.com instead, "hot" thankfully being a qualifying word on my banned sites list. It is rejected. I bring slashdot.org up onto the screen, to show the net connection is indeed working. We both look at the Linux admin with expectant gazes.
"I don't know what's causing it!" he suptters. "I've checked all the HTTP limiting files and these sites SHOULD be accessible!"
In otherwords, he's checked his old HOSTS.DENY in the same place it was before, with just his "microsoft.com" and "msn.com" entries.
"I do," I begin. "This is a common problem seen when interfacing Samba on the Linux servers with an internal NT structured network login."
"Thats preposterous!" he counters, not at all phased, "I've never heard of anything like that happening with NT."
I smile as he plays right into my trap.
"Of course you haven't. You're not an NT admin - you're a Linux admin. If you can't fix it, I suggest we return to my systems room immediately and I'll reinitialise my servers and we can forget all about this Linux debacle."
The boss, having during the conversation been thinking of one thing - how would he pass his day without his porn - readily agrees. Mission accomplished! The Linux boxes return to their mundane role administering the accounts department, and once again the company network is back in my hands. At last the scores are evened.
Sobbing from his cancelled pay rise less than two hours after he got it, the linux admin heads off to the cafeteria to calm his nerves with a coffee. I'm erasing the chalkboard score when he runs by screaming for water.
"ROUND TWO", I begin to write on the board. "BASTARD - 1. PENGUIN - 0"
current mood:  relieved
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12:11 pm - Testing The Waters
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I've been at this particular workplace two years now and I've been far too nice. My prior two workplaces went bankrupt within a year of my taking on a vacancy at each, so this place has more than had it's fair share of calm waters.
So I've been pulling out random CAT 5 cables from the routers in the computer room over the past few days while my other plans came to fruition. When they're ready, I start working on the boss's connection. Within half an hour of 5-minute-interval network cuts (making his porn downloads stop mid-screen, cutting off the vital parts of the image) he comes through to my office where I'm appearing busy studying my "boss" program.
"David! I'm having problems with my internet connection."
I punch out "stupidfauxnetworkstats" on the keyboard and my "boss" program brings up a lot of fluctuating green/yellow/red bars. The long command echoes no letters to the screen while typing and makes it appear as if I have a keen memory for complicated computer instructions.
"Yes I've been watching this anomaly for the past few days, but the problem is actually occuring on the internal network, not the internet connection."
I would save trouble with the internet connection for another occasion.
"Hmm," he agrees absently, "I've heard a few people complaining after network outages."
"It's not so much an outage as a lack of packet reception."
I can tell he's wondering what a packet is and coming to the conclusion it must have something to do with the mail room before he snaps back to the real world.
"How can we fix it?"
"It's not really fixable with our current configuration," I reply, all-knowing. "These Windows(tm) boxes don't have any internal packet reiteration phase inducement repeaters."
I've seen litter-boxes which appeared to understand my previous statement better. I unfortunately must resort to the great and wise BOFH writings to explain this phenomenon:
[DUMMY MODE ON]
"Uh-huh," he manages, having lost his train of thought after "it's".
I go easy on him and make up an explanation.
"As a network gets older, they become more suceptible to dropping packets - thats a standard amount of data transmitted through the network at a time - due to twisted pair shielding failing, etc. When a packet is dropped, Windows doesn't request it again, and the connection fails. The transmitting computer continues on as if nothing has happened and calls an entire network lockup. It can be fixed by upgrading all the network cabling every year throughout the entire building."
"But that would cost thousands of dollars," he gasps.
"Well, yes. On the other hand, operating systems such as Linux have packet repitition codecs built in," I use the word codecs completely out of place, but he doesn't know any better, "which re-request a packet which was dropped. The transmitting machine reverses and sends the packet again. Of course, that would require changing every machine over to Linux."
"We can't do that!" he announces with some frustration. "All the software I use is in Windows."
"The only other option," I add, "is to get packet repitition software for Windows which replicates the process in the same way."
"Where can I download it?"
"You can't," I add hastily. "These are operating system level changes that require preofessional programmers a lot of time to implement. They never make programs like that free. There's a New Zealand distributor for such a program in Auckland."
"How much?" he asks, cringing at the thought of spending his imbezzeled company money.
"Fifty dollars."
"That's not too bad, is it?"
"Per license."
He sobs, knowing that makes it $1500 for the 30 computers, but signs a purchase order made out to NORTHTEC COMPUTING DISTRIBUTORS and scrawls his signature on a cheque. I photocopy it for future reference. He then sends it away and waits excitedly for the software while I play tug-of-war with the network cables for a few more days.
In that time, mail re-direction has done it's job and I cash the check into my registered NORTHTEC COMPUTING DISTRIBUTORS company's bank account. I print out 30 "licenses" on my laser printer at work, then mail them "BUSINESS POST" to the boss at work, from my workplace, along with a floppy disk - they can pay the postage too.
The boss comes rushing in the next morning, floppy disk and license in hand. I spend the rest of the day wandering around the company's computers, running the PASSWORD DUMP program I put on the floppy disk and collecting the password file contents from everybody's computers.
Afterward I put a sign on the router reminding me to leave the plugs alone for a couple of weeks - until a "transient magnetic disruption recurrence" causes us to need some cable connection radiation shielding covers - which look suspiciously like painted toilet rolls.
This stuff is too easy.
current mood:  accomplished
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