funsec mailing list archives
Re: It's the weekend - time to get out the Hoover :)
From: "Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah" <rMslade () shaw ca>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:10:58 -0800
Date sent: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:31:33 -0500 From: Robert Portvliet <robert.portvliet () gmail com>
Meh, back in the 90's I worked for a shop among who's client list there were various small manufacturing facilities & auto body shops.... I've seen FAR worse.
Once worked with a company that sold software related to satellite tracking for the trucking industry. As such, got good at taking calls from people who had *no* idea what to do with a computer, and walking them through some pretty esoteric stuff. Got a call one time on installation. (Installation was a frequent problem: once it was done, the system usually ran without much attention.) Caller said "disk errors," so I started into my patented expert system drop through question chain. "You're putting the diskette in with the label up, right?" "Where's the label?" "Well, most of the diskette casing is blue ..." "Brown." Brown? We didn't ship diskette with a brown casing: all ours were blue. Ah, says caller, that was just a joke. The computer they were trying to use had been sitting in the truck bay for five years, so whenever someone put a diskette in, it came out brown from the dust. "I think I know what your problem is," says I. (This was about 20 years ago. The software we sold was $5K, and the cheapest machine it would run on was $5K, plus $1K for the necessary secured modem. The truck units were $1-2K each. The satellite account was $40K/year, plus usage. I was constantly astounded at how people would try to cheap out on the most ridiculous things, and then complained that the system didn't work. My favourite was using an old three wire terminal cable instead of the full RS-232 (full retail price <$15) that we specified.) ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade () vcn bc ca slade () victoria tc ca rslade () computercrime org In coming months, politicians will flail about looking for freedoms to eliminate to `curb the terrorist threat.' We must remember throughout that you cannot preserve freedom by eliminating it. - Metzger, post 9/11 victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm blog.isc2.org/isc2_blog/slade/index.html http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/author/p1/ http://twitter.com/NoticeBored http://twitter.com/rslade _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
Current thread:
- It's the weekend - time to get out the Hoover :) mg7140 (Nov 18)
- Re: It's the weekend - time to get out the Hoover :) Robert Portvliet (Nov 18)
- Re: It's the weekend - time to get out the Hoover :) Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah (Nov 18)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: It's the weekend - time to get out the Hoover :) Markos Grokus (Nov 18)
- Re: It's the weekend - time to get out the Hoover :) Robert Portvliet (Nov 18)