back to article Techie made a biblical boo-boo when trying to spread the word

Greetings, gentle reader, and may peace be upon you, for yea verily it is once again Monday and unto Monday we render another instalment of Who, Me? in which Reg readers unburden themselves with confessions of technical mishap. This week's confessor we shall Regomize as "Gabriel". Gabriel was, lo these many years past, …

  1. Korev Silver badge
    Coat

    Looks like Gabriel wasn't an angel after all...

  2. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Angel

    John 11:35

    My late father's favourite cry of exasperation. I'm afraid I have inherited it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: John 11:35

      Also useful is John (Cage) 4'33'', which makes a great accompaniment when you just need to give someone a hard stare.....

      1. Like a badger

        Re: John 11:35

        "Also useful is John (Cage) 4'33'', which makes a great accompaniment when you just need to give someone a hard stare....."

        Or as a suitable request to poor quality buskers (for example 95% of those in Birmingham, England).

    2. Michael Strorm Silver badge

      Re: John 11:35

      (Looks it up) Oh, *that* one?

      Yeah, I'll never nor associate it with *that* scene in Hellraiser.

      What's ironic is that it was originally meant to be just "F*** you" and the actor wanted to change it because he didn't like foul language...!

      (I mean, if you've ever seen it, you'd wonder why it was the swearing that most bothered him!)

      Aside from being a huge improvement- far more memorable- it's fair to say that made it far more unintentionally profane than the original ever would have been!

  3. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    And still, up to these days, I fight with caching/synchronisation issues in the realm of Sharepoint. (In all fairness, it's been about three years since I last lost a day's work because of that.)

    1. veti Silver badge

      Caches are the domain of the Deceiver. Personally, I consider myself lucky when the software gives me a way to clear them at all.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        The two hardest parts of software development: Naming things and cache coherence and off by one errors

        1. StewartWhite Bronze badge
          Joke

          I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition

          Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency....

          Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....

          Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons....

          Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise....

          I'll come in again.

          1. OhForF' Silver badge
            Mushroom

            Proper documentation to prevent off by one errors

            And the Lord spake, saying, ''First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.

            1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

              Re: Proper documentation to prevent off by one errors

              One, two, five..... three sir !

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          The original is actually:

          There are 2 hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors.

          (Leon Bambrick, riffing off Phil Karlton. There are some other good variants on that page. This is basically computer science's "The Aristocrats". Here's another: "There are only two jokes in computer science: the one about two hard problems and th{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER.")

          In the present story, both cache coherence and cache invalidation are to blame, so your version still works.

  4. Aladdin Sane

    At least it wasn't Ezekiel 25:17

    1. simonlb Silver badge

      No, that's why there was the funeral.

    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Ezekiel has much more to offer (NSFW). He clearly knew how to get excellent magic mushrooms.

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        There are NSFW Lego illustrations of the Bible, some are quite a surprise such as this from Leviticus:

        https://thebrickbible.com/legacy/the_law/beastiality/lv18_23a.html

        1. Gene Cash Silver badge

          The look of surprise from the bear is priceless.

    3. Paul Cooper

      2 Samuel 6:6-7 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel%206%3A6-7&version=NIV) might be more appropriate

  5. b0llchit Silver badge
    Happy

    Simply a Simon 1:x.

    • And Simon distributed his knowledge.
    • Don't touch the Server.
    • The Server is Holy.
    • Don't touch the Server.
    • Or encounter the Wrath of Simon.
    • Don't touch the Server.
    • Or Lightning will strike.

    /BOFH

    1. Anonymous Anti-ANC South African Coward Silver badge

      Cattleprod 1:1 - KZERRRRRRRT

      1. bemusedHorseman
        Alert

        Personally, I find the RICH, CHUNKY VOLTS of an inverter disguised as a luggable (Tradeshows 19:98, or thereabouts) to be far more effective.

        1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

          I voted because I thought you were the person affected, and by accident, but now I wonder...

  6. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Coat

    Book of Armaments, Chapter 2, Verses 9-21

    might have been a better choice for the test message

    1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

      Re: Book of Armaments, Chapter 2, Verses 9-21

      ...skip a bit brother.

  7. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

    Lord!

    When the night shows

    The message grows on telephones

    All the strange things

    They come and go as early warnings

    Stranded starfish have no place to hide

    Still waiting for the swollen Easter tide

    There's no point in direction

    We cannot even choose a side...

    Lord! here comes the flood, we'll say goodbye, to flesh and blood!

    1. Red Sceptic

      Re: Lord!

      That would be an ecumenical matter!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lord!

        Down with this sort of thing!

        1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

          Re: Lord!

          Steady now...

      2. Korev Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: Lord!

        > That would be an ecumenical matter!

        Yes!

  8. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Missing detail

    How exactly did the congregation receive messages from the church's phone number? Presumably the calls originated from the service's computers and not from the church. Firstly those computers must be able to fake caller ID. Next that phone number must have come from somewhere - presumably you enter the number to impersonate when you set up the service. How carefully is that number authenticated? I would like to think at a minimum the service makes an automated call to the number it is about to impersonate with the message and the option to cancel. It would take a special type of genius to proceed without authentication.

    1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge

      Re: Missing detail

      The story is flawed. I think this column has run out of material.

    2. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

      Re: Missing detail

      I'm guessing it was pre Caller ID and customers were encouraged to introduce themselves in the recorded message.

    3. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: Missing detail

      You evidently have much more faith in caller ID than you should have. At the end of the day it's just an attribute. The story sounds like it's US based, and I'm not that aware of the technicalities of the caller ID over there, but in the UK any appropriately positioned telephony service can set their outgoing ID however they want. This isn't available to end customers and is regulated by the industry, but is not uncommon.

      In the early days of VoIP it was even easier as the ID was set by the end-user device and there wasn't much validation in the system (there is now - most ITSPs will just strip that field unless it matches a predefined value)

      In short, do not trust caller ID.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Missing detail

        Things have been changing in the UK.

        One of our providers allows any CLID.

        Another, more recent, move from ISDN to SIP made us get approval from Ofcom for a Tupe 5 CLID, which allows you to send CLIDs not associated with the supplied service.

        We are not doing anything dodgy.

        We are hospitals and use multiple suppliers (and multisite VRFs) for resilience. In addition, we place outbound calls over the cheapest provider where possible.

        1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

          Re: Missing detail

          And my phone is pestering me with messages from banks that I have no account with telling me to "verify my login details", the post office for parcels I haven't ordered, the tax office of whom I can tell whenever I want to the nearest cent where my liabilities stand, non-existent missed phone calls from numbers that differ from mine only by the last two digits, or numbers that cannot exist in the national numbering scheme, or private numbers that call me and just give a recorded message saying "Goodbye", and people still wonder why electronic fraud is an industry in the terms of billions of dollars.

          If you build a system that can be manipulated, it will be manipulated more often for fraud than for valid reasons.

          But no-one's doing anything dodgy, oh no.

    4. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: Missing detail

      Interesting question.

      Do you really think people paid attention to that in those days ?

      Because I'm not sure they'd pay attention to it today . . .

    5. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: Missing detail

      I suspect this tale is from a time when most phones wouldn't even have had a display, let alone display caller ID. For the few that could, ID spoofing (especially in the early days) was not that hard and likely a service like this could do so.

      1. KarMann Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Missing detail

        At least in the US Midwest, in roughly the early 2000s timeframe, the usual form of end-user caller ID was a separate little box that plugged into your phone line, with a pass-thru for the phone of course. Had its own little display, so your phone didn't have to.

    6. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Missing detail

      It's generally available from VOIP systems which can probably impersonate any number they want, and even if they can't, they have permission to use your number so they can use it on as many outgoing lines as they want. Also, this story suggests it was probably a while ago since it was distributing identical audio messages over the phone which is not as common nowadays, meaning even fewer protections on what number you can use to identify yourself and fewer people who would notice.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When the "internal" test message is sent by a leading newspaper, saying the PM is an arsehole...

    ...happened a decade or so ago in one unnamed EU country.

    The actual editor in chief of the very serious conservative online paper was testing their SMS "breaking news" system for subscribers.

    They thought it would be quite funny to use a test message along the lines of "The [Prime Minister's name] is an arsehole", as it was all just *internal* testing, right? Right? What could *ever* go wrong?

    Obviously the quite inevitable happened, and the "internal" test message was sent out as breaking news to around 100,000 subscribers. Including the PM in person...

    To be fair, the PM back then was indeed quite an arsehole, but nobody expected them to say it aloud!

    We had a pretty good laugh all around the office, except for the culprits of course.

    Posting as AC, obviously.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: When the "internal" test message is sent by a leading newspaper, saying the PM is an arsehole...

      One unnamed EU country?

      Lets face it... most of the EU countries are run by arseholes and most of the countries out of the EU are also run by arseholes.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Luke 23:34

    Apparently no ignorance is unforgivable. Luke 23:34

  11. tyrfing

    Never use a test message that you wouldn't want going out to production.

    Because sooner or later (probably sooner) it will end up there.

    "D*ck jokes" and "(boss) is an *ss" are especially bad.

    1. Anonymous Anti-ANC South African Coward Silver badge

      Addendum - also do not give offensive names to Windows PC's on a LAB network... you never know who'll see it and take offense...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Or, in the case of a colleague, borrow kit from that test network to use to fix a fault on a bible society's network because he couldn't be bothered to wait for a replacement to be delivered

        It came with a rather unsaviory welcome banner!

    2. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Does anyone remember President Ronald Reagan's "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." faux pas[1] in 1984?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes

      Sadly, I'm old enough to remember it.

      1. Or "foo paw" as they would write it today

      1. khjohansen

        I remember

        Faw Paah indeed!

  12. J. Cook Silver badge
    Go

    Sort of appropriate...

    "How can this be? Bested by this.. this THING?!!?!?

    YOU INSIGNIFICANT F&$%K!! THIS IS NO OVER!"

    Gabriel, the Judge of Hell, ULTRAKILL, Act One.

  13. JamesTGrant Bronze badge

    I used to have a funny joke about caches and premature optimisation but I forgot it.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Repeat?

    I swear I've read this story before. Probably from here.

  15. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge
    Devil

    One offense, one punishment

    As to anyone who thinks an unsolicited phone call is a good idea, let alone an automated one, I say this: what Hastur did to the call centre in Good Omens when he escaped from Crowley's answering machine was true and righteous altogether.

    So that's all right, then.

  16. LordZot

    When your computer tells everyone in the office you're watching porno

    Back in the late 1990s, back in the days before email software stopped you from being able to send executable attachments to each other, I sent a really good one to a Buddy of mine.

    So he clicks on it and it exclaims through his computer speakers in a very loud voice "hey everyone, I'm watching porno!"

    He held (and still does) a very senior position at the American Family Association who rightly rallies against the evils of porn and other bad things. Can't remember the exact words but he emailed back saying "you got me".

    Still cracks me up.

    1. DuchessofDukeStreet

      Re: When your computer tells everyone in the office you're watching porno

      I remember that .exe. It was sent to a colleague of mine at time when we were all working in a very large, noise-carrying open office. From memory the precise words his laptop shouted were "hey everybody I'm looking at gay porn".

      It would have been slightly less awkward if not for the fact that he was the Head of IT at a time when you actually had to be a techie to get into that role.

    2. Marty McFly Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: When your computer tells everyone in the office you're watching porno

      Email attachments through email. Users blindly clicking on them. And the worst thing that happened was an audio clip from the speakers.

      My, those were innocent days!

  17. disgruntled yank Silver badge

    Really?

    Having lived either in or just outside Washington, DC, for all of Marion Barry's years as mayor, and most or all of his time on the city council, I will say that he was for a while a close competitor to Abraham Lincoln in the "but he didn't say it" competition. Of course, the quotations attributed wrongly to Lincoln tend to be pithy, and those attributed to Barry tend to be stupid.

  18. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    That doesn't sound like Gabriel's fault. What sort of poorly designed system seems the previous message to the current list of recipients?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Worst case, poor caching in the application program and he used the same filename for the audio file so the caching system just went "oh, I already have that file", no filesize, check sums, date/time stamp checking etc. System caching would have been more discriminating. I suppose it's possible that if they are doing multiple jobs at once, different numbers of computers might be being shifted in and out of a job pool depending on priorities of jobs and it saves passing the audio file around multiple times.

  19. Frogfather

    Regomised?

    I'm guessing the Regomiser has some kind of manual override. Otherwise it "randomly" assigning Gabriel to this story smacks of divine intervention.

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      Re: Regomised?

      I'm guessing the Regomiser is some kind of manual override... That's about right. There have been some quite funny reg0mised names...

    2. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

      Re: Regomised?

      "It" does requests apparently. Now I have to think about what pseudonym I want to have in stories.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WavSource

    Thanks for the link. Now I'm down a rabbit hole of 90s nostalgia ... not only because of the site design, but the memory of waiting 30 seconds to obtain an audio clip to then set as an error sound or shutdown sound on Windows ...

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like