back to article BOFH: How to innosplain your way through an audit

BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "Yes, well, as I innosplained just a moment ago, we can implement that change with the new technology we've just bought." "Did you say ... 'innosplained'?" "Yes – outlining the innovative applicability of a new technology in an overly verbose and condescending manner, highlighting …

  1. KittenHuffer Silver badge
    Devil

    I'm confused!

    ">whirrrrr< >thump< >thump< >thump!<"

    I thought that was standard procedure for dealing with the the auditors themselves!

    --------> Most auditors I've met!

    1. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: I'm confused!

      First you need them to sign off on the audit. You could fake their signature, hack the required audit portals, forge and upload the needed documents, etc. But that just sounds like work and it's nearly pub-o-clock. Best get the auditor to do it "of his own free will", just before he decides to say goodbye to this crew world with a long step off the roof.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: I'm confused!

        In the world of the big 4: PWC, E&Y, KPMG and the other one… sign-off terms are in the secret codicil to the initial contract, the one that details the pay-off fee and which golf resorts are used for negotiations. Striking gold is having a copy of the codicil…

    2. cosymart
      Holmes

      Re: I'm confused!

      Wait for episode 3....

    3. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: I'm confused!

      Wouldn't that be more of a "KZZZEEERT" noise? That or there might be a database normalization warning

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: I'm confused!

        I was waiting for the tragic accidental release of Halon after the door locking mechanism gained an unheard of before fault...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I'm confused!

          And the missing emergency door button, inadvertently sold as excess inventory.

          1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge

            Re: I'm confused!

            At one place of shirk, we had about 2 or 3 PWC audits a year & usually got something like 98% overall. This was partly down to the fact we did our own audits of accounts & permissions in advance.

            I had scripts that granted the user local Admin rights for the duration of the setup & config & revoked them at the end if the users job role did not require them to have local Admin rights.

            We used to record things like "soft" (User went back to college for 3 months) or hard (Sacking or resignations) terminations in the notes section of the user profile, along with date time & who performed the task, again me being me I had this scripted.

            When we were all laid off & our tasks were to be given to the existing Field staff who were stepping into our shoes & moving into corporate headquarters as a base of operations (We were on a legacy site 200Km's away), they showed little inclination to follow the practices & went so far as to avoid any information sharing\handover of knowledge.

            PWC Auditors said hey loved coming to our location as everything was usually correct & they really had to dig deep to find non-compliance - I would love to know how they reacted to the plummeting standards. I do know things went to hell fairly fast, as 2 weeks after the last of us left, everything went into Covid lockdown & they had just got rid of (The core) half of the IT team.

            1. Korev Silver badge
              Pint

              Re: I'm confused!

              An upvote and a pint for At one place of shirk

        2. parlei

          Re: I'm confused!

          As part of an, perhaps misguided and overzealous, fire safety initative the elevators was fitted with a Halon release system. Being an uncommon system it has been a bit temperemental...

    4. herman Silver badge

      Re: I'm confused!

      ">whirrrrr< >thump< >thump< >thump!<"

      Sounds like the attack bot in the basement.

  2. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Compiling a list of assets

    > and just looking through your fixed asset register

    One company I worked for had this situation. "I see you spent £30,000 (about the price of a starter home, in those days) on something called an Ada compiler. Can I see It please?"

    At which point the company secretary accompanied the auditor to the machine room and pointed to a 9 track tape. "There it is" with a hand written sticky label that said ADA Compiler on its case.

    Still, at least it wasn't an eight track tape.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Compiling a list of assets

      So did it Ada up for the auditor in the end?

    2. rafff

      Re: Compiling a list of assets

      "something called an Ada compiler. Can I see It please?"

      We once got a compiler (forget which language) from the Ozzie Atomic Energy Authority and had to sign a disclaimer that we would not sue them for radiation damage arising from its use.

      1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: Compiling a list of assets

        We once got a Fortran compiler on a CDROM. Didn't mount, some further checking revealed that, although correctly labelled, the CD had actually been pressed with a Bruce Springsteen album.

        1. Paul Herber Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Compiling a list of assets

          I can see it generating code that is born to run.

          1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

            Re: Compiling a list of assets

            These days it would be borne on a USB.

        2. herman Silver badge

          Re: Compiling a list of assets

          Hmm, Fortran on a CD. Not a stack of punch cards or paper tape?

          1. Autonomous Mallard

            Re: Compiling a list of assets

            The majority of compute time on HPC is spent running Fortran, just FYI.

            https://cpufun.substack.com/p/is-fortran-a-dead-language

            https://astg.pages.smce.nasa.gov/website/fortran/

            1. John Geek

              Re: Compiling a list of assets

              the two working scientists in research positions that I've talked to recently, an Astrophysicist, and a Geologist, the majority of what they use is Python.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Compiling a list of assets

        Once got a part delivered from Cisco.

        The box was a foot square by 2ft high, contained a smaller book sized box, lots of scrunched up paper and around 6 pages of paperwork. The paperwork had export restriction noting that said this was not to be shipped and/or used in or by the Axis of Evil...

        It was a single 6ft yellow CAB-ETH-RJ45 ethernet cable!

        And, yes, it was surplus to requirements because the rest of the order already came with them as default... which we promptly discarded as 6ft ALWAYS turned out to be just that little bit too short

        1. Paul Herber Silver badge
          Big Brother

          Re: Compiling a list of assets

          RJ45 cables come in various colour codings: red, blue, grey, yellow, green .. only the spooks know which colour cable does what with your data !!!

          I never use green, for obvious reasons.

        2. Mine's a Large One

          Re: Compiling a list of assets

          I once requested additional licences for software used on our OS/2 estate. What arrived a couple of weeks later was a large box about 3ft x 2ft x 1ft.

          "Bugger...", thinks I, "they've sent me physical media" - which was fine - but the box was rather light. It contained a smaller box, packaged with lots of packing noodles, within which was a smaller box, again surrounded by noodles, and inside that was an envelope containing documentation confirming the additional licences!!

  3. WanderingHaggis
    Thumb Up

    Cole's Law

    Good one.

    1. stiine Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Cole's Law

      Good? Good? It was perfect. I walked, metaphorically, right into it. and had to get a towel to clean up my coffee.

  4. Luiz Abdala
    Coat

    The ol'reliable mechanical delete button.

    Mine has a crowbar accross the back.

  5. b0llchit Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Innosplains of daily adventures

    The new hot innosplain topic to follow on [bvxyz]log and will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.

    Crypto is yesterday, AI is yesterday, innosplain is the new master of the universe! Follow innosplain, today!

    1. Hot Diggity

      Re: Innosplains of daily adventures

      When I saw the word innosplain, I assumed it was a contraction of innocent explanation. I'm always telling the auditors each year that there is an innocent explanation. I just need a bit of time to provide the logs.

      1. Andy 68

        Re: Innosplains of daily adventures

        s/provide/create/

      2. Roger Kynaston

        Re: Innosplains of daily adventures

        yeah. I thought it was going to be something about MySQL.

      3. collinsl Silver badge

        Re: Innosplains of daily adventures

        s/innocent/incoherent/g

  6. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Asset registers are to be kept safe... Reminds me of an incident many, many moons ago. One day, a friend asked me whether I had use for used office equipment, originating from Big Corp, my employer at the time, sold online for very cheap. Sure!

    Not long after I materialised said bargain, I had a meeting with Big Corp's security officer about some security audit. And during a tea break he tells me news, totally unrelated to the audit, about a now-ex employee, who privately sold lots of used office equipment, owned by Big Corp, and pocketed the revenue.

  7. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    I'm going have to try

    out >whirrrrr< >thump< >thump< >thump!< on our beancounter (if he ever comes back... and no it wasn't me this time )

    Because most of the content of this edition of the BoFH sounds rather like the bollocks he talks for an hour at a time while everyone else looks for a way to end their suffering without ruining the new meeting room carpet (the boss removed all sharp objects from the room last week when he noticed that the new carpets colour doesn't hide the blood stains).

    But on the other hand, I have a roll of used carpet that does hide the blood stains.....

  8. ShortLegs

    Ah, Friday

    at last

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. Blackjack Silver badge

    I db not think is a good idea to destroy an auditor computer without a bribe at hand.

    Say like a new computer with no HD that you bought at a bargain price.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Devil

      The BOFH tends to work more with the stick (or crowbar or cattle prod) approach than the carrot.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        I wonder if you could sharpen a carrot and then leave it overnight in an industrial freezer to make it more BOFH friendly, at least for a while?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Sadly, I've found that frozen carrots are too brittle to stab people.

          AC for a reason.

          .

          .

          .

          :D

          1. Blackjack Silver badge

            Icepicks made from actual ice do work quite well if you make them big enough.

            1. herman Silver badge

              Shapely

              Well, if they ice lump is big enough, then it doesn’t matter what shape it is.

          2. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge
            Pirate

            All round to Roald Dahl's for dinner

            I hear he is cooking up a leg of lamb...

            (IYKYK)

  11. Bebu sa Ware
    Windows

    Actually....

    a Y2K compliant AI Repurposer as described by Simon is feasible and a mashup of an existing AI service and a bit of scripting to string the bits together would likely work better than Devin, Cognition AI's AI software engineer. I imagine you could flog the Repurposer for less than USD500pcm

  12. herman Silver badge

    Cole’s Law

    Also known as the fifth law of thermodynamics. The fourth being Murphy’s law.

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