Posts by azander

Techie banned from client site for outage he didn’t cause

Workig for a Dialup ISP in the 90's...

I was tech support for a Dialup ISP. Often times I would be dispatched to a home or business to find out why people were getting poor connections.

I was careful to use a modem that I knew worked well on a good line. Every single time I would get a 53K connection. Since I was dialing in to the same modem bank myself;l that everyone else did I usually knew when we had a problem long before anyone else noticed. I could tell what kind of bad line someone had by the speed in which that modem would connect. Then when I go to their location I could see using that device if it was the phone lines (call teleco) or their modem.

I went to a local Bowling alley and Motel combo. I walk in and the place is dead. Nobody around. No customers and no staff. I wait at the counter, in full view of a camera (later learned it was a fake). I unpacked my laptop, and was unpacking all the cables. I had not attempted to get behind the counter or anything like that and as far as I knew at the time was in full view of their camera. A guy comes out from the back and asks who I am. I explain I am from the ISP they used and was here to look at their connection issue they reported as chronic. He proceeded to tell me to get out that they won't have someone telling them it is the hardware when they know it is the internet provider. I smile, mentally shrugging, and start packing up my laptop and cables. Not even a minute later he is asking me what I am still doing there and I replay, nicely, that I am packing up my equipment and leaving like he ordered. He tells me to get out now or he is calling the police. I smile again and tell him that he can go ahead and call the police, I'll wait outside on my car for them. He clearly is nuts but I am trying to be polite. The police show up and tell me I am to leave, that I am trespassed from the premise and not to return. I thank the officer and file a counter claim of not being able to pack up my equipment safely before being thrown out (laptop value was over $3000 at the time). I my be trespassed but the business owner is fined $1000 (obscure law in the city at the time) and now has a public business violation on the 'public' books.

I inform my boss at the ISP the next morning. He tells me not to worry about it. I later find out from one of that business' employees later that my boss called them, terminated the contract with prejudice (aka no refund) and added them to the black list and added the actual owner''s name to the list as well. Preventing his home from getting the local access. We were, at the time, the only local ISP. The next ISP was long distance, into another state at the premium Long Distance fees of the time.

I really wish my boss, the owner, hadn't decided to sell out in 2000. He was wonderful to work for, and he took care of his employees.

Az

If your AI does the crime, you'll do the time, warns DoJ

Treat the AI like an employee....

If the DOJ was serious about cracking down, they should treat the AI as an Employee of the company.

However since it is not human or a citizen of the US, and is a physical Asset like any other computer or program, it can't claim any special status, plead for immunity or even use the 5th Amendment to protect itself from self incrimination. If the DOJ does that, then the companies would see the AI as a very large liability instead of something good for business. It would do what they want, with very little cost to the DOJ.

DOJ: Here is a warrant for the collection and incarceration of your AI. We will be questioning it at our leisure. No, you can't have an attorney present, it has no rights.

Company: We'll sue!

DOJ: Of course you will. Too bad your AI is an "Asset", not an employee, that can be searched and queried without representation or advocacy.

Company: Bankruptcy!

BOFH: It's not generative AI at all, it's degenerate AI

Sounds like they are going the way of the Jetsons. They need one person to 'press the button' for some obscure, or externally forced, reason. Then you have IT who have to replace hardware when needed, and someone to 'manage' the, albeit small, staff. That same person probably is the CEO, so he can get his bonuses etc. for all of the good work the AI did, and to sign paperwork since the laws don't accept AI as a legal entity.

When the AI needs someone to upgrade the hardware they call the BOFH, who then calls the button pusher to assist him. That keeps the BOFH and PFY employed, and of course the director, because they need a 'human'-like entity to deal with the outdated corporation still out there when negotiating contracts, etc.

Exchange Online blocked from sending email to AOL and Yahoo

AOL is hosted on Yahoo these days.

Re: Alternatively, perhaps just pick up the phone and have a chat

This is assuming you can still get an old fashioned copper land-line. They are no longer available around here. Not even for Fax systems. Best you can do is get a digital line, that's fiber to the RT, then copper to the premises. Dialup doesn't work well over those lines, if at all.

I happen to work for an ISP, in Michigan USA, that still offers dialup, because some people can't get anything else, and that includes satellite.

Have a digital line? Best speed we have seen so far is 24K. Most are in the 12 to 14K range.

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

Re: Dickensian

Press room of a medium sized newspaper. Press was built pre 1968 (the year it was installed).

The iMac used to verify the print runs has been replaced 4 times since January 2023 and this last time, in early July, the back was wrapped in cardboard, with minimal airflow from the top, just to reduce the ink dust. So far it works well. It is a really old iMac there since it will die sometime soon just like the others.

The keyboard for that machine is in a clear plastic bag that they replace weekly because they can't see the keys any more. Still working on a way to keep from having to replace the mouse so often. Nasty stuff newsprint ink. It has to be scrubbed off surfaces, or use a very harsh solvent, to get it off any surface.

Musk's X caught throttling outbound links to websites he doesn't like

320 be damned?

IF this throttling is true, and from my less than scientific tests show it is, then isn't X now in violation of section 320? The section that the Politicians want to kill? It is a fairly easy violation to prove or disprove. Maybe someone at the NYT or the other sites should step up and sue X for this violation. This will test, in court, the power of Section 320 and test the ability for private busineses to filter content either through outright censorship or throttling.

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Re: Unique keys

Not so much father and Son but Grandfather and Grandson. My Grandfather and I share the exact same name. My father has a different name. So no Sr. Jr, or I, II, II, etc. We both lived in the same town, and by coincidence we shared the same house number on different streets in the same city, This took place back in the early 1990's

Local bank was nice, but was bought out by a bigger bank. So far no problem. Then an even larger bank comes in and renumbers the accounts, using Lastname, Firstname for ordering of accounts with the new numbers. Now My account, My parents Account, 2 Uncles, 1 aunt, and my grandparent's accounts are in sequence, instead of spread out over many years of account number increments. All of a sudden My checks are bouncing. Seems my paycheck was being deposited, by the teller into my grandfather's account. Checks I wrote were either processed by his account or by mine, but since my account had no money the one processed on the right bounced. Grandfather was having similar problems. Our account numbers were different by the last digit alone. When you looked at the screen, the accounts were almost identical, except for street name. Same house number, same First, Middle, and Last names. There were even mixing my other relative's accounts. We checked, even our SSN numbers were similar but because of timing the first half was very different. The last 4 were similar, but with even mild dyslexia they would look the same.

It took us 3 months to get them to see they had made errors, and that the "big bank" was at fault. The fun part was that my father, an attorney specializing in Ranch law (Lots of land contracts, stock agreements, banking, etc) walked in with every member of our extended family, and handed them a request for everyone's account information. We had all signed it. When the Account manager started to say he couldn't do that, the local branch manager was called and told he needed to be at the bank within the next 30 minutes or we were going to take the bank to court. Shortly there after the Branch manager was there, in his office sweating the proverbial bullets as he read over our complaint, and watched as we sorted there every transactions since they renumbered our account with my Accountant Uncle. They then showed them each and every Banking law they had broken with their negligence. It was fun watching them go back and forth tearing down the Branch manager. Then I stepped up, being a computer programmer (recent graduate at the time) to show them how they could have avoided that with a simple change to the probable routine they used to renumber all our accounts. After that we pulled all our money from the bank, IN CASH (not cashier's checks), walked across the road to the local credit union and opened accounts there, making sure that they didn't number our account sequentially. I believe we took out about a quarter of their on-hand cash at that point. I know they didn't keep much on-hand, and would send to the larger District bank about 3 hours away if for some reason they needed more. It wasn't a payday week so they wouldn't have had extra on-hand.

Approximately 6 months later the local office of the big bank was forcibly closed, and the government had to step in. I don't have many details as we had already closed our accounts, and were only notified of the FDIC stepping in because there may have been money owed to us. No other notifications were sent to us after that one.

BOFH: Darn Windows 7. It's totally why we need a £1k graphics card for a business computer

This might be a good thing. Industry leaders call it downsizing.