Entries Tagged 'Worst of Show' ↓

This is one of the scenarios I have to worry about. My IT department isn’t in charge of a city, but we still worry. Most security breaches happen from the inside.

The purported takeover of the San Francisco government’s new fiber optic network by an employee who locked out all the other administrators sounds extreme, but disgruntled or fired employees have always used computers to get a dose of revenge.

The city is still scrambling to regain control of the municipal network that handles everything from the mayor’s e-mail to San Francisco’s electronic court records, according to Ron Vinson, the deputy director of San Francisco’s telecommunications and information services department.

Terry Childs, a city tech employee, allegedly modified the system so that only he had top level permissions. Childs was arrested Sunday and is being held on $5 million bail, after allegedly refusing to hand over the passwords.

If an employee is willing to go to jail over an issue, there is very little you can do to stop it from happening, except to not hire someone who will become disgruntled in the first place. That’s why so many company run psych profiles and background checks these days. Because of pinheads who think revenge is a good idea. The Wired article has a bullet point list of some of these evil IT folks, but I’m sure a few who were never caught failed to make the list.

If you are an IT employee reading this blog entry my suggestion to you is simple - you work in one of the most robust jobs of this century. Instead of focusing on how you can hurt the company you just left, focus on how you can help the next company you’ll work for - it will allow you to retire comfortably.

Those crazy Russians. Filed under what were they thinking when they bounced lasers off a tent roof instead of using the sky like they usually did.

According to the reports, concertgoers said the festival’s dance floor was covered by a canopy because it was raining. The lasers were pointed horizontally under the tent instead of into the sky, which led to the injuries, the reports said.

“After five or ten minutes on the dance field, I couldn’t see anything,” a young man in sunglasses identified as a concertgoer said on NTV television. “I could see out of my left eye, but my right eye is all fog.”

Always wear your optical sunglasses to the rave. Always. And watch out for sharks with lasers.

Microsoft doesn’t want you to use VMWare for virtualization of your information technology environment. At least, that is the message they are sending to the company I work for. For the last two years, when we’ve called for support, Microsoft’s Indian technicians seem confused and offer us conflicting information, wasting a great deal of time and causing us boundless frustration.

Today, we tried to call about a problem with DFS (distributed file system) - unfortunately the Microsoft technician noticed that the machine with a corrupt volume is virtualized and immediately went into a song and dance about it being VMWare and not being able to support the issue. Bear in mind that we had just dropped $500+ on the call. But Microsoft, in all its wisdom, has a policy that is more important that continuing to earn my company’s business.

Except as described in this article, Microsoft does not test or support Microsoft software running together with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. For Microsoft customers who do not have a Premier-level support agreement, Microsoft will require that the issue to be reproduced independently from the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. Where the issue is confirmed to be unrelated to the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software, Microsoft will support its software in a manner that is consistent with support provided when that software is not running together with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

Two hours later, we’re still arguing with Microsoft about why they won’t support us. From my perspective, the company doesn’t want people using VMWare because they offer a competitive product (which I’m not interested in). Practically speaking, when Microsoft pretends that problems are caused by using VMWare when they are not, they are doing themselves a great disservice - offering me an incentive to spend time searching for alternative solutions to Microsoft’s entire line of products. Arrogance in customer service policy making never benefits the company making the policies.

Microsoft’s technicians did a very poor job of explaining the policy. We were put on hold multiple times without explanation. We were transferred multiple times and hung up on once. If this is the best Microsoft can do, they are doomed. Moving forward, I’ll be looking for ways to avoid doing business with the company. I’ve been a beta tester and long time supporter, but increasingly, Microsoft is out of touch with the people who keep it solvent. The company has become too bloated with bureaucracy to stay effective. Time for some spin offs.

VMWare’s virtualization product is better and more mature than Microsoft’s offering. And that is why we’ll continue to use it despite Microsoft’s attempts to strongarm us in a different direction.

Related information:

http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/ms_support_statement.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615

I normally don’t get infected with malware, spyware or viruses. I shouldn’t - I make my living keeping people’s computers and networks operating properly. However, there are exceptions to every rule.

Like DEA Agent Lee Paige, who shot himself in the foot while telling a class full of students how he was the only one in the room professional enough to handle a gun, I became the victim of my own overconfidence yesterday. We use Trend Micro’s OfficeScan corporate anti virus protection in our environment.

Anyhow, the long story short is that part of my job entails checking up on what our employees are doing on the Internet. I receive reports containing links every time someone attempts to surf somewhere our monitoring software thinks they shouldn’t be. Yesterday I clicked one of the links provided in the report and almost immediately realized I was in trouble. My computer began spewing popups left and right. I use Mozilla Firefox, which is generally not affected by spyware and malware, but in this case, both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox were infected and hijacked. The popups were kind enough to inform me that my PC was infected and came with an entreaty to click various links where I would be able to install software to remove the infection - for a price. What sort of twisted human being writes code that blackmails a computer user? I’d love an opportunity to code that coder’s ass.

My first attempt to remedy the situation involved running a full virus scan using Trend Micro. Unfortunately, although Trend was able to detect several infected files, it was wholly inadequate at fixing the issue. Several reboots later, and after having also run the “grayware” detection provided by Trend, I decided I needed to bring in additional firepower.

Since my two main browsers were both incapacitated I used Apple’s Safari browser to begin Googling for a solution. I downloaded PC Tools Spyware Doctor and installed it. The full scan found several hundred nasties that all propagated from the single short sighted link click. After another several reboots, my browsers were no longer spewing popups at the rate of several hundred per hour. The spyware was still partially active on my system though. The Google toolbar in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox was disabled and IE was crashing repeatedly on launch.

Time to call in the big guns. Enter SmitFraudFix and Combofix. Both of these free products will remove spyware but they come with risks and are not as simple to use as commercially available tools. Combofix can potentially make a PC operating system unbootable and should be run as a last resort. In my case, it was the tool that made the difference - restoring my ability to use search features in both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer 7.

Moving forward, I will be clicking those links in a virtual operating just in case.  We’ll also be reassessing our use of Trend Micro’s products and looking for possible alternatives.

Those dirty bastards behind freecreditreport.com, whoever they are, are slick. I’ll give them that. When I hear that guy singing about his posse’s legs sticking to the vinyl in his cheap car I can’t get the stupid song out of my head.

The truth though, is that freecreditreport.com is a scam. The irony is that freecreditreport.com claims it will protect you from being scammed. I suppose that if you are the sort of person who would hire a criminal to protect you from other criminals then freecreditreport.com is a good choice. Just remember it isn’t free.

The company uses false advertising to get you to do a “free” check on your credit and then robs you of $12.95 a month and hopes you won’t pay careful attention to your bank or credit card statement. The company will try and pressure you when you call to cancel the monthly charge. They don’t want to let go of that money for nothing.

The charge on your bill will look like this:

I’ve had this company rip me off twice now. The first time was my own fault and the second time I’m not even sure how they decided it was OK to start billing me again. I’m sure they are working on new and more insidious ways to steal a few more dollars out of my account. Experian owns this little ripoff business. If you ever have the chance to avoid doing business with the company, I would encourage it.

I complain about customer service because I know how important good customer service is to establishing and keeping long-term relationships in business. The rule of thumb is that a happy customer will tell one person about his or her experience while an angry customer will tell ten people about his or her experience.

MSN recently published an article with in-depth :

Last month, we asked readers to tell us about their worst customer service experiences, and more than 3,000 responded within 24 hours of our request. Now, with the help of pollster Zogby International, we are introducing MSN Money’s Customer Service Hall of Shame, a ranking of the companies whose service is most often rated "poor" by consumers.

The bad news is that I just formed new business relationships with two of the lowest rated companies for customer service, Sprint and Bank of America. I guess I should re-examine the relationships.

Read the article and then check out all the links. There are lots of useful pathways. In particular, check out the 25 best companies for customer service.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuV64ON-jv0[/video]

This just speaks for itself. I’m quite sure many of you have lived through similar experiences. I make a good living helping people avoid having to make calls like this one.

The secret is that every major technology manufacturer sucks equally when it comes to tech support. Hewlett Packard sucks. IBM sucks. Dell sucks. They all suck, unless you are willing to pay $5,000 for your next laptop or desktop.

Hat tip: The Consumerist

I’m sure there were people making predictions along these lines. I know I have been. Ban anything that makes you uncomfortable. Go ahead. Just don’t blame me when you wonder how your society became a bunch of naked savages bashing each other in the head with rocks.

In the wake of Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech in which a student killed 32 people, Yale’s Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg has limited the use of stage weapons in theatrical productions.

If you were to ask Betty Trachtenburg what she hopes to achieve who knows what her answer would be. Something about stopping violence I suppose. Her answer isn’t important. The fact that she is a woman in a position to influence young people is. Pseudo logic is not an acceptable mechanism for decision making.

What is the thought process at work here? There is no rational way to draw the inference that banning stage weapons will somehow lead to a reduction in violence off the stage. Maybe she just like the clacking noise that wooden swords make when they come together with force.

I do know that banning depictions of violence has about as much chance of making violence disappear as our War on Drugs has had of making people stop abusing their own bodies by getting high. And that may just be the problem with Ms. Trachtenburg. Perhaps she is high on something.

Update: The stage weapons ban has already been rescinded.

Luckily, officials at Yale were able to replace the ban with an alternative form of illogical stupidity - a mandatory announcement that stage weapons will be used during a play. Is Dean Trachtenburg apologetic over her inability to use reason in her decision making? Hardly:

"I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity," Trachtenberg said. "They’re not using their own intelligence. … We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons."

As long as we allow the mentally retarded to be school administrators, our educational facilities will breed more mentally retarded people. Some people are calling for more rules related to who should be allowed to possess a firearm. Why not re-examine who we allow to educate our young people at the same time?

Hat tip: Bruce Schneier. 

People like Harry Reid disgust me. If enough of us have the same mentality he does, America might as well surrender now. Yesterday, Reid officially gave up. I’m sure that was a morale booster for each and every one of our men and women working a checkpoint somewhere in downtown Baghdad.

"This war is lost," he said. "[The troop] surge is not accomplishing anything."
And in the dark recesses of some damp cave, Osama bin Laden broke into a wide grin - even as Tehran’s mullahs swapped high-fives.
Can’t you just hear them: Hang tough, guys, it’s only a matter of time here in Iraq - and then it’s back to the Big Apple.
Meanwhile, Reid himself won’t call for an immediate pull-out.

What a coward. Thanks for nothing, Harry.

If you throw away the lives of all my brothers in arms who fought in Iraq, I will hold it against you, and I will take action to ensure you and your ilk are defeated by any means possible. If you break America’s promise to Iraq by fleeing before stability is achieved, I will remember, and you will pay. America needs to cleanse itself of men and women in authority who claim to speak for everyone but do not seem to stand for anything.

Just before I left Iraq, I wanted to check my credit score for free on-line. And that’s when I made a mistake. I was dumb enough to use freecreditreport.com to check my credit score. The site is owned by Experian, one of the big three credit reporting agencies, so I figured it was safe to give them a credit card number to “verify” my identity. Boy, was I wrong.

Three months after my mistake, I noticed a charge on my credit card that looked like this -

I didn’t remember signing up for a monthly subscription to anything, so I called the number and was surprised to learn that by trying to get my one free yearly credit report as authorized by federal legislation, I had inadvertently “signed up” for a $13 a month service that would keep me apprised of my credit score moment by moment. That is a service I simply don’t need.

I immediately told the representative, who sounded like she was at the bottom of the ocean somewhere off the coast of the Philippines that I wanted to cancel the account and that I wasn’t even aware I had signed up for a monthly fee based service. All she wanted to do was argue about how valuable the service is to me. I find it highly insulting that a large company like Experian, a company that keeps track of millions of people’s financial data without their consent, is also in the business of trying to rip those people off. Experian trains their customer service representatives to treat callers like cowardly idiots who aren’t intelligent enough to make their own decisions about how much money they want to spend on a “free” monthly-fee based service.

Experian has earned my ire for life. Any opportunity I have to steer people away from doing business with Experian or any of its subsidiaries will be my pleasure. I am warning anyone who reads this blog entry to stay away from any services provided by Experian. They are unscrupulous rip-off artists who practice misleading advertising techniques and purposefully make it painful to cancel their completely useless service once they have tricked you into “signing up.” I’m sure that eventually, Experian will face a class-action lawsuit because of their unsavory business practices, but for now, make sure you steer clear of freecreditreport.com. Instead, use annualcreditreport.com. And boycott Experian whenever possible.