Comment On The Senior System Administrators

Impressive. Hadn't such a good one for aome time.

Of course, the real problem is that he didn't include a shenanigans handler.

Oh, so, THAT's how to share your data with your customers and the whole world? Stupid me, I always thought that that is what peer-to-peer file sharing is for.

The real WTF is that you can't trust people these days. I remember the time that you could do a telnet to a .mil machine and get a Unix login prompt.

Of course, these days you would get a time-out, a ride in an unmarked vehicle or black helicopter, and some time in an undisclosed interrogation facility.

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

TRWTF is Kenneth didn't submit an invoice.

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

justsomedude:

TRWTF is Kenneth didn't submit an invoice.

QFT.

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

I was astonished too. But then, who would ever expect a "Senior System Administrator" to change a password when his predecessor leaves? It only lessens his third-level-support options.

we want mfd back!

I agree, not changing the passwords? And assuming months later you still had root access to a critcal web server? Network shares across the Internet? the WTF hits just keep coming

Captcha: paratus - as in the Coast Guard?

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

Why they use unsecure FTP instead of SFTP/SCP.

uzytkownik:

Why they use unsecure FTP instead of SFTP/SCP.

Nice idea, but of little help knowing that the username/password was freely distributed to whoever wanted it.

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

Ha! I worked for a firm where, 3 months after an employee left, IT came looking for him (in his old office no less) because his 'personal' folder on the network was over quota. Seems he had been storing 'unmentionables' there via VPN.

CAPTCHA: secundum, as in "the secundum thing was, when they rehired said employee another 4 months later, all his crap was STILL there, and none of his logins had been disabled - network, voicemail, nada.

But whenever payday would come around, he'd be reminded that he was doing entry-level work for entry-level pay, all with a big-boy title.

If he had been really important, his title would have been Global Senior System Administrator.

The real WTF is that someone so junior, ahem, senior, was able to do this without anybody else saying "Hold on a minute..."

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

Exactly, filed under "somebody else's problem".

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

I've still had access to former employers systems, with explicit understandings such as "Oh, and my rate will be $X/h; minimum 3h per task" (basically anything more than a 5 minute phone call). It all depends on whether you leave on good or bad terms. You don't want to cripple them, but you do want them to learn to take care of themselves again.

Silly Kenneth. He's only getting in the way of better communications and sales with the clients.

Code Slave:

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

I've still had access to former employers systems, with explicit understandings such as "Oh, and my rate will be $X/h; minimum 3h per task" (basically anything more than a 5 minute phone call). It all depends on whether you leave on good or bad terms. You don't want to cripple them, but you do want them to learn to take care of themselves again.

Problem with that is, it leaves organisations horrendously exposed to employees arranging things such that, once they've left, their services suddenly become required again, at inflated rates

Georgem:

Code Slave:

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

I've still had access to former employers systems, with explicit understandings such as "Oh, and my rate will be $X/h; minimum 3h per task" (basically anything more than a 5 minute phone call). It all depends on whether you leave on good or bad terms. You don't want to cripple them, but you do want them to learn to take care of themselves again.

Problem with that is, it leaves organisations horrendously exposed to employees arranging things such that, once they've left, their services suddenly become required again, at inflated rates

Wait. Did I really say problem?

FPT?

In my outlook?

It's more likely than you think..

Hmmm, some lovely people on here today.

Karma will catch up with you...

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

Yeh I found this as the largest WTF actually.

Although I had the same title and probably the same pay at my former job. WTF.

captcha: tego - I am wearing a tego to that party.

larger wtf - 2nd post attempt.

Georgem:

Georgem:

Code Slave:

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

I've still had access to former employers systems, with explicit understandings such as "Oh, and my rate will be $X/h; minimum 3h per task" (basically anything more than a 5 minute phone call). It all depends on whether you leave on good or bad terms. You don't want to cripple them, but you do want them to learn to take care of themselves again.

Problem with that is, it leaves organisations horrendously exposed to employees arranging things such that, once they've left, their services suddenly become required again, at inflated rates

Wait. Did I really say problem?

You meant to say opportunity.

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-09-24/

Code Slave:

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

I've still had access to former employers systems, with explicit understandings such as "Oh, and my rate will be $X/h; minimum 3h per task" (basically anything more than a 5 minute phone call). It all depends on whether you leave on good or bad terms. You don't want to cripple them, but you do want them to learn to take care of themselves again.

That's exactly what I did. I still eat lunch now and then with my former co-workers. If they have questions I'll answer them. If they need actual support I'll invoice them. I was the last developer for an in-house developed test automation framework, so help is often needed ;)

Been there. Had that frantic early AM call that "the websites are down" only to find our sales management had shared the admin user account with "everyone" because it "worked so well to transfer files" and our webserver's hard drives were 99% full of pirated MP3's.

Next project: In order to save money managing accounts payable, they now just leave a big pile of cash in the lobby and suppliers are told to come in and pick up whatever they are owed.

Jay:

Next project: In order to save money managing accounts payable, they now just leave a big pile of cash in the lobby and suppliers are told to come in and pick up whatever they are owed.

That's not efficient, can't they give customers the on-line bank account log-in information? Or at least a debit card and PIN.

But that would be too confusing for some people.

At my old job I begged with my manager not to set up a samba share for vendors to access over the internet. Been meaning to tinker with that security hole for a while now. Like when they least expect it. Mwahahahahaha.

No, TRWTF is this:

XML Parsing Error: duplicate attribute
Location: http://thedailywtf.com/
Line Number 43, Column 71

The first rule of XHTML is: you don't serve XHTML if you don't know your butt from your elbow.

Georgem:

Code Slave:

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

I've still had access to former employers systems, with explicit understandings such as "Oh, and my rate will be $X/h; minimum 3h per task" (basically anything more than a 5 minute phone call). It all depends on whether you leave on good or bad terms. You don't want to cripple them, but you do want them to learn to take care of themselves again.

Problem with that is, it leaves organisations horrendously exposed to employees arranging things such that, once they've left, their services suddenly become required again, at inflated rates

"Arranging things" that way is dishonest. I don't like dishonesty. Companies I used to work for re-hire me from time to time, because they know I am honest. I have access to their private information (a couple of companies would have no idea how to prevent me from getting at their private information even if they wanted to prevent it).

I hope and fully expect that dishonesty is eventually found out, and the person practicing it has a bad life. :-)

justsomedude:

TRWTF is Kenneth didn't submit an invoice.

Absolutely. That was quite a bit of 'educating' he provided gratis. He could have asked for cash up front, which would have been a bit harsh, or perhaps just fixed the immediate problem and left it at that. The moment he asked the question, "I wonder how that happened?" it was time to let it go.

Captcha: verto - I've seen this one before. Are we short of captchas?

OK People. C'mon. Haven't we had enough of these articles? Slightly experienced competent guy trains new incompetent guy, finds out later network is ruined, private company info shared with world, blah blah blah. Hardly a WFT. Sounds like the daily grind for any regular IT guy.

OK Actually it was a pretty good article, I just thought I'd keep the old trend going. Sorry.

don't cell phones always ring suddenly?

wow:

don't cell phones always ring suddenly?

No, sometimes they give you fair warning that they are about to ring. I think there's a app for that.

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

Don't like making money do you? The correct answer is:
"I can help you, we can get this resolved, my bill rate is $* p/h with a minimum of 4 hours."

* - Depends on mood, a lot more if I don't want to do it.

Not always, my computer speakers make a little noise just before my cell phone rings

Anon:

anonymous coward:

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

QFMT

Also, Kenneth works for free. How nice. My answer would have been "I am no longer working here. Good luck."

Exactly, filed under "somebody else's problem".

I don't believe a single one of you that say you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing "kenneth" did.

It's not because I think you're all altruistic individuals looking for good karma. I've been on this site long enough to know that your curiousities would have trapped you like the proverbial cat and your (collective) pride would have forced you spew the same "OMG, what is wrong with you?" response that our hero did.

... and don't bother denying it, you know I'm right... :)

Hmmm.

A couple months after I quit a job I got a midnight call from my replacement who supposedly found a virus in the -source code- for one of my former employers applications.

So he reformatted all of the hard drives.

So he reformatted all of the backup tapes.

So he destroyed all of the backup CDs.

And then he was calling me to find out if I had kept anything after I had left.

everybody in the company had access to the web server through a neat feature in Windows Explorer that turned the FTP site into a giant shared network drive.

And this, children, is why some things should never be made so easy that just anybody can do it with a little clicky clicky magic.

----

WTFTP: Third post attempt...

The good news is that I don't have clients/employers like that.

And the better news is that, employers that hire on the cheap, actually help grads up the chain.

The best news is that one day, the entire network of that particular employer will be vulnerable, it is just a matter of time.

You get what you pay for.

so nobody noticed all that 135-139/445 port traffic through the gateway?

justsomedude:

so nobody noticed all that 135-139/445 port traffic through the gateway?

Did you READ the story? I doubt the new admin knows what a "port" is...

justsomedude :

so nobody noticed all that 135-139/445 port traffic

You're right, you'd think a halfway competent Senior System Administrator would have noticed that.

justsomedude:

so nobody noticed all that 135-139/445 port traffic through the gateway?

No, because it was really just FTP traffic. Windows was configured to think it was just a shared drive.

groundcontrol:

so even after leaving the company for several months, former employees could still remote login to the system? wtf

Silly me, I just assumed he glossed over asking the new guy for credentials. But hey, maybe he could just log in.

DWalker59:

I hope and fully expect that dishonesty is eventually found out, and the person practicing it has a bad life. :-)

Newsflash! Dishonesty when found out will actually get you billions in 'bailout' money!

Anon:

You meant to say opportunity.

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-09-24/

There is a Dilbert/fast?

Thank you, sir. You have enabled me to further ruin my productivity. Now with fastness.