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Admin
Connecting to port 25... EHLO Ms.Smartydrawers RCPT TO DailyWTFBroadcast Compose your message.... Frist
Admin
There are very few statements that actually make the utterer stupider when used. One of them is: "I'm smarter than all of you."
Admin
TRWTF is why bother with a program? You just need telnet. Zero traces of anything -- nothing to erase or wipe except perhaps the shell history.
Admin
What's an SA?
Admin
Another is "I could use literally any programming language, and I chose ColdFusion."
Admin
What's the WTF? You kept your job, the know it all got their comeuppance. Wait, TRWTF is C-level management saying something reasonable.
Admin
Security Analyst
Admin
And then the whole bus clapped.
Admin
The first rule of security is that it's not secure. The last rule of security is that it's not secure.
Admin
SA = System Administrator
Admin
And a third is "This language that I don't use TOTALLY SUXORS!"
Admin
The WTF is that snoofle actually got to keep his job after this stunt. In almost all the corporations i have worked for a stunt like that will give you the pink slip no matter what the reason for doing it was.
Glad to see there are some C-level exec that can take reasonable decisions.
Admin
The WTF here is snoofle. How many bridges, exactly, were burned that day? And do you think the C-Level executive might just have better things to do than play nanny to squabbling underlings? Do you really believe that the security officer, after being shown up, will start to relax the grip a bit? Congratulations, everyone loses.
Yet it could all have been avoided with a bit more diplomacy, and a bit less "my penis is bigger than YOURS! And I can PROVE IT!" machismo.
Admin
TRWTF is not spoofing her own IP address.
Admin
One. Which had already been set on fire.
Nope, that's what a leadership role entails.
Yes, that is how people learn. If you think the world works one way, and as long as everyone entertains that fantasy, you have no reason to believe otherwise.
Diplomacy and consensus only works with people who value diplomacy and consensus.
We tried diplomacy with North Korea for 60 years and had no progress to show for it. We tried brainless dick-waving machismo, and we get not only concessions from them, but they came to a summit.
Admin
Even more fun. In a previous life/job. I was having an argument w/ the local security wonk who wouldn't let me use SSH to connect to machines insisting that telnet was MUCH more secure. This was in a secured lab in a secured building with a defense contractor to complete the insanity. SSH was bad for the simple fact that the security wonk didn't like Finland (where SSH is maintained). So I set up a network dump between two machines (This was Solaris, so it was snoop). and asked him to log into the target machine. I proceeded to read him back his password, and then asked; "Still think it's secure?". His response was priceless. "Well don't do that! Maybe we should ban snoop!" I pointed out that our products involved massive amounts of specialized packet generation and decoding, so by banning a packet reader, you might as well turn off the lights and close the doors, because we'd be out of business. I got to use SSH whenever I wanted.
Admin
So, you "shut her up" about being smarter than everyone by proving that it was, in fact, YOU who was smarter than everyone? Yeah, you're just as bad as her.
Admin
Upvote.
Admin
must be system analyst or south africa. what do you think?
Admin
Or...it was what I was working with at the time and the server (with associated logs) were installed locally on the machine...
Admin
What color is the sky in your world?
People like that CSO don't listen to anybody, regardless of demeanor. What, exactly, would you have had Snoofle, or anyone else in his position, do? Sit back and wait for a security breach? Everybody knows how that would've gone. Blame would've rolled downhill. Then if the scapegoat has the audacity to do anything but meekly accept that blame (because, miracle of miracles, they weren't already summarily fired/offshored over the breach), out comes the "failed to share this" and "isn't a team player" followed by a pink slip. As long as they can keep disposing of "incompetent" subordinates, they won't adopt better practices because they don't have to.
It may surprise some people but burning bridges works both ways. After working a few places like that, I decline the offer or stop trying if I catch so much as a whiff of that sort of bullshit. Snoofle, from these articles over the last year or so, seems like he was ready to walk too. This is exactly how you get IT departments full of bozos.
You might consider that this could be going on at your bank or a local government agency. Do you really want your identity stolen because somebody took your advice about not rocking the boat?
Admin
ColdFusion? That's not a WTF. That's just rubbing it in. "See, I can do it. I can do it in 10 min. I can do it in 10 min and wipe all traces. F.ck, I can do it in 10 min IN COLDFUSION and wipe clean, you moron!!!"
Admin
This would've had to happen in that short period of time between late 1996 and mid 1997. ColdFusion didn't have scripting until late 1996 / early 1997. SMTP AUTH was in draft in early 1995 and added to sendmail in late 1995 with nearly all other MTAs getting it by mid-1997 before it became an official standard in 1998. Otherwise, that manager would have been 100% correct.
In all implementation of SMTP AUTH, sending from an arbitrary list of domains would require authentication first before the SMTP session would allow you to specify a "MAIL FROM:", and even after authentication you'd be restricted to a short list of addresses you can send as (By default, just your login name, but the mail admin could add additional names).
I suppose it would be possible with incompetent mail admins, but that doesn't detract from SMTP AUTH being common enough that you'd expect it to be implemented.
Admin
Pin-point accurate on the time period!
Good call!
Admin
This is about as believable as my story
Admin
The first lesson everyone should be taught is that "You don't know everything, and you never will!". The quicker you absorb this lesson, the better off you will be.
Words of wisdom.
Admin
Well mr. beardy admin guy how about you go on over there and register so we can look for more of your insightful comments in the future?
Admin
"I suppose it would be possible with incompetent mail admins, but that doesn't detract from SMTP AUTH being common enough that you'd expect it to be implemented."
Really? You expect that absolutely everyone had SMTP AUTH implemented from the second in 1997 that it was made a standard? How many standards from 10 years ago are still not implemented everywhere as standard?
Admin
Maybe I just live in a better world! Let me see... "As long as they can keep disposing of "incompetent" subordinates, they won't adopt better practices because they don't have to"? Maybe that's the difference. Over here, we have good labour laws that mean that you cannot simply fire people because you feel like it, and employers must take steps to create a happy and respectful work environment for everyone. Running your part of the organization as though it was your private fiefdom is laughable!
Many Americans in particular seem to believe that such laws are insane and could never work, and that is funny to those of us who live in non-shithole countries where they work very well, thank you very much. But who am I to correct you on this? By all means, go ahead with the dick-waving because I'm sure that's really the best way to have a productive and sustainable team culture.
Admin
If employers can't fire incompetent employees, then no, you don't live in a better world. Which explains why this very site has published multiple screwups in Europe.
The real WTF is people who think that changing a political system will magically fix stupidity.
Admin
As long as there are people in the world who don't (or choose not to) recognise scare quotes around an emotive term such as, to take as a random example, "incompetent", and in order to propagate their own bankrupt political viewpoint because of a laughable belief in their own nation's exceptionalism they use that lack of recognition as a straw man, Europe will continue to run ragged rocky rings round the US.
Incompetence runs two ways. Incompetent and otherwise unfit mid-level managers and execs who are able to fire subordinates at will are what makes American industry such a stupid joke. Robust labour laws which guard against random firing of people who are perfectly good at their jobs also, admittedly, make it more difficult to get rid of genuine donkeys, but you'd have to be utterly stupid (or propagating a particularly disgusting political agenda) to expound the believe that it is "impossible to fire" people here, and as a result "we're rubbish".
Admin
There's nothing wrong with actually being smarter than everyone else. It's only a problem if you think you are when you aren't.
Admin
There's nothing wrong with actually being smarter than everyone else. It's only a problem if you think you are when you aren't.
Admin
Since your system is better - describe what life would be like under the know-it-all-but-doesn't-really that was featured in this story. Does the whole company suffer because of continuous poor choices?
Admin
Since your system is better - describe what life would be like under the know-it-all-but-doesn't-really that was featured in this story. Does the whole company suffer because of continuous poor choices?
Admin
I can double post too!
Admin
I can double post too!
Admin
Double posts happen when it gives an error message that the Captcha was wrong but it actually posts anyway. Perhaps that will be a writeup for a future WTF
Admin
As long as there are people in the world who look for ways to make themselves more dramatic, their arguments will devolve into a barrage of straw men, hasty generalizations and general ignorance.
Comparing Europe and the US is inherently flawed because the labor laws aren't uniform in either. If you want examples, in Denmark it's quite easy to fire an employee. OTOH, in Greece there are very strong worker protection laws, but it doesn't run circles around any Western country. Finland performs controlled economic experiments on its population, which is cool! Conversely, employees of General Motors were also very well protected, not by laws but by their union.
More to the point, there is no real difference between the ability to fire an incompetent employee and to fire any employee, at least not in hi-tech. What happens if an employer fires an employee claiming they are incompetent, justly or not? Obviously the employee claims they are competent, and the case goes to labor court. If the employee is a waitress then the judge can decide whether the firing was justified. But in this case? What does the judge know about computer security?
Yes, incompetent bosses exist in America. Are they confined to at-will states? Can labor laws really establish a system where incompetent bosses don't exist? Maybe the harm they can do is limited by their inability to fire employees, but they still have a lot of power. And let's say it's hard to fire a genuine donkey, as you admit. What will management do to the donkey? That's right, promote them! So labor laws can contribute to the proliferation of incompetent bosses.
Admin
We'll said. Nailed it re. North Korea.
Admin
SA = Someone Anonymous