From: Ben@lspace.org (Ben) Subject: When good PFYs Go Bad (Return of the PFY stories) Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 16:35:40 GMT I've been here a while now. Luckily no-one seemed to have noticed there's a new boy in town just yet, which is how I like it. Get inside, case the joint, the begin exerting some power. I arrived during the Institution holiday and cased the joint from top to bottom without the encumberance of the lusers being in the way. Getting VNC installed on all the desktops (the buggy version with the icon that doesn't appear in the systray) was the work of a morning. So I took the afternoon to order some new kit with the budget computer (no password security, that'll have to change). ... Anyway, within a few days I'm settled in and beginning to exert some power over where the poor shmucks under me save their pathetic contributions to the working day. I've hired a PFY (ostensibly to take the mundane and petty tasks off my hands, actually to take pretty much every task I can think of off my hands) to deal with the 'customer facing' role and go out amongst the unclean whilst I sit in blessed sanctuary within my roomy office. For some obscure reason the previous sysadmin found it necessary to have his screen facing the window. Aside from providing me with a monster headache after using it for ten minutes (thus inspiring me to report sick with a migrane and go home) I couldn't see any reason why he would want this arrangement. Until I had a visitor. It seems that the sysadmin here isn't classed as a Member Of The Team. There being mainly women in this building there is a Pecking Order. As I'm both a man and the youngest person in the building this means my room is not sacrosanct, it's actually just an extension of the corridor, which just happens to contain the highest concentration of budget allocation and quite probably brains in the building. This will have to change. Soon. A few days in to the job I order some computer cases from a 'same day' delivery company and spread them around the room in a 'I'm working on these at the moment' type way and wait for someone to come blundering in. Later that afternoon in comes Luser without knocking, looking for me with some inanely important piece of paper. *crump* goes her foot, practically through the detachable side of the box's case. *tinkle* goes the 'expensive' equipment inside (junked ethernet cards). I look up from the floor where I was lying on my blanket, 'working' on an aging and unsalvagable IBM PS/2 with my head resting on a pillow. Opening my eyes (I was taking a long blink to avoid dust) I affect a look of horror and cry "No! Not the server RAID9 storage modules!" Of course, she goes into brick-shitting mode. "Sorry! Is anything damaged?" I peer into the box gingerly, "I think you've just lost this year's databases..." She begins to turn a pale shade of grey. I take pity[1], and add "I think I've figured out the backup system the old systesm administrator was using. I may be able to get back last month's version. If I have about three hours uninterrupted time." She looks relieved for a moment before she realises that this means a few late nights to get back up to today's state. Which reminds me that I should remove the actual files from the server before she makes it upstairs. "If you'd just knocked before coming in, I'd have been able to move everything." She's too worried to notice my tone, which is good as I'm not very good at subtle, and turns to go, managing to catch another box with her hurried footsteps. *crunch* (the already broken 1Mb SIMMS) *crack* (semi-sheared PSU retainers) *flash-pop* (backwards mounted capacitor triggered by grounding of the PSU to the metal chassis). "Aww hell!" I shout, trying to wake up enough to go red in the face. "That was the web server!" I flap my hands at her in a distracted and 'it'll be your neck next' type way and say, "If we haven't lost the email as well I'll be suprised. Please, try to be more careful, and knock before coming in." A few weeks and I can drop the 'Please' as well. She hikes herself up onto her tiptoes (she's in 4 inch heels as it is) and simultaniously tries to avoid anything in her path, while making as hasty an exit as possible. When she gets back upstairs I doubt anyone will come in without shouting through the door, let alone knocking. To give the impression she's done some actual harm, I drop the web server and pull the plug on nine or ten of the most important workstations. The phone probably tries to ring, the modem I've got installed doing dialback to my machine at home is still busy uploading DeltaForce levels and won't be interrupted. I look at my watch: 10:00. Lunchtime. I decide unilaterally that even servers need a break in the middle of the day and flash up a message telling people the fileserver will be going down in 60 seconds for "Emergency resource reallocation" (I need to plug in the microwave and there's no spare power sockets) and begin shutdown after 30. Pizza can't wait. ... I'm after a new computer, the old one's decided that running Windows (games machine only) isn't the way it wants to be any more. So I've decided to make it a pppd. This necessitates buying some new kit. I've got everything but the monitor sorted, and I've had my eye on one of those Iiyama 21" babies. I open a magazine and after a few minutes come across an advert for very cheap Iiyamas, so I give the company a call. The first call ends up with them telling me they'd get back to me in 10 min with a price check on the number I quoted at them from the advert. They had told me they shipped direct from Iiyama and that if I ordered today, it would be shipped today. I ring them back an hour later and asked if they'd found out anything yet. "Give us another 10 min" they said. An hour later I called them back. "Sorry, we're out of stock, and so are Iiyama." Iiyama, out of monitors? Heavens! So I ring Iiyama, put on an 'important' voice and ask to speak to the Sales Manager. She informed me that Iiyama have a lot of monitors, suprisingly enough. With this fact in hand I ring back the company and tell them that as they shipped direct from Iiyama everything was hunkydory, only to be told that in fact they bought from a stockist and _they_ were out of stock. This didn't mesh with what they'd told me previously so I call Iiyama again. Turns out the company did have an account (in credit and up-to-date) with Iiyama. Now I'm puzzled, and wanting justice. One the one hand the company say they don't ship from Iiyama, and Iiyama say they do. It's 15:00, I go home for the day and come back in the next day resolutely ready to ring through for a chat with their Managing Director. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be in. Shame that. I call a fellow sysadmin down the road to ask him to see if he can get a monitor out of them, they gave him the excuse that the price quoted was in fact for a 19" monitor, which is a bit steep. I ring again and after identifying myself get the rough end of some sales-drone's tongue, which pisses me off no end. While he tells me that the pricing was for a special deal which ran very quickly and all stock was now sold out, I find their domain record and begin spoofing requests to have it cancelled. He's going on about how they didn't really use their Iiyama account, prefering to buy through a stockist who in turn bought from Iiyama while I post an anonymous message on an EFnet IRC channel claiming that "no-one can breaking into our l33t n37w0r|<", I helpfully leave the IP of the sale-drone's subnet. Meanwhile, on the phone I point out that surely then someone is running very close to a loss somewhere? The drone hangs up, I've obviously cut through his tissue of lies and it's plain to both of us that the company doesn't want to sell the monitor at this quoted price. This pisses me off. I compose a short and descriptive message detailing the proceedings to date and post them to the Monastary, some local reactionary newsgroups and the magazine's adverts editor. Within about half an hour, it seems that a lot of people _really_ wanted to buy monitors at this exclusive knock-down price. I check. The company has over ten lines devoted to sales. I can't get through for about three hours. I also can't ping any of their machines. When I finally do get through I ask if I can buy a 21" Iiyama monitor, please. The reply, when it comes is rushed, harassed and sounds vaguely close to either sucide or homicide, "I'msorrysir,thatwasaspecialofferandwedont'haveanyleft!". The line goes dead. Somehow I think the company will think again before advertising without checking for typos. I lean back in my chair and smile slowly. The PFY, who's just started and I've been keeping out of the office on all the jobs I didn't want to do, and who doesn't know me, looks nervous and edges for the door. You can't blame her, I've been known to sit at the local aquarium and practice against the sharks until the keepers noticed they were sticking to one end of the tank and not eating. I've been banned now. I stop smiling. This has the effect of making things worse. The PFY is still looking nervous so I mention that one of the secretaries is having problems with (I think for a moment) printing from Word, and can she go have a look. I don't _know_ that there's a problem, but there's a chance in the high ninety percentiles that by the time she gets to the office containing the secretary, the level of Clue (which is kept artificially high with on-hand crib sheets) will have falled below critical and her brain will have locked up. I consider mentioning that the floor's just been waxed outside and any speed over a crawl will lead to a major faceplant against the window opposite the door... and decide not to. She'll have to learn, just like I did. *screeech* ... *thud* Maybe she'll switch to trainers now, instead of flats. Casual Dress Can Save Lives, if applied properly. ... So I'm reconfiguring the printer accounting software so that instead of allowing the users to print over their quota, it simply deletes their job and tells them the file has been deleted, when I discover what looks like a useful LART. Seems it's possible to reject print jobs based on filename extensions submitted to the print queue/spooler. On further experimentation it seems that not only is this possible, but legacy code allows wildcarding on both extension _and_ filename. I open a browser and point it at a disreputable (and completely free) private pornhaus and set the accounting software up with a list of words your mother wouldn't like to see you using in polite conversation and try printing. Nothing comes out. Excellent. Further experimentation leads me to install a redundant duplex unit, and a further ten minutes hacking perl gives me a way to cut down on porn printing to the spiffy printer I've been forced to give the lusers in the public area. I upload the requisite code and power up the webcam (purchased from the security account) located in the user area and wait. Even though it's 14:30, there's always someone who's willing to run the gauntlet of opening a picture in a browser, printing it and getting to the printer before it comes out. Clutching it image inwards to their chest as they make for the toilet fools everyone but me, and the women to whom I've pointed out this behaviour. For these lusers (who don't even wait till post-17:00) things just got a whole lot harder. I wait, idly powercycling the print server for the upstairs offices until something goes pop. It was on the way out anyway. As I'm typing up a report on the powersurges the building has been getting which caused the damaged, and recommending a new set of UPSes for essential equipment, my machine bings; someone's printing porn. Or at least trying to. What comes out instead a sheet of red paper. Printed on both sides in black are the words "Failed to print bestiality.jpg image, *LUSERNAME*! Please consult your sysadmin." To make sure everyone sees, I toggle the error signal (a high pitched beep) on the printer a few times from the comfort of my chair and flash the status lights in an amusing fashion. If he could read Morse, I'd be in trouble. By this time most people are watching the luser as he stands frozen by the printer, paper in hand. Coming to his senses he crumples the sheet and begins to nonchalantly wander off. It's not over yet... I toggle the error sound again and watch his face carefully (zoom controls are useful) as a second copy of the 'red warning' comes out. One of the secretaries has come over now to see what the noise is. I let him crumple the second sheet, then stick the printer on multiple copies and output to both hoppers. Unless he's Dr Octopus, she's going to see one of them. I resolve to copy the webcam movie to an ftp site and point a few people at it who've been having a bad day, and distribute the printer code under GPL. ... It's that time of the year when big software companies think they can screw institutions like mine out of wodges of cash for new software. As such the institution has splashed out for a site license of the newest up-to-the-minute anti-virus software. In this one instance, through the million monkeys approach, it seems like they've made a better than average purchase. It's configurable, doesn't break my machines overmuch and allows me to run other applications through it. After getting in contact with a friend on the programming team, I also worm out the backdoors and close most of them. I set it to 'ultra-vindictive', roll it out to the lusers' machine and watch it chomp through all the infected, possibly infected and actually not infected - but I didn't like their faces - lusers' files. It's a happy day when I can send out an email blaming the loss of important files (including the unfavourable personnel report about me) on dodgy executables downloaded from the web. No-one has any Clue. I think I'm going to enjoy it here. [1] Not really, but she was quite attractive.