The Walls Have Ears

Here's 2 short stories that might punctuate the importance of knowing when you should be keeping your mouth shut. hehehe

The best thing is - They are both true.

Scenario 1. A long, and boring train journey.

About 1/2 way through the journey a smartly dressed person in the seats opposite me has the following conversation into his mobile phone (edited for brevity)

him: Yeah my web hosting business is doing really well, i'm making loads of money.
me: :::Perk:::
him: mind you I just had one of my UNIX boxes hacked
other person: Something i couldn't catch
him: i got a log of the hackers IP address, he was a real moron, and didn't even try to cover his tracks.
other person: Something i couldn't catch
him: Yeah, one day i'm going to have to patch that box
other person: Something i couldn't catch
him: Yeah it's used to host "Gives Domain name" and they're one of my best clients.
other person: Something i couldn't catch
Him: well i'm too busy to worry about constant OS upgrades.

And the moral of this story :- The "nice" man told me that he know's very little about security, he has at least one unpatched UNIX box, and exactly where I could find it. All because he wanted to pretend he was some IT bigshot on a crowded train. OH well, at least i'm not a script kiddie (but I was sorely tempted).

And my favorite.

Story two.

Again on a train, sitting at a table seat, opposite 2 youngish people using a laptop.

Their conversation went some thing along the lines of.

Person 1. I can't get it to run it keeps telling me my system admin has disallowed this action.
Person 2. here let me try
Person 1. OK, try and unlock it will you
::: Person 2 fiddles around, rebooting, trying to get this program running ::::

At this point, i'm taking an interest in their actions.

::: Person 2 continues to obviously try to bypass the security restrictions on the machine :::

Now i'm really watching out of curiosity, I then notice that the "owner" of the laptop has a corporate ID card hanging from his neck, "Hold on, it looks just like mine."

Therefore, that's one of our Laptops person 2 is trying to break into. (i'm the system admin that has disallowed their actions)

BUSTED!!!!! Hehehehe.

I trust this makes a point. And I swear that they're both true

Regards

Scenario #1 sounds like it was an excellent chance for you to 'moonlight' and make a little cash on the side. As for #2, well, a camera would have been nice to have to capture the expressions when you pulled your 'bust'. Two good tales...

If the second story is true did you get the people in trouble or did you attack them with a fork.

ahhhh, well, i'm actually pretty easy going.

I let him try out the software on my own machine.

Believe it or not he was trying to get Chuckie Egg II to run. But he got the point that he'd nearly ended his career over a stupid game.

I was also fairly chuffed to learn that the 2nd person who was tring to bypass the restrictions (and failing) worked in IT.

So are the trials of setting up VPN's. :)

Woo. That's pretty cool.
Now you know your system is at least a bit geek proof. :p