[Fwd: Re: ABOI: Desperate User Support]
Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is true! Shri
Origination: alt.sysadmin.recovery Originator: jerry@worf.tcs.com (Jerry Carlin) Original Subject: support call - urban legand or fact? Date: 27 Jul 1995 16:44:18 -0700 ... (many forwards deleted)...
This falls into the "Why did it have to happen on *MY* shift?" category.
A friend of mine is a chief engineer at SuperMac, and he related this story to me.
SuperMac records a certain number of technical support calls at random, to keep tabs on customer satisfaction. By wild "luck", they managed to catch the following conversation on tape.
Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official... from the legitimate government of Trinidad. The fellow spoke very good English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment. However, the national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door to the armoury. Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the Chief of the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to the lock, and they had already been killed.
So, this officer of the government of Trinidad continued, the problem is this. The combination to the lock is stored in a file on the Macintosh, but the file has been encrypted with the SuperMac product called Sentinel. Was there any chance, he asked, that there was a "back door" to the application, so they could get the combination, open the armoury door, and defend the Capitol Building and the legitimately elected government of Trinidad against the insurgents?
All the while he is asking this in a very calm voice, there is the sound of gunfire in the background. The Technical Support guy put the person on hold. A phone call to the phone company verified that the origin of the call was in fact Trinidad. Meanwhile, there was this mad scramble to see if anybody knew of any "back doors" in the Sentinel program.
As it turned out, Sentinel uses DES to encrypt the files, and there was no known back door. The Tech Support fellow told the customer that aside from trying to guess the password, there was no way through Sentinel, and that they'd be better off trying to physically destroy the lock.
The official was very polite, thanked him for the effort, and hung up. That night, the legitimate government of Trinidad fell. One of the BBC reporters mentioned that the casualties seemed heaviest in the capitol, where for some reason, there seemed to be little return fire from the government forces.
O.K., so they shouldn't have kept the combination in so precarious a fashion. But it does place, "I can't see my Microsoft Mail server" complaints in a different sort of perspective, does it not?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Shri writes:
Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is true! [...]
Origination: alt.sysadmin.recovery
[...]
Date: 27 Jul 1995 16:44:18 -0700
~~~~~~~~
... (many forwards deleted)...
Please don't post 6-month-old urban net.urban.legends to cypherpunks. (Do we really need to put that in the Junior Grade Cypherpunks Training Manual?) [...]
Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official... from the legitimate government of Trinidad. The fellow spoke very good English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment. [...]
Someone posted this to c'punks a while ago (about 6 months ago, perchance?). Beyond the fact that it sounds like an UL right off the bat, it's been pointed out that there haven't been any military coups in Trinidad & Tobago any time recently (or some similar historical fact). Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMPGC3CnaAKQPVHDZAQHxwAf9ECZ6RVOgkGV+Fw4UWAL6y6nPs1oI45s9 IK25YRUzFPGH+iFkvXCvV9qwAR/pDec/i/V92+hoz7dJK0oyv37vbBgIDVvULhuK cH1NMLMUTyzBFJ6wa73+4JR7yAg8CmtgdghWpltvI+yczbOM9+rLA3zHFYfSbtET dB6jds4nnMu4pvSP+FZAoLKP2Wuy5Xl2IRMhWm9vpRfJoiTSatef1JH+Vt8hQVQm f06XtiPoqNSV3S97t79jyibYB9XLkH0shlPAnmu5li+1VW2HrnakRCAFVpSZnbxV Af5uCpdWTKtcDyWjo4h1ohWwoJxj3yrLMyz+21zRxLfuy1gPgBWKag== =POUz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, Futplex wrote:
Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official... from the legitimate government of Trinidad. The fellow spoke very good English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment. [...]
God...are we going to have to endure this like we have had to endure that stupid good times virus e-mail crap? Let it die. Let it die. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______ T E K T R O N I X _ C P I D _ T E C H N I C A L _ S U P P O R T _______ / Voice: 1.800.835.6100 E-mail: support@colorprinters.tek.com Fax: 1.503.685.3063 WWW: www.tek.com BBS: 1.503.685.4504 E-World: Keyword Tektronix HAL: 1.503.682.7450 AOL: Keyword Tektronix Service: 1.800.835.6100 FTP: ftp.tek.com ______________________________________________________________________________
You should know better than to believe everything you read in alt.folklore.urban, even the debunking. There was a brief Libyan-backed coup in Trinidad & Tobago in July 1990. Here are a few Reuters headlines in reverse chronological order, courtesy of Lexis/Nexis. I also recall a couple of excellent articles in The Economist. I believe that the Symantec story has at least some truth to it. I don't read alt.folklore.urban, so I won't post there, but someone should. -rich Copyright 1991 Reuters April 9, 1991, Tuesday, AM cycle LENGTH: 167 words HEADLINE: TRINIDAD COUP HEARING POSTPONED AFTER NOISY COURTROOM PROTESTS DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad BODY: A pretrial hearing for 18 of the alleged plotters in the July 1990 Trinidad coup attempt was postponed Tuesday because of noisy courtroom protests. Members of the black Moslem Jamaat al Muslimeen group chanted and banged ... Copyright 1990 Reuters October 2, 1990, Tuesday, BC cycle LENGTH: 3422 words HEADLINE: WORLD NEWS EVENTS SCHEDULED DURING THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS BODY: ... visits (until Oct. 10). NASHVILLE Country Music Association annual awards. PORT-OF-SPAIN Expected starting date of Trinidad coup plotters trial. STOCKHOLM Nobel Prize for Medicine announced. STRASBOURG, France European Parliament plenary session (until ... ... visits (until Oct. 10). Copyright 1990 Reuters September 13, 1990, Thursday, AM cycle LENGTH: 371 words HEADLINE: TRINIDAD COUP PLOTTERS FACE TRIAL BYLINE: By Lindsay MacKoon DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad Copyright 1990 Reuters August 23, 1990, Thursday, AM cycle LENGTH: 184 words HEADLINE: TRINIDAD COUP HEARING DELAYED OVER SECURITY CONCERNS DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad Copyright 1990 Reuters August 15, 1990, Wednesday, AM cycle LENGTH: 387 words HEADLINE: TRIAL OF TRINIDAD MOSLEM REBELS COULD BEGIN NEXT WEEK BYLINE: By Lindsay MacKoon DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad BODY: ... 1 and transferred to Trinidad's state prison under heavy security. Caribbean nations, worried about the economic conditions that contributed to the Trinidad coup attempt, plan to hold a meeting to discuss ways of improving regional security. Barbados Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford ... Copyright 1990 Reuters July 31, 1990, Tuesday, AM cycle LENGTH: 496 words HEADLINE: ANY FLIGHT WILL DO FOR THOUSANDS THRONGING TRINIDAD AIRPORT BYLINE: By Peter Zollman DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad BODY: Thousands of sweaty tourists and business people trying to flee the chaos of the Trinidad coup attempt jammed Piarco International Airport Tuesday, jostling and shoving to get on any available flight out of the island. Copyright 1990 Reuters July 30, 1990, Monday, AM cycle LENGTH: 96 words HEADLINE: AGREEMENT TO END TRINIDAD COUP ATTEMPT BREAKS DOWN BYLINE: By Peter Zollman DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad Copyright 1990 Reuters July 29, 1990, Sunday, AM cycle LENGTH: 507 words HEADLINE: MORE THAN 300 WOUNDED IN TRINIDAD COUP AS TALKS BOG DOWN BYLINE: By Peter Zollman DATELINE: PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- <sigh> my second white noise message on the same thread: rich writes:
You should know better than to believe everything you read in alt.folklore.urban, even the debunking.
There was a brief Libyan-backed coup in Trinidad & Tobago in July 1990. Here are a few Reuters headlines in reverse chronological order, courtesy of Lexis/Nexis. I also recall a couple of excellent articles in The Economist.
I believe that the Symantec story has at least some truth to it.
I don't read alt.folklore.urban, so I won't post there, but someone should.
OK, Rich succeeded in irritating me with some facts ;} so I went to the trouble of doing an Alta Vista search for "trinidad" and "supermac". I think you will find this archived response informative: http://rampages.onramp.net/~mdmiller/complain.htm Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMPKi/inaAKQPVHDZAQHcwAf+OrcUYUm7oB/Jany8NXRu8SiFlifEsKxA S2EngRDyg6WZsrnpCbh7dGv0PXpxnogUQzhTRcTXPYaDyr5k3zvwNd4+0Oqk/qXL DPcCkGcwi456vPpMKQyTjFZlyO46uXgJA/ITTJciPvvxuC1X1/TK2Yq8Twb/5HBH 6jil5A5Jo0mJ+p4gKYT0hkgDA5JRncElgGJUl7W5A1qzZlp6FLmoNr+V7FLv04oz 7LiXUmiHiOSK/302u5M6gi231rra3DJ+JijtGHiesF4pVP46bJf5psWVzSTvpsKG UtI+Gr7oo3aetltwICKvRG/YC/Gny7Vo6q6NMwccgFqpRbaKwdSN6g== =SzRB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Futplex wrote:
trouble of doing an Alta Vista search for "trinidad" and "supermac". I think
Speaking of Altavista, check this data for the host www.dec.com: Export list for www.digital.com: /udir server2-fddi /www_root/.i server2-fddi enet-gw.pa.dec.com mts-gw.pa.dec.com decpa .pa.dec.com /www_root/.h server2-fddi enet-gw.pa.dec.com mts-gw.pa.dec.com decpa .pa.dec.com /archive everyone /archive/.4 everyone /archive/.5 everyone /archive/.6 everyone /archive/.7 everyone /archive/.a everyone /archive/.c everyone /archive/.d everyone /archive/.e everyone /archive/.j everyone /archive/.k everyone /archive/contrib everyone /archive/contrib/src everyone I told them about this via e-mail almost three weeks ago when I told them about being able to get different host's /etc/passwd file from a search. But I guess that's the way they want it. This probably isn't the appropriate forum, but obviously they don't care. Does anyone know a better way to tell them? Maybe I'm just paranoid. Its just that I kind of feel sorry for DEC; its not easy being burdened with the worst marketing staff in the world, having the world's fastest RISC processor, and having the media go wild over the P6. Flames welcomed.....I'm homesick and need the abuse...:) ______________________________________________________________________________ ______ T E K T R O N I X _ C P I D _ T E C H N I C A L _ S U P P O R T _______ / Voice: 1.800.835.6100 E-mail: support@colorprinters.tek.com Fax: 1.503.685.3063 WWW: www.tek.com BBS: 1.503.685.4504 E-World: Keyword Tektronix HAL: 1.503.682.7450 AOL: Keyword Tektronix Service: 1.800.835.6100 FTP: ftp.tek.com ______________________________________________________________________________
Let it die...Please. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______ T E K T R O N I X _ C P I D _ T E C H N I C A L _ S U P P O R T _______ / Voice: 1.800.835.6100 E-mail: support@colorprinters.tek.com Fax: 1.503.685.3063 WWW: www.tek.com BBS: 1.503.685.4504 E-World: Keyword Tektronix HAL: 1.503.682.7450 AOL: Keyword Tektronix Service: 1.800.835.6100 FTP: ftp.tek.com ______________________________________________________________________________
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Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is true!
Shri
This falls into the "Why did it have to happen on *MY* shift?" category.
A friend of mine is a chief engineer at SuperMac, and he related this story to me.
Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official... from the legitimate government of Trinidad. The fellow spoke very good English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment. However, the national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door to the armoury. Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the Chief of the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to the lock, and they had already been killed.
It's not. This was hashed over in alt.folklore.computers a little while back, and someone did some research and found out that there haven't been any coup attempts in the past few years in Trinidad, or something like that. - -- Ben Byer root@bushing.plastic.crosslink.net I am not a bushing GCS d-- s: a--- C++ UL++++ P++ L++ E+ W+ N++ o K-- w-- !O M-- !V !PS !PE Y+(++) PGP t+ 5 !X R tv(+) DI+ G e- h! r !y -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQB1AwUBMPFn4LD5/Q37XXHFAQFTHgL+O4EzDxZVHSOmb2SZ3vbJi64tZyZfvuUk Stgr4qUJ8xfXahNxgDR3WgbTcvWt8s1nFc0FdWCuQzOnaX8Tz4f8C1R83bS1fUDb lH8jgEFdsCJ1GGy0yL1lB7JvcFlRYFpM =zeah -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, greeeeaaaaat* wrote:
It's not. This was hashed over in alt.folklore.computers a little while back, and someone did some research and found out that there haven't been any coup attempts in the past few years in Trinidad, or something like that.
Someone did very poor research, then. In fact there was a Libyan-backed coup two or three years ago, which was overthrown in about a month. I distinctly remember the headline in The Economist, which was similar to "Trinidad Coup Not Considered Cricket." Info on the coup and a copy of this bit of folklore is on a Trinidad & Tobago Web Page somewhere. Maybe they got a definitive answer in the six months or so since I last looked. This should probably get a [NOISE] for Perry's benefit... -rich owner-win95netbugs@lists.stanford.edu ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/mailing-lists/win95netbugs/ gopher://quixote.stanford.edu/1m/win95netbugs http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq.html
participants (5)
-
futplex＠pseudonym.com -
greeeeaaaaat* -
Kent Dahlgren -
Rich Graves -
Shri