Monday suck

[rev-thumper.livejournal.com]

I have been off the help desk for years but older employees insist on calling me directly and I try to be nice about it...

Me: [standard greeting]
User: Can you get me the password for [suchandsuch] encryption key?
Me: The one all your credit card transaction data is encrypted with?
User: Yea, that one.
Me: No one outside your group is allowed to have access to that.
User: You were here when we created it.
Me: Yes, but I didn't memorize it. Your office is supposed to have a record in a secure place.
User: I know but I am leaving for a new job so I deleted and shredded all my notes when I was cleaning up my workspace.
Me: Well that's going to be a problem...
User: Can't you get the data out anyway?
Me: No, that's sort of the point of encrypting the data.
User: Oh.

...and well, if I could crack 4096 bit PGP keys on demand I would probably be in a different line of work!

Comments

[inahandbasket]

User: Can't you get the data out anyway?
Sure! You want the easy way, or the hard way?
Wanda, fetch the baseball bat and the cattle prod for 'user', would ya?

[spiker-uk.livejournal.com]

Amazing how users think that techs have a backdoor to every encryption scheme going. Have comprehensively run out of fingers and toes counting students from last semester asking "Can you tell me what my password is?"

[rev-thumper.livejournal.com]

Shhh.... don't talk about the secret backdoor until the revolution comes and we take over the world.

[teriwyn.livejournal.com]

... anyone else pause here?

Me: Yes, but I didn't memorize it. Your office is supposed to have a record in a secure place.
User: I know but I am leaving for a new job so I deleted and shredded all my notes when I was cleaning up my workspace.

Some bimbo's desk or PC is not a "secure location". I guess maybe they found that out the hard way, huh?

[rev-thumper.livejournal.com]

She actually took the time to remove stuff from a secure location and shred it also. She seemed to be under the impression that 'someone else' had the information.