To certain ISP's who shall remain nameless ..

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Why do you configure your modems to hand out bogus DHCP instead of simply ignoring DHCP requests, when the router someone just connected fails provisioning checks? And why does that DHCP look like a valid IP that isn't in your IP block and won't route? The customers get confused enough with normal provisioning behavior, this stuff doesn't help them. Neither does going above and beyond the call of duty to make absolutely damn *sure* the customer has to call you to reprovision when they replace their router .. ::headdesk::

Literally 'flat-lining' here.

[mix-hyenataur.livejournal.com]

There is a hospital in Chicago that just hired a new IT department a few months ago.

What's first in their que of implementing network security?

A brand new 56k modem.

Even fancier is that it's a USB->56k modem because the computers are so NEW that it isn't common really anymore it seems.

The head of the department calls on his bitch IT guy who comes to me for this magical device worth $50. It tells me that this is how they are going to setup their new network within a municipal hospital. My first words are "Are you serious, or just dumb?" He laughs sarcastically, but says yes. To both, it seems. He says:

"Hackers can't break into a computer over analogue..."
"You've ever seen 'Hackers'? I've been in computers for 10 years and ..."
"We'll I've been in computers for 25 years, and "I" know what "I'm" talking about. So where is it?"
"Uh... yeah... over here..."

They are going to network together a whole hospital over dailup because they /know/ that hackers can't /hack/ over dailup. I tried telling him that once you're on the internet, you're fairgame to anything, just at a slower pace. He didn't budge, nor beleive me. His director insisted on this idea, and he agreed as well, backing the guy up.

To make it even better, the whole hospital has only been able to obtain only TWO phone numbers for this really awsome network.

I did how-ever mention that we had flash drives on sale, since sneaker-net seemed ultimately faster and more secure.

I offered him the 'Protection-Plan' on the modem.
Kinda reminds me of when we did inventory, we found 36k modems, still at the original price of $269.99.