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BOFH: In distributed denial
That's not where you're supposed to spread the peanut butter
It's working fine for me
Yes, yes, childish fun – but if you’re wanting to troll through the Boss’ private documents without suspicion then “Transient HID instability” is almost certain to get him to deliver it to you in no time – no questions asked.
"The network's working fine for me," I say "Look, eBay comes up no probs."
"I'm not the only one having problems!"
"Maybe it’s a distributed distributed denial of service attack from the inside?" I gasp.
"What do you mean?" the Boss asks in hushed tones. "That someone here's trying to upset our network access?"
"It's not unheard of.”
"You really think it’s internal?"
"It only appears to be affecting our department," I lie, "so it's probably someone on the same distribution switch as us. In the IT department."
"How would we know who?" the Boss asks.
"You mean personally or technically?"
"I... Personally?"
"Your average internal denial of service attacker is a disenfranchised member of a workplace community" the PFY monotones. "Easily led, they often believe their activity is justified because of an unaddressed workplace issue which has left them feeling underappreciated or unrespected – you know, like the blocking of the Ukrainian Peanut Butter Girls website."
“IT WAS THE BLOODY MACHINE!” the Boss says.
"Perhaps we should narrow it down from the entire IT department" I suggest.
"Yeah. It'll be the one who stays at his desk at lunchtime when everyone else leaves," the PFY predicts.
. . . That lunchtime after the PFY's given thebox.bz another good bashing . . .
"So it's that new bloke on the helpdesk!" the Boss snaps decisively.
"No!" the PFY says, in a tone of disbelief so real you’d almost think that the PFY had forgotten that the aforementioned geek had taken double helpings of onion bhajis in the cafeteria yesterday, leaving the PFY with none.
"Then who is it?" the Boss asks.
"No, I didn't mean it wasn't the bloke on the helpdesk," the PFY says, in tones so reasonable it would be hard to believe that he’d rung that call in about the problem that happens at exactly 12:34 every day – and could the helpdesk guy wait for him to call back...
"So it IS him?"
"Bound to be"
"Can't you just check the network switch to see...”
“No need,” the PFY says as I step behind one of the desks in Mission Control. “We’ve put a wireless camera in the pot plant in the helpdesk room…”
Moments later, in a million-to-one chance we catch the “hacker” choosing that moment to browse to a blackhat website and investigate DDoS software.
And the rest is history - the arrival of Security, the pathetic excuses, the tears, the recrimination, the Boss emailing the news of the dismissal to us all under the subject “I’ve got a tiny wiener”…
It’s all good fun.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
