Be careful where you install software, and who installs it
- Reference: 1659688210
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/05/on_call/
- Source link:
Our story is told today by a reader who wished to be called "F Hop Smith", and we will simply refer to as "Smith" since that is not his name and we have been to too many drinking dens called "Hopsmith" over the years.
"I was working in the (not that I knew it) fast collapsing IBM mainframe data dictionary market," said Smith.
[2]
A former programmer from a different era, he was a fan of accurate documentation, something that would later prove significant.
[3]
[4]
The main product of Smith's company was an Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF).
For the uninitiated, an ISPF was effectively a front-end to the command line. There could be menus and options that could be selected to perform tasks. "Think how Windows is a GUI to MS-DOS command line," explained Smith, "macOS is a GUI to command line Unix."
[5]
We're not sure who are the more frightening: Windows obsessives or Apple fanatics, both of whom will be shrieking that the latest incarnations of their beloved GUIs are far more than mere front-ends, but Smith's explanation stands.
But back to the story. "We sold the product to a (conveniently forgotten) customer," Smith went on, "The initial / normal 'your documentation sucks' calls had subsided & the lawyers ('We demand our money back!') hadn't called, so this was a signal that things were good."
Until The Call came in. "Do you know where [Bob User] installed your product?"
[6]
Erm. No. Of course not. The days of vendors slurping sensitive telemetry were a long way in the future at this point. As Smith pointed out, "That is NOT the sort of detailed internal information a vendor expects to be involved with. That is sensitive, proprietary information, that as a vendor we do NOT want or need to know."
[7]Lapping the computer room in record time until the inevitable happens
[8]A character catastrophe for a joker working his last day
[9]Watch a RAID rebuild or go to a Christmas party? Tough choice
[10]You need to RTFM, but feel free to use your brain too
It transpired that Bob (as we have decided to call him) had installed the product in his private libraries and made the functionality available to the customer's internal data management staff.
Time went by. Things kicked off in the Middle East and Bob was swept off on active duty into the conflict that would become known as the Gulf War. His password-protected libraries remained, however, exactly where they were. In fact, the lack of use (while Bob was out of the country) meant an archive process scooped them up.
Which also caused a not insignificant amount of grief for anyone wishing to use the product.
Hence the urgent call and the shrug from the other end of the phone. And Bob? 100 percent unavailable.
Fail to document and install in haste. Repent at leisure.
Do you remember the days before vendors insisted on slithering into your hardware to gather all manner of telemetry? What's the best excuse you've heard for an account expiring? Let us know, with an email to [11]On Call . ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/Tag/on-call
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YuzqRyFVzkctuCeyAhfFbAAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YuzqRyFVzkctuCeyAhfFbAAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YuzqRyFVzkctuCeyAhfFbAAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YuzqRyFVzkctuCeyAhfFbAAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YuzqRyFVzkctuCeyAhfFbAAAANA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/01/who_me/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/who_me/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/11/who_me/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/27/who_me/
[11] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Installed a product in his private libraries, eh ?
Deployed to the Gulf means he was fired at. '100% unavailable' suggests the poor sod was carried home too.
Re: Installed a product in his private libraries, eh ?
Bob was owner's uncle...
Private Libraries?
General Misunderstanding and Major Problems
Re: Private Libraries?
Sounds like a need for Corporal Punishment
Re: Private Libraries?
Stop it! These puns are just rank!
Re: Private Libraries?
I love those "language jokes" in those REG comments!
If my mother tongue would be English I'd be drafted to join.
Re: Private Libraries?
Yes indeed. We should collect them all into a library. /etc/potd, anyone?
Re: Private Libraries?
So given todays theme, we'd make a pun on rank and file
Re: Private Libraries?
It seems to me you are punning rank here?
Those GUIs ARE only frontends!
Windows 11 user here (mostly). Hate the GUI, but love the improvements of the ACTUAL OS. And the more you dig in deeper, and start calling .net and .dll functions from powershell directly, the more you see it is true.
Re: Those GUIs ARE only frontends!
My favourite bit about win11 are the right click menus. Somebody must have realised that they were woefully inadequate for the job because they left the old menus in as the bottom option.
Replace it with something that works or leave it alone, Microsoft.
Re: Those GUIs ARE only frontends!
Even worse: The "new" right click menu opens much slower. Using the registry hack to show the classic right-click menu instead of the new and incomplete one. They COULD have done it so much better instead of creating a new slow overlay with only half of the options.
Re: Those GUIs ARE only frontends!
I have a horrible feeling that big chunks of W11 are written in some bastardised version of electron.
Re: Those GUIs ARE only frontends!
Oldest trick in the Win95 book.
TweakUI and speed up menu pop up animation.
"There you go. I've ran some clean up tools, freed up space, clicked up the CPU and put the memory into boost mode. Your machine should be running a lot faster now".
"Wow... That's really quick now, thanks!"
Linux Bros'
"We're not sure who are the more frightening: Windows obsessives or Apple fanatics, both of whom will be shrieking that the latest incarnations of their beloved GUIs are far more than mere front-ends".
Even though my business and personal computers are Macs, I pretty much agree with the above statement. For what it's worth, I have always assumed (on the rare occasion when I have thought about it) that the gui part of macOS was just a, well gui.
However, you seem to have missed out the Linux bro's who can and are equally as rabid about Linux.
The fundamentalists of any operating system are a total pain in the arse if you ask me. Why can't they just use the damn thing and shut the fuck up.
Re: Linux Bros'
The reason for not including us in that statement is that we know the GUI is floating on top of the old-timey CLI.
Whether that's a good thing or not is a whole 'nother question.
Who is your customer?
One of the sales people in the US for our product had a phone call to be at the corner of 1st and Washington at 1000 - that's all he was told.
A black Limo (black glass so he could not see out) picked him up and drove him around for half an hour, and then we went down, down down.
He got out the car, and was met by some marines with guns - and a receptionist. There was a flashing red light - which meant there is a visitor in the complex.
He was taken to an empty room (with mirrored glass at the far end), and voice over a speaker said hello, please give your presentation.
He gave his presentation to the empty room. At the end he was escorted out to the hospitality suite for coffee and doughnuts.
He wanted to use the wash room, and was escorted by a marine. The toilets had no doors, so he had to sit down and do his business in full view of the solder (with gun)
He went back to the presentation room and answered a few questions. After this he got back in the car and went up, up, up; drove around and was dropped off where he started from.
He does not know which US agency it was, but he said it was the scariest presentation he ever gave.
Re: Who is your customer?
How come giving presentation to an empty room was scary? Isn't that exactly the environment he was rehearsing his presentation at?
It can bite us all
One project I did, I had to extract data from a fund management application, which had it's own query builder. I was given a user access, being assured that all necessary permissions were granted to that user, and created the query and a job to extract new data daily for my own SW to ingest.
All went well in testing, having frequently adjusted the query during that process, and, after smoothing all edges, into production we went.
All kept going well, at least for a month or so. Then suddenly we stopped receiving the files. Nothing. The reason behind the problem was soon found: my user's access had expired and, therefore, all of those user's processes stopped working.
So we had to ask the application's admin to recreate our process using a system user that never expired, or they would have o keep giving us access to something we didn't need or want.
Where is it installed?
Well, people still do install things everywhere. Somehow it reminds me a bit of the installation of Python. https://xkcd.com/1987/
Gawd, the old "just add /usr/home/bob/bobsprogs/bobsbin/ to your PATH" nonsense. blah blah T-shirt.
Installed a product in his private libraries, eh ?
Too bad. Really unfortunate.
Should have given the job to someone who knew what they were doing.
And it was a mainframe. Wasn't there an admin available, or was "Bob" the admin ?
Because if he was, he should have been fired.