Posted on 03/28/2006 9:07:54 AM PST by N3WBI3
Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over 'renegade' Linux maker Our mistake is YOUR problem By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View Published Friday 24th March 2006 20:20 GMT New year, new job? Click here for thousands of tech vacancies.
The heartland turned vicious this week when an Oklahoma town threatened to call in the FBI because its web site was hacked by Linux maker Cent OS. Problem is CentOS didn't hack Tuttle's web site at all. The city's hosting provider had simply botched a web server.
This tale kicked off yesterday when Tuttle's city manager Jerry Taylor fired off an angry message to the CentOS staff. Taylor had popped onto the city's web site and found the standard Apache server configuration boilerplate that appears with a new web server installation. Taylor seemed to confuse this with a potential hack attack on the bustling town's IT infrastructure. SPONSORED LINKS
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"Who gave you permission to invade my website and block me and anyone else from accessing it???," Taylor wrote to CentOS. "Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!! I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma."
Few people would initiate a tech support query like this, but these are dangerous times, and Taylor suspected the worst. (Er, but only the world's most boring hacker would break into a site and then throw up a boilerplate about how to fix the hack.)
CentOS developer Johnny Hughes jumped on the case and tried to explain the situation to Taylor.
"I feel sorry for your city," he replied in an e-mail. "CentOS is an operating system. It is probably installed on the computer that runs your website. . . . Please contact someone who does IT for you and show them the page so that they can configure your apache webserver correctly."
That response didn't go over so well.
"Get this web site off my home page!!!!! It is blocking access to my website!!!!~!," Taylor responded, clearly excited about the situation and sensing that Bin Laden was near.
Again, CentOS jumped in to try and explain some of the technical details behind the problem. It pointed Taylor to this page, saying it was the standard page for a web server and noted that it provides instructions on how to fix the problem. The CentOS staffer suggested that Taylor contact his service provider or have an administrator look into the issue.
That response didn't go over so well.
"Unless this software is removed I will file a complaint with the FBI," Taylor replied.
Later he added,
"I have four computers located at City Hall. All of these computers display the same CentOS page when attempting to bring up Tuttle-ok.gov. Now if your software is not causing this problem, how does it happen??? No one outside this building has complained about this problem. This is a block of public access to a city's website. Remove your software within the next 12 hours or an official complaint to the FBI is being filed!"
And later,
"I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation. Now, can you tell me how to remove 'your software' that you acknowledge you provided free of charge? I consider this 'hacking.'"
After a few more exciting exchanges, CentOS managed to track down the problem for Taylor. It turns out that hosting provider Vidia Communications is running CentOS on some of its servers and had not configured the Tuttle web site properly. CentOS informed Taylor of the situation, and, a day later, Taylor had calmed down.
"The problem has been resolved by VIDIA who used to host the City website," he wrote. "They still provide cable service but do not host the website. The explanation was that they had a crash and during the rebuild they reinstalled the software that affected our website."
"I am sorry that we had to go through the process and accusations to get the problem resolved. It could have been resolved a lot quicker if the initial correspondence with you provided the helpful information that was transmitted in the last messages. My initial contact with VIDIA disallowed any knowledge of creating the problem."
Er, so despite the fact that CentOS went out of its way to figure out the problem for Tuttle, Taylor still places the blame on CentOS for not fixing the problem - that it didn't create - sooner. In addition, Taylor didn't really start off the whole process on the best foot despite Tuttle being a town "Where People Grow - Friendly!" Grow friendly, threaten to bring in the FBI at the drop of a hat - what's the difference?
As of this writing, one Tuttle web site still had not been fixed, although you can find the charming Tuttle man Taylor over here.
Taylor has yet to respond to our request for comment.
It seems that Tuttle has quite the hacking epidemic on its hands. The Tuttle Times newspaper's web site, for example, has had its Forum section cracked. Click at your own risk to see it or have a peek at our screen grab.
To see the full transcript of the web server war, travel over here. It's classic reading. ®
Ha Ha, no wonder you like them, you're don't count Anti-American bias as bias!
If I rent a Ford from the rental car company, I'm a user of Ford's product. However, that doesn't ipso facto make me a Ford customer.
Software works more or less the same way.
Will CentOS lose customers? Possibly, but I doubt it. Rather, I think the free increased publicity will help them.
British and European news sources tend to be much less obvious about it. If I want to read anti-American filth, I'll buy a copy of the New York Times (or any other major American newspaper) or listen to the bloviating of the MSM.
Thus do you still miss the points that I make.
I haven't missed a thing. You like non profits and you get all your news from Europe. Which makes perfect sense.
Some ponytail pissing. Wonder if that dude's even got a job.
This message brought to FR by Bill Gates' paid shill, Golden IGGLE.
Golden Iggle Everyone!!!
LOL
Put your money where you mouth is big boy. Any amount. Or you can dare try to enter the discussion, although of course it is a far stretch from maitaining your Jim Rome Web Ring LMAO.
As for non-profits, I don't show favoritism either way. CentOS and Microsoft run on two different philosophies. Each works to satisfy the people they serve. The only difference is that Microsoft is a for-profit endeavor, while CentOS isn't.
Does profit mean anything when evaluating the merits of an enterprise? I think not.
What matters is whether the enterprise was successful in its mission. Now whether that mission is to make money or to provide a service is debatable, and up to anyone's own opinion.
ohh I'm SO scared of you Iggle....LOL!!
What are you going to do? Absolutely NOTHING. Hell you probably don't have a job outside of being a paid shill for Microsoft.....
Internet tough guy and all!!!
LOL!!!
You're such a dumbass!!
Paid shill....you should be REQUIRED to put that disclaimer after every post of yours LOL.
So what is CentOS's "mission"? We can see it's not supporting their users, so what is it? To make free copies of Red Hat Linux, that they can give away at the expense of that company? They teach you this in school too? What class is it taught, because it sure doesn't sound like business.
I ONLY wish I were as cool as you are, or at least cool enough to make fun of other people's profile pages.
Damn you must feel SO good about yourself there in your parent's basement huh?
LOL
what a loser. Making fun of people's profile pages instead of saying something else. Loser. Actually more like JOKE. I guess Bill doesn't pick the smart ones for his paid shills huh?
Wow Mike you started capitalizing everything by your second post tonight. Usually takes you at least three. Still hiding behind your profanity too. If you ever come up with an intellegent post, let us know. You might try borrowing something first, seems to work for you guys.
let US know?
LOL!!
I knew that a singular person couldn't POSSIBLY be as dense as you tend to be!!
LOL
How many OTHER paid Microsoft shills are there helping you post? It isn't that hard, if you had held any other jobs before. I'm sure being a paid shill doesn't pay well though. It can't. Otherwise you MIGHT have moved out of your parent's house by now LOL.
Don't flatter yourself. I saw a Jim Rome thread on here one time and I thought WTF? Then I saw you were the head resident "clone", about split my side! How anybody could be a fan of that weasel I don't know. Remember when Everett dumped him on the floor? Classic!
Sure you did.
This isn't the first time you've taken something off of my profile page and tried (unsuccessfully) to use it against me.
LOSER.
You're still a joke Iggle.
Shall I remind you of the thread where you pinged N3wbi3's OSS list?
Are you really that dense or are you just a liar? Being that you are a Microsoft shill, I know the answer, but I'll let you give it a shot.
dumbass.
CentOS exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform to anyone who wishes to use it. CentOS 2, 3, and 4 are built from publically available open source SRPMS provided by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policies and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.). CentOS is designed for people who need an enterprise class OS without the cost or support of the prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor.
Neither the CentOS Project (we who build CentOS) nor any version of CentOS is affiliated with, produced by, or supported by the prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. Neither does our software contain the upstream vendor's product ... although it is built from the same open source SRPMS as the upstream enterprise products.
So, what does this mean?
Their mission is to provide a quality Enterprise-level Linux system that is both free and completely compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Yes, they use the SRPMs from RH. But then again, not only do the SRPMs fail to provide the exact copy of stuff that you'd get by buying the disc from RH, CentOS has to remove or sufficiently retool any proprietary components (e.g. branding, artwork, KDE/GNOME icons, non-GPL & patented stuff, etc.). They have to conform to RH's distribution policy.
Finally, they receive no consideration or support from Red Hat in any way, shape, or form.
CentOS seems to be more mainstream than White Box and Scientific Linux, and they have a small, loyal, and growing userbase.
On the other hand though, Scientific Linux is a RHEL clone designed (obviously) for scientific usage, and White Box is not as well-known.
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