Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over 'renegade' Linux maker

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."

"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.

"Unless this software is removed I will file a complaint with the FBI," Taylor replied.

"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!"

"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.

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. ®

An update from The Register:

Administrators everywhere should prepare for a whole new class of user request classifications. Common request tags such as "Priority," "High Priority," and "Dear lord, this is an EMERGENCY!!" have proven insufficient for some. In fact, one IT expert continues to extoll the virtues of the "I'm calling the FBI now if you don't help" support escalation.
Yes, it's our man Jerry Taylor, the city manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma. Taylor acquired international fame for firing off the angriest set of support requests on record to Linux maker CentOS. Taylor, who has 22 years of IT experience, mistook a new web server installation for hack attempt on Tuttle's IT infrastructure. He ordered CentOS - which had nothing to do with the situation other than providing an OS to a hosting company - to fix his problem or face off with the Feds.
At first, Taylor claimed to welcome media attention around this issue. But his mind changed after hundreds of you e-mailed and phoned him - at which point Taylor issued an urgent request for us to stop all media attention.
Taylor, however, hasn't backed down from his policy of threatening to phone in the FBI in order to get support requests sent to the wrong organization taken care of.
"Taylor said he had no regrets about his attack-dog mode against the CentOs organization," The Oklahoman reports after having talked to the Tuttle man.
"I was frustrated because I couldn't get any help," he said. "The guy kept telling me to get an IT person. I don't know how to break this loop without threatening him with the FBI because this is not getting anywhere."
Many of you have mocked Taylor, but he may be onto something.
Say, for example, that your boss asks you to fire up a new BEA web server on a Solaris box. At the first sign of trouble, phone Microsoft and tell the support desk you're going to call the Department of Homeland Security if you don't get immediate help installing the BEA software. Or have some real fun and play the CIA card with Oracle when your DB2 installation gives you fits. This process will give administrators everywhere more clout or at least buy some extra time for chatting over Friday doughnuts and coffee service.
Having read The Oklahoman's take on the Taylor situation, we can't help but wonder if there aren't more pressing IT issues involved here.
"The guy is having a lot fun with it. He put it out on the registry, I guess," Taylor told the paper. "I've gotten about 500 e-mails with it, all kinds of obscene (stuff), so you know the level of person who is responding." [Did he really say the obscene word "shit"? - Ed]
This leads us to wonder if the paper's technology reporter Jim Stafford knows something we don't. Where is this "registry" and how do you put things on it? This means of information dispersal seems almost Biblical.
Stafford and his editor have declined our requests to explain where we can find the "registry," but they are looking into the matter - seriously. If you know where the registry is or can explain its special powers, send Stafford a line.
Four Tuttle stories in one week is too many to be sure and this is the last we'll write on the subject no matter what our man Taylor does next.
As a show of good faith from your Texan reporter, however, we'll leave you with a couple of reader letters, claiming Oklahoma isn't the backwater IT black hole it appears to be.
Oklahoma is not as much a third world country as it seems. There are many of us who do in fact posess opposable thumbs, can walk on two legs, and have the capacity to dress ourselves and form simple complete sentences; though some of the more vocal representatives of this state would lead you to believe otherwise.
I have nothing else to offer but my most sincere apologies for the rampant idiocy displayed in recent past, and a promise of hope that the younger generation of Oklahomans emerging into industry today do not reflect quite so much a lack of Clue as displayed by the exchange between the City Manager of Tuttle and CentOS.
Reid Linnemann

I live in oklahoma and being that i am a computer user and long time linux user i was appalled but Mr Taylors behavior. This man should not have been threatening anyone. he could have asked properly that centos give him an idea on how to find out where it was coming from without stating he was being hacked. on a couple of occasions i have been called upon to use whois and other tools to find the locations of spammers and such. for anyone involved in computers its easy. this guy is a fossil with technology and should really think about pushing more education for himself to get up to date.
i want to make mention to one of the readers that made the comparison of oklahoma and a third world developing country that this Mr Taylor is not representative of oklahoma just a small town city manager who has floated around to several small towns. You should not be so quick to make that statement because i happen to work for a pretty state of the art IT facility in a government office here.
That only means that everynow and again there is going to be some arrogant jerk who doesnt know his 0's from his 1's. Dont let it slay your judgement of oklahoma. There are many people that are highly educated here just not all. I think that is par for the city province or country you live in as well.
Joe Watson

As a member of the IT community in Oklahoma, I have to apologize for the actions of the illustrious Tuttle City Manager. He is a fairly accurate indicator of the level of government incompetence we deal with here on a constant basis, unfortunately. Hopefully his email privileges have been revoked and his computer replaced with a large box of crayons. Steve

Funny, this guy was actually the city manager of the town I grew up in (Harrah). Considering all the other "part-time city worker" rednecks in Harrah that carry full time jobs being apartment complex maintenence men or tow truck drivers, it doesn't surprise me somebody like this was able to score a near respectable job without actually having to soak in the required knowledge.
Reminds me of our ex-police cheif that took a few pills, got drunk, and took his patrol car out for a joy ride and rear-ended somebody.
Only in Harrah!
Post Scriptum: Viva la blue comic sans! Though his city page would be much better with low-res animated gif's dancing in each corner.
Ricky McLaughlin

I just read the story about the guy from Tuttle, Oklahoma. I just want to reaffirm the IT community's faith in it's professionals here in Oklahoma. I think any knowledgeable professional here wouldn't make the mistake this individual made, and certainly wouldn't have gone through the anger he did. I'm sure many of us use CentOS and am surprised that a Linux user wouldn't have heard of it before.
Tuttle is a small town, and probably doesn't have many people in the city IT department. Hopefully this individual will make an effort to confer with other professionals before going off the deep end again. Maybe we could give him a free session in anger management and ship him off to a Linux workshop.
Chris Miller

Not to dampen your letter writing spirit, but we should note a couple of things. Yes, we do have Taylor's e-mail address. We're not publishing it on purpose, but thanks for passing it along - all of you. And, yes, we've seen Brazil.
Anyone who has followed this story must go to the KFOR TV web site. Hover over "Video" and then select "Video News." Then fire up the Tuesday 10 p.m web cast and fast forward to 4:14.
FBI up, ya'll. ®

With 22 years of computer experience, Taylor knew what the unknown can do to computers.

With 22 years of experience he should have know how a computer works!

When he learned that no one at city hall had put the software on the computers

He should have known the software was on the server and not on the computers in city hall, 5 minutes with nslookup and whois solved the problem that is entry level helpdesk stuff!

This is the funny part

Taylor’s reply, “Get this website off my home page!!!!! It is blocking access to my website!!!!~!” brought more information from Hughes, who wrote to Taylor that he would be happy to help Taylor configure Tuttle’s webserver, but needed some further information.

Ok so Hughes said fine Ill help you just give me more information, the reply from Taylor

Taylor wrote back with a second notice to get the software off, then threatened to file a complaint with the FBI if the software was not removed.

So Hughes had already offered to help and Taylor *then* threatened to get the FBI involved, yet Tailor maintains the FBI threat was what got the offer of help out there..

Hughes apparently felt that the apology wasn’t enough to make up for the accusations and FBI threats for a problem he didn’t cause and really had no obligation to fix

The paper should have included the part where Taylor said "I Welcome the Media Attention" if not for that Hugues would not have posted the emails, and even in posting them stripped out the email addresses

Mayor Paxton said that the city manager knows a lot more about computers than he does, and he trusts Taylor

Talk about the blind leading the blind..

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