… or the battle of dumb against smart.
… or the battle of useful versus useless.
The analogies are endless. And I’ve let this sit for a few days so I can rant cohesively, and hopefully not get too wound up.
Matty has effectively sang the praises of our web host. I don’t need to re-invent the wheel. He’s already done it.
So what kind of service do you get if it’s not the kind we get from Mindstorm Hosting? Fortunately, I have the “best” of both worlds.
Two days ago I got an e-mail from Rogers - my internet service provider. It was from the abuse department and was carbon-copied to all of my @rogers.com accounts, including the primary one that I never use because the account name was assigned to me, and I hate it. I don’t even use it to sign up for stuff, I give either my Hotmail or Yahoo address for that. The message claimed that spam I had sent - or my machine had sent - was discovered as the result of a complaint by an unidentified third party. It informed me that the delivery of such spam was a violation of the Acceptable Use Policy yada yada yada. It didn’t say much else except it included the headers of the message and a link to their website.
Natrually - wanting to clear my good name - I called tech support to find out what was going on. Over the course of the last two days, I have called them three times.
Idiot #1
Idiot #1 - who didn’t speak English very well - was probably the shortest of the three phone calls. HE told me that the warning message I had received from Rogers was not in fact from Rogers and I should ignore it. He then continued to explain to me what spam was, as if I was reading The Internet For Dummies. This is all fine and dandy except for two things. First of all, the message was sent to an e-mail account that only Rogers and I have knowledge of (because I don’t use it) and second of all, the first line of the message contained my full name - including my middle name - which I’m pretty sure not very many spammers know. The conversation ended with “Ok ok. I’m just going to hang up and call back and talk to somebody who knows what they’re talking about.” He sounded upset, but it only took about 7 seconds for my finger to hit the flash button on the phone and redial the number.
Idiot #2a
Idiot #2- who was probably the smartest of the four “wise men” - recognized immediately that the e-mail was authentic, and put me through to second-tier support. Good thing I didn’t listen to Idiot #1 right?
Idiot #2b
Idiot #2b - aka “The King Of The Idiots” - seemed to be the best informed of the three regarding the situation - but was definately not the brightest. I read the contents of the e-mail to him, and informed him that my IP address - which I have had for some time - was nowhere to be found in the message and that there was obviously some error. I asked him to prove to me that the spam messages had indeed eminated from my system.
He ignored my request and asked me what virus and firewall programs I used. I told him. He seemed satisfied with my choices. He asked me if I kept them up to date. I told him that I updated the virus scanner at least once a week and that the firewall updated automatically.
I repeated my request for proof that the spam messages originated from my system. He rattled off my MAC address and my cable modem serial number. Big deal. He had my account number sitting in front of him and could have gotten either of these numbers from the screen in front of him. I asked how this related to the issue at hand.
I was once again ignored and treated like an idiot. You have a trojan horse, sir. And there is no possibility that you do not. You should update your virus definitions immediately, and see if you can detect it. You should also download a trojan detection program. If neither of these is able to find the trojan that we know is there, you must reformat your system, or we are going to cancel your account. And please be more diligent in the future about keeping your virus software and especially your firewall up-to-date in the future.
Wow.
80 gigs. Gone. That’s some big cajones on the other end of that phone.
I don’t pretend to be the most talented most incredible most gifted computer user in the world. But I do like to think I know a thing or two more than the average Joe. I really didn’t think there was a trojan in my system, and Imbecile #2b (yeah, I gave him a promotion) sure didn’t prove anything to me. My best guess is that they got a complaint and narrowed it down to my neighborhood and drew a name out of a hat and I lucked out.
But. Not wanting to be a source of friction I updated my definitions, downloaded the Moosoft Cleaner and scanned the whole hootenanney. Nothing. Nada. No traces of viruses or trojans of any sort.
So what do I do. Do I risk my broadband access? I really don’t wanna go to Bell, and if Rogers turfs me, that’s going to be almost my only recourse. “What if they’re right”, the nagging little voice whispered in my ear. I hate that little voice. I think he started whispering in my ear when he lost his job on Magnum P.I.
So begrudgingly, I backed up my data and dug up my Windows XP CD - solely out of fear of losing my broadband account and the 0.002% chance these morons might be right.
Idiot #3
So in the mother of all ironies, I re-installed everything and had a different issue the next day. Rogers, being a large ISP - and probably in an attempt to be user friendly - have “alias” names for their local mail servers. Instead of “blah.duh.ugh.duh.mail.puke.rogers.com” they have the DNS setup so that you can simply use “pop” and “smtp”. For quite a while I’ve been having a problem getting “pop” to resolve - so - being the moron that I am, I called tech support again.
He ended up giving me the fully qualified domain name for the local mail server but in his final breath before I hung up - after all the horse pucky I’d been through with Idiots #1-2b - his advice to me if I wanted to use the “pop” server alias was:
Disable your firewall.
What a bunch of idiots. I won’t change to Bell, but if somebody else makes me an offer, I’m gone. To the others of you in Ontario who are considering broadband access - don’t count on quality support from Rogers. The left hand not only doesn’t know what the right hand is doing - they’re not even attached to the same head… if indeed there are heads connected anywhere in that network at all.