I hate computers
Actually, I really hate mean, stupid people who take take advantage of weak spots in software to keep me from doing useful, helpful things.
Last night one of our major UMM CSci web servers got hacked quite maliciously. This was not the polite “You have a security hole that you probably should fix, but I won’t actually damage your data” sort of attack, though. This was “Oooh, I got in, so I’ll delete tons of data, change other data, and see if I can leave backdoors for myself” sort of attack.
And it’s my fault.
Well, of course it’s not really my fault (never blame the victim!), but I left the damn door open. We were notified of a security problem back in September and I fixed it in one place but forgot to fix it in a second place. And, sadly, locking half the doors doesn’t secure the house.
Hmph.
I have a boat load of stuff I need to be working on. I’m terribly behind in my grading, there’s lots of committee work that needs attention, in theory I’m organizing a trip to the Cities day after tomorrow, etc., etc. And now some foul twit decides to get his jollies by pooping in our sandbox.
I’m going to go cry.
Unfortunately, a significant reason that I’m behind on all this other stuff is other computer problems, including something like 30 hours in two weeks on a hardware problem on the same server that just got hacked. And our family news site is hacked and I’ve had no time to deal with it.
When I logged in to write this, there was a comment that said “I love you”. From a wanna-be spammer advertising mortgage insurance.
Did I mention that I’m gonna go cry?
So here I sit rambling incoherently instead of getting real work done. I needed to vent, though, so I don’t snap at some poor student later. I’ve been IM’ing with Apsu and venting at him as well. I’m way behind on helping him with a paper he’s working on (in the same way that I’m behind on a paper with the Grandiloquent One) and his response was brilliant:
I’ll just keep bitching until you’ve caught up and gotten your work done you overcommitting psychopath.
Yeah.
“Overcommitting psychopath”.
I think I’ll end there.
No tag for this post.
October 12th, 2005 at 23:50
I’m now perhaps a bit regretful that I gave him that advice, given how obviously busy you are. No worries about our paper, though; I’ll wait until my return from the land of the Rising Sun to pester you about it.
October 13th, 2005 at 07:11
Oh, no worries. I’m pretty sure I can hold my own, even against Apsu’s fiery vigor of youth (or whatever crazy and wonderful descriptions he uses when trying to get my attention on IM). One of the (few) advantages of being an overcommitting psychopath is that you get a lot of practice at this sort of thing :-).
I’m really glad that things are going so well across the (Pacific) pond and look forward to hearing tons more stories when you get home!