[Fwd: Re: ABOI: Desperate User Support]

Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is 
true! 

Shri

> >     Origination: alt.sysadmin.recovery
> >      Originator: jerry@worf.tcs.com (Jerry Carlin)
> >Original Subject: support call - urban legand or fact?
> >            Date: 27 Jul 1995 16:44:18 -0700
> >... (many forwards deleted)...
> 
> >This falls into the "Why did it have to happen on *MY* shift?" category.
> 
> >A friend of mine is a chief engineer at SuperMac, and he related this
> >story to me.
> 
> >SuperMac records a certain number of technical support calls at random,
> >to keep tabs on customer satisfaction.  By wild "luck", they managed to
> >catch the following conversation on tape.
> 
> >Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official...
> >from the legitimate government of Trinidad.  The fellow spoke very good
> >English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
> 
> >It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment.  However,
> >the national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the
> >Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door
> >to the armoury.  Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the
> >Chief of the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to
> >the lock, and they had already been killed.
> 
> >So, this officer of the government of Trinidad continued, the problem is
> >this.  The combination to the lock is stored in a file on the Macintosh,
> >but the file has been encrypted with the SuperMac product called Sentinel.
> >Was there any chance, he asked, that there was a "back door" to the
> >application, so they could get the combination, open the armoury door,
> >and defend the Capitol Building and the legitimately elected government
> >of Trinidad against the insurgents?
> 
> >All the while he is asking this in a very calm voice, there is the sound
> >of gunfire in the background. The Technical Support guy put the person on
> >hold. A phone call to the phone company verified that the origin of the
> >call was in fact Trinidad.  Meanwhile, there was this mad scramble to see
> >if anybody knew of any "back doors" in the Sentinel program.
> 
> >As it turned out, Sentinel uses DES to encrypt the files, and there was
> >no known back door.  The Tech Support fellow told the customer that aside
> >from trying to guess the password, there was no way through Sentinel, and
> >that they'd be better off trying to physically destroy the lock.
> 
> >The official was very polite, thanked him for the effort, and hung up.
> >That night, the legitimate government of Trinidad fell.  One of the BBC
> >reporters mentioned that the casualties seemed heaviest in the capitol,
> >where for some reason, there seemed to be little return fire from the
> >government forces.
> 
> >O.K., so they shouldn't have kept the combination in so precarious a
> >fashion. But it does place, "I can't see my Microsoft Mail server"
> >complaints in a different sort of perspective, does it not?

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> 
> Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is 
> true! 
> 
> Shri
> 
> > >This falls into the "Why did it have to happen on *MY* shift?" category.
> > 
> > >A friend of mine is a chief engineer at SuperMac, and he related this
> > >story to me.
> > 
> > >Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official...
> > >from the legitimate government of Trinidad.  The fellow spoke very good
> > >English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
> > 
> > >It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment.  However,
> > >the national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the
> > >Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door
> > >to the armoury.  Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the
> > >Chief of the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to
> > >the lock, and they had already been killed.

It's not.  This was hashed over in alt.folklore.computers a little
while back, and someone did some research and found out that there
haven't been any coup attempts in the past few years in Trinidad, or
something like that.

- -- 
Ben Byer    root@bushing.plastic.crosslink.net    I am not a bushing
GCS d-- s: a--- C++ UL++++ P++ L++ E+ W+ N++ o K-- w-- !O M-- !V !PS
!PE Y+(++) PGP t+ 5 !X R tv(+) DI+ G e- h! r !y

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On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, greeeeaaaaat* wrote:

> It's not.  This was hashed over in alt.folklore.computers a little
> while back, and someone did some research and found out that there
> haven't been any coup attempts in the past few years in Trinidad, or
> something like that.

Someone did very poor research, then. In fact there was a Libyan-backed
coup two or three years ago, which was overthrown in about a month. I
distinctly remember the headline in The Economist, which was similar to
"Trinidad Coup Not Considered Cricket." 

Info on the coup and a copy of this bit of folklore is on a Trinidad & 
Tobago Web Page somewhere. Maybe they got a definitive answer in the 
six months or so since I last looked.

This should probably get a [NOISE] for Perry's benefit...

-rich
 owner-win95netbugs@lists.stanford.edu
 ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/mailing-lists/win95netbugs/
 gopher://quixote.stanford.edu/1m/win95netbugs
 http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/win95netbugs/faq.html

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Shri writes:
> Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is 
> true! 
[...]
> > >     Origination: alt.sysadmin.recovery
[...]
> > >            Date: 27 Jul 1995 16:44:18 -0700
			  ~~~~~~~~
> > >... (many forwards deleted)...

Please don't post 6-month-old urban net.urban.legends to cypherpunks.
(Do we really need to put that in the Junior Grade Cypherpunks Training
Manual?) 

[...]
> > >Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official...
> > >from the legitimate government of Trinidad.  The fellow spoke very good
> > >English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
> > 
> > >It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment.  
[...]

Someone posted this to c'punks a while ago (about 6 months ago, perchance?).

Beyond the fact that it sounds like an UL right off the bat, it's been
pointed out that there haven't been any military coups in Trinidad & Tobago
any time recently (or some similar historical fact). 

Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>

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You should know better than to believe everything you read in
alt.folklore.urban, even the debunking. 

There was a brief Libyan-backed coup in Trinidad & Tobago in July 1990.
Here are a few Reuters headlines in reverse chronological order, courtesy
of Lexis/Nexis. I also recall a couple of excellent articles in The
Economist.

I believe that the Symantec story has at least some truth to it. 

I don't read alt.folklore.urban, so I won't post there, but someone should.

-rich


                             Copyright 1991 Reuters

                        April 9, 1991, Tuesday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 167 words

HEADLINE:  TRINIDAD COUP  HEARING POSTPONED AFTER NOISY COURTROOM PROTESTS

DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad

 BODY:
   A pretrial hearing for 18 of the alleged plotters in the July 1990  
Trinidad 
 coup  attempt was postponed Tuesday because of noisy courtroom protests.

   Members of the black Moslem Jamaat al Muslimeen group chanted and 
banged ...



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                       October 2, 1990, Tuesday, BC cycle

LENGTH: 3422 words

HEADLINE: WORLD NEWS EVENTS SCHEDULED DURING THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS

 BODY:
   ... visits (until Oct. 10).

   NASHVILLE Country Music Association annual awards.

   PORT-OF-SPAIN Expected starting date of  Trinidad coup  plotters trial.

   STOCKHOLM Nobel Prize for Medicine announced.

   STRASBOURG, France European Parliament plenary session (until ...

   ... visits (until Oct. 10).



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                     September 13, 1990, Thursday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 371 words

HEADLINE:  TRINIDAD COUP  PLOTTERS FACE TRIAL

BYLINE: By Lindsay MacKoon

DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                      August 23, 1990, Thursday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 184 words

HEADLINE:  TRINIDAD COUP  HEARING DELAYED OVER SECURITY CONCERNS

DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                      August 15, 1990, Wednesday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 387 words

HEADLINE: TRIAL OF TRINIDAD MOSLEM REBELS COULD BEGIN NEXT WEEK

BYLINE: By Lindsay MacKoon

DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad

 BODY:
   ... 1 and transferred to Trinidad's state prison under heavy security.

   Caribbean nations, worried about the economic conditions that 
contributed to 
the  Trinidad coup  attempt, plan to hold a meeting to discuss ways of 
improving
regional security. Barbados Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford ...



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                        July 31, 1990, Tuesday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 496 words

HEADLINE: ANY FLIGHT WILL DO FOR THOUSANDS THRONGING TRINIDAD AIRPORT

BYLINE: By Peter Zollman

DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad

 BODY:
   Thousands of sweaty tourists and business people trying to flee the 
chaos of 
the  Trinidad coup  attempt jammed Piarco International Airport Tuesday,
jostling and shoving to get on any available flight out of the island.



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                        July 30, 1990, Monday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 96 words

HEADLINE: AGREEMENT TO END  TRINIDAD COUP  ATTEMPT BREAKS DOWN

BYLINE: By Peter Zollman

DATELINE: PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad



                             Copyright 1990 Reuters

                        July 29, 1990, Sunday, AM cycle

LENGTH: 507 words

HEADLINE: MORE THAN 300 WOUNDED IN  TRINIDAD COUP  AS TALKS BOG DOWN

BYLINE: By Peter Zollman

DATELINE: PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad

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<sigh> my second white noise message on the same thread:

rich writes:
> You should know better than to believe everything you read in
> alt.folklore.urban, even the debunking. 
> 
> There was a brief Libyan-backed coup in Trinidad & Tobago in July 1990.
> Here are a few Reuters headlines in reverse chronological order, courtesy
> of Lexis/Nexis. I also recall a couple of excellent articles in The
> Economist.
> 
> I believe that the Symantec story has at least some truth to it. 
> 
> I don't read alt.folklore.urban, so I won't post there, but someone should.

OK, Rich succeeded in irritating me with some facts ;} so I went to the
trouble of doing an Alta Vista search for "trinidad" and "supermac". I think
you will find this archived response informative:
	http://rampages.onramp.net/~mdmiller/complain.htm

Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>

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On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Futplex wrote:

> trouble of doing an Alta Vista search for "trinidad" and "supermac". I think

Speaking of Altavista, check this data for the host www.dec.com:

Export list for www.digital.com:

/udir                    server2-fddi
/www_root/.i             server2-fddi enet-gw.pa.dec.com 
mts-gw.pa.dec.com decpa
.pa.dec.com
/www_root/.h             server2-fddi enet-gw.pa.dec.com 
mts-gw.pa.dec.com decpa
.pa.dec.com
/archive                 everyone
/archive/.4              everyone
/archive/.5              everyone
/archive/.6              everyone
/archive/.7              everyone
/archive/.a              everyone
/archive/.c              everyone
/archive/.d              everyone
/archive/.e              everyone
/archive/.j              everyone
/archive/.k              everyone
/archive/contrib         everyone
/archive/contrib/src     everyone

I told them about this via e-mail almost three weeks ago when I told them 
about being able to get different host's /etc/passwd file from a search.  
But I guess that's the way they want it.  This probably isn't the 
appropriate forum, but obviously they don't care.  Does anyone know a 
better way to tell them?  Maybe I'm just paranoid.  Its just that I kind 
of feel sorry for DEC; its not easy being burdened with the worst 
marketing staff in the world, having the world's fastest RISC processor, 
and having the media go wild over the P6.

Flames welcomed.....I'm homesick and need the abuse...:)

______________________________________________________________________________
______ T E K T R O N I X _ C P I D _ T E C H N I C A L _ S U P P O R T _______
                      /
 Voice: 1.800.835.6100             E-mail: support@colorprinters.tek.com
    Fax: 1.503.685.3063                WWW: www.tek.com
     BBS: 1.503.685.4504            E-World: Keyword Tektronix
      HAL: 1.503.682.7450                AOL: Keyword Tektronix
   Service: 1.800.835.6100                FTP: ftp.tek.com
______________________________________________________________________________

Let it die...Please.

______________________________________________________________________________
______ T E K T R O N I X _ C P I D _ T E C H N I C A L _ S U P P O R T _______
                      /
 Voice: 1.800.835.6100             E-mail: support@colorprinters.tek.com
    Fax: 1.503.685.3063                WWW: www.tek.com
     BBS: 1.503.685.4504            E-World: Keyword Tektronix
      HAL: 1.503.682.7450                AOL: Keyword Tektronix
   Service: 1.800.835.6100                FTP: ftp.tek.com
______________________________________________________________________________

On Mon, 8 Jan 1996, Futplex wrote:

> > > >Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official...
> > > >from the legitimate government of Trinidad.  The fellow spoke very good
> > > >English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
> > > 
> > > >It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment.  
> [...]

God...are we going to have to endure this like we have had to endure that 
stupid good times virus e-mail crap? Let it die.  Let it die.
______________________________________________________________________________
______ T E K T R O N I X _ C P I D _ T E C H N I C A L _ S U P P O R T _______
                      /
 Voice: 1.800.835.6100             E-mail: support@colorprinters.tek.com
    Fax: 1.503.685.3063                WWW: www.tek.com
     BBS: 1.503.685.4504            E-World: Keyword Tektronix
      HAL: 1.503.682.7450                AOL: Keyword Tektronix
   Service: 1.800.835.6100                FTP: ftp.tek.com
______________________________________________________________________________