I don't know if you've

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I don't know if you've ever tried to cancel an AOL account before, but it's a pain. They have uber-scripts for their service people for every possible situation, to try to entice you to stay. I no longer needed the one I'd been using for travel, so I called up to cancel today, and I was dreading the 20 questions game already. So, I devised a scheme to get me off the phone quickly, without being a total jerk to the customer service slave, I figured there had to be some scenario in their scripts that didn't lead to suggesting another level of service or pointing out a way they could continue to bill you for something: Him: Why would you like to cancel your account? Me: Uh, I sold my computer, and I'm not getting another one. Him: So...you just sold your computer, and you're not going to go online? Me: I'm also moving to Europe. Him: You're moving to Europe? Me: Umm, yep, that's it, I'm moving to Europe.

Only took me 3 minutes to cancel my account, that's a record.

Oh, and I didn't sell my computer, and I'm not moving to Europe.

In case anyone is wondering

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In case anyone is wondering what became of the student from yesterday's tale, he's still employed. Barely. Here's what Tom sent him, and his reply:

[Student], We have a problem. Because of the free space problems on the server, Seth did a report on which users were using the most disk space and found that you were sharing 2GB from your web folder. Unfortunately, not only were you eating up a ton of space, it was with game demos and/or pirated games. Either way, sharing it to the world via the g:\web "FTP" folder was not cool.

Moreover, as Seth was looking at your web folder, which is freely viewable by anyone, he noticed pictures of him, me, [Professor 1] and [Professor 2]. Not knowing at first what reason you'd have those pictures in there, he then noticed the hotornot.txt. Sure enough, he put 2+2 together and found the links to our pictures on the hotornot.com site.

Seth hasn't notified [Professor 1] or [Professor 2] about the links yet, although he might. One thing for sure, you definitely got our attention. Here's what Seth posted on his blog page: http://www.sethb.com/weblog/

Comments?

- Tom

The student replied with this:

Tom,

this is a very, very embarrassing moment. i apologize and i didn't think i was causing harm with the hotornot.com thing. i just found all the pictures of csbs staff on the internet, and only for my silly amusement, i posted the pictures on hotornot.com. as for the sharing of the files, i was not aware that i had pirated games shared, but i remember i put command & conquer generals on the network (i didn't know it was pirated because it was on the lab attendent's station, i didn't put it there, i just assumed everything with it was fine). i wanted to see if i could play other people across the lab in case finals week was going to be dead. but my experiment didn't work and i foolishly forgot to delete the program from the shared folder. i never felt any of these were mean-spirited or had any intention of commiting wrong acts. if they were to be meant that way, i would have been a lot more careful about keeping them. i'm sorry for the problems i've caused you guys this summer, i had no idea any of this would be an issue or blow up like it has. i read seth's website, kinda funny, tell him i'm sorry too. if you want to tell the other professors from the hotornot site about it, that's fine. i apologize to them too. anyone i used was either a professor of mine or i had personal contact with them such as you, seth, and [Professor 1]. some friends and i used to do the same thing in the past and looked at it as a practical joke that was only for my amusement, not a rip into the staff as i see it's been taken. if you think that these are enough to fire me then i will have to take it, but i'm not resigning because none of this was meant to be taken this way. again, i'm sorry for all of the crap that you guys went through on this. i never had any negative feelings towards any of you guys, and i won't have any no matter what you decide is my fate. thanks tom, and i'm sorry.

[Student]

How to get the negative

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How to get the negative attention of your sysadmins, in 6 easy steps: 1. Chew up 2GB of space on the volume for user data on the server, so that the admin starts wondering where it went. 2. Make sure that you used pirated copies of computer games to chew up such data, so that it's obviously not legitimate course material or anything. 3. Put your pirated games in your "web" folder that's readable by everyone, to ensure that you've turned the university's server into your own personal Warez site. 4. In the same folder, have a few .jpg files starting with the sysadmins' names, as well as a few faculty, so it's sure to draw their attention when they find the folder. 5. Also have a text file in there called hotornot.txt with usernames and passwords to http://www.hotornot.com/ listing all the bogus accounts you created in the names of faculty and the sysadmins. 6. Sit back and wait to be noticed.

Some people just aren't smart. I'm planning my retaliation now, if you'd care to vote on my apparent hotornot site, it's here. And here is my co-worker Tom's. As this student is employed in our computer lab, I'd say that their prospects for continued employment just dropped considerably. But, since Tom is the one in charge of the labs, it's up to him. :)