Comment by thyrsus
6 years ago
I've had enough years to become wiser, become a fanatic for configuration management, and get over the embarrassment: I'm the consultant that screwed things up. Some background: the Stat department was running a variety of systems besides the Solaris workstations, and there was, within UNC-CH, a separate support organization that was cheaper and more comfortable with Microsoft products where Stat was sending their support dollars. When that organization needed Unix support, they called my employer, Network Computing Solutions, and I showed up.
There was effectively no firewall at UNC-CH at the time (something something academic freedom something something), and the Stat Solaris machines were not being regularly patched. Uninvited guests had infested them, and it appeared the most likely entry point was sendmail - at the time, it was the most notorious vulnerability on the internet. Since my preference to wipe and reload was unacceptable - too much downtime and too many billable hours - the obvious thing to do was update sendmail. The rest is history.
Can I get your autograph? The 500 mile email story has been a story since I was a teenager.
Thank you for the comment. It was delightful to hear your take on the (mildly apocryphal, but highly enjoyable) tale.
How about a joint autograph from both the protagonist—Trey Harris, and the antagonist—the consultant to the Stats department :) ?
Trey Harris also on HN [0].
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TreyHarris
Yes. Seriously... I’m willing to pay for the shipping and everything. I’ve told this story countless times to people over the years. This and the “OpenOffice can’t print on Tuesday” bug are two of my favourite troubleshooting stories.
7 replies →
We need a video of you both discussing this tale. It has become part of our culture.
This is absolutely one of the key formative stories that helped me to think about systems at light speed scales.
I'm currently at the very early stages of building a science museum and will eventually try to incorporate this story into an exhibit about light speed. This along with "Nanoseconds", foot long pieces of wire like what Grace Hopper handed out, can truly help to bring this topic to life.
I'm also attempting to use this as the basis for a blockchain based "proof of proximity" in which a very high number of round trip encryptions of the previous blocks hash are stored in a bitcoin block. The number of round trips would be high enough that devices even a few hundred feet apart couldn't complete the task before the next block.
I actually don't understand the last part of the OP story - can someone explain it?
The sending mail server was configured with a zero timeout for connections. If it didn't IMMEDIATELY get a response from the destination mail server it would fail. This immediate failure took 3 milliseconds, a long enough time that some servers could actually respond back before that happened... but if the server was too far away (more than 500 miles) the connection would fail before the first packet could even get there due to the finite speed of light.
2 replies →
I read this story years ago and thought it was hilarious. Could've happened to anyone. In my book you're a near-celebrity and it's great that you can verify the story! Thanks for making things a little more interesting and a lot more fun :)
I’ve read this story many times, it’s hilarious (and could happen to anyone). Thanks for filling in that background - HN is so great for these kind of moments!
This should be added as an appendix to the original story. The original has been a favorite of mine for years and I love the addition.
> and get over the embarrassment
It's not that bad, these things happen.
It makes an interesting story though