[rescue] Pathetic TV shows and computers?

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

So I am watching AliAs or however they spell it on TV, while playing
Scrabble.

They have the lamest tech people on that show.

In one shot, a sysadmin is watching a "Packet Loss Analysis" graph, and
when it spikes up, he screams that "there is a worm loose" and "we need
to shut down our net connection right now!".

So, instead of telnetting into the Cisco router and shutting down the
interface, he RUNS to the computer room, and throws this huge power
switch thing, you know the double-bar ones that they use when they first
turn on Frankenstein.  Then it shows on the monitor screen "Internet
connection disconnected" or something like that.

For one, you wouldn't examine a packet loss analysis graph to determine
that you had an intruder, and you couldn't determine that it was a worm
either.  Next, you would just unplug the ethernet cable going into your
switch.  

Second, they are talking about encryption and how they haven't been able
to decrypt these bad guy's messages.  

Well, by the end of the show we find out that he has been using "DNA" to
serve as the encryption source and that is why they weren't able to
crack it.  Like, the guy couldn't figure out how to use something else
(like radio emissions from space, random keyboard strokes, etc) as an
entropy source, so he buys a gene sequencer (I guess at Kmart?).

Pathetic....

Sorry, just had to vent here.

Cordially

Patrick Giagnocavo
patrick at zill.net