Hydane left a few minutes later after they had exchanged all sorts of bits of internal information that an employee of Crow's ranking at International Robotics was privy to. Passwords, IP addresses, firewall settings. International Robotics had grown up so quickly that Crow remembered each iteration of development of their infrastructure, cobbling one bit on top of the previous with newer and better hardware, but without a master concept to make it tie smoothly together. The result was something that stayed up as a function of luck more than design. Backups were the Achilles heel of the entire operation, relying on manual and undocumented processes that only Crow and a few select administrators knew in their entirety.
"What are the chances that they are changing passwords to make it impossible for this to happen?" Hydane had asked.
"Just about zero." Crow said. "You've got to understand, most of those passwords haven't changed in a decade, despite a couple ugly firings along the way. It's badly run that way."
Hydane looked puzzled. "I thought you were the one in charge of these things."
"Well yeah." Crow said. "I knew stuff wasn't up to par, but I had too much else to do to care too much about it. When you're riding the tidal wave of exponential growth, you tend to let the infrastructure stuff slide."
International Robotics maintained servers at two colocation facilities, both within the immediate area. Backups were made over a dedicated bundle of dark fiber straight from the server cabinets to the corporate headquarters. The basement housed all of the goodies. Other than those three locations, the only off-premises backup was an array of tape drives in the Sunnyvale basement of the Director of Operations.
"Why him?" Hydane had asked.
Crow laughed. "Because when we originally set up that whole process, he was the only one who had trunk big enough to fit the array. About once per month he brings that in and then takes home an identical unit with updated data."
Hydane hesitated about some of the details but downright disbelieved this final bit about the Director's basement. "I cannot believe that such a company exists."
"Ever been a consultant?" Crow asked. "You work hourly for absurd wages to fix problems of people that don't understand technology at all. It's a comedy of the absurd at some of these places, it'd probably make you cry." He nodded down to the dug out. "Some of those sentis could run technology better than most of the businesses I've been in, but then so could most of those five-year olds." Crow shook his head. "Something happens when most people become adults. They forget how to think. If something isn't part of their same old rut, they just let it go to hell because it's too much work to learn something new."
Hydane shook Crow's hand and assured him that he would arrange for the operation to go down tonight.
"That soon?" Crow asked.
"Action should closely follow any decision." Hydane said. "Otherwise circumstances seem to change to color both the decision and the chance of the action's success."
Crow nodded and turned back to the game. Alexander was coming up to bat again. Hydane tapped his shoulder.
"One more thing." Hydane said. "Have an alibi for tonight. One that places you away from any computers."
"What are the chances that they are changing passwords to make it impossible for this to happen?" Hydane had asked.
"Just about zero." Crow said. "You've got to understand, most of those passwords haven't changed in a decade, despite a couple ugly firings along the way. It's badly run that way."
Hydane looked puzzled. "I thought you were the one in charge of these things."
"Well yeah." Crow said. "I knew stuff wasn't up to par, but I had too much else to do to care too much about it. When you're riding the tidal wave of exponential growth, you tend to let the infrastructure stuff slide."
International Robotics maintained servers at two colocation facilities, both within the immediate area. Backups were made over a dedicated bundle of dark fiber straight from the server cabinets to the corporate headquarters. The basement housed all of the goodies. Other than those three locations, the only off-premises backup was an array of tape drives in the Sunnyvale basement of the Director of Operations.
"Why him?" Hydane had asked.
Crow laughed. "Because when we originally set up that whole process, he was the only one who had trunk big enough to fit the array. About once per month he brings that in and then takes home an identical unit with updated data."
Hydane hesitated about some of the details but downright disbelieved this final bit about the Director's basement. "I cannot believe that such a company exists."
"Ever been a consultant?" Crow asked. "You work hourly for absurd wages to fix problems of people that don't understand technology at all. It's a comedy of the absurd at some of these places, it'd probably make you cry." He nodded down to the dug out. "Some of those sentis could run technology better than most of the businesses I've been in, but then so could most of those five-year olds." Crow shook his head. "Something happens when most people become adults. They forget how to think. If something isn't part of their same old rut, they just let it go to hell because it's too much work to learn something new."
Hydane shook Crow's hand and assured him that he would arrange for the operation to go down tonight.
"That soon?" Crow asked.
"Action should closely follow any decision." Hydane said. "Otherwise circumstances seem to change to color both the decision and the chance of the action's success."
Crow nodded and turned back to the game. Alexander was coming up to bat again. Hydane tapped his shoulder.
"One more thing." Hydane said. "Have an alibi for tonight. One that places you away from any computers."
Leave a comment