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Lu and TechFurrs - 2009-0812.1428

I know what you're thinking. How'd we get up into this office building, past the guards and dogs? We're Dark Furs, we just went Aside, poof! Whole team's here, Jenny the Cougar and me. It's my first test.

You humans just go forward and back, right and left, up and down; different speeds when ya want. And forward in time, only one speed. Just three and a half dimensions in this Universe.

There's actually twenty-three dimensions. I dunno about most of them, but Lights and Darks can also move forward and back in time, and pick the speed. And go to another Now, with a different Past, or a different Future. Even places that don't exist yet, and probably never should.

But if we do something different in the past, we move to a different back-to-now. Archie's prolly done that, gone back to beat up Lu and his Darks, but it's a different Past with a different Now, and we in this Now don't know about it.

Told you humans, you wouldn't understand Aside. It's hard to aim when you go past and future, because future changes with the now, and now changes with the past. Try hitting a moving target while you're moving around it!

OK, we're here because someone messed up an Internet router, so part of the Internet just disappeared. See, the web page text can take one thin path while the jpg images need another way wide enough for 'em.

But some dummy messed these routers up. OK, they're Cisco Systems 2500s so I know what to do. The router's just a special computer, doesn't need enough CPU power to run a Graphic User Interface. The team tried to fix the routers through the web interface, but that doesn't work either.

Most consumers think what Microsoft Windows shows them IS the computer. But what if it goes to Safe Mode or Vista stumbles? Betcha didn't know all XP home and Pro machines have a hidden hack that lets anyone who gets to the keyboard become a System Admin!

That's 'cause Windows was written in the 1980s and even though you now have cute curved corners on your app windows, and gadgets you can play with, they didn't change what really matters, security. OK, the hack's really there so us IT furs can fix it when they mess up.

The team furs are really just Script Kiddies. They don't really know how to hack, they just go to hacker dot com and copy what someone else figgered out. They usually just run port scans, trying all possible ways in until they find one open.

It usually works, because the System Admins aren't bright enough to know where the holes are. They're actually quite obvious, because Windows was written when just talking to another computer was revolutionary, and it could assume everyone was honest. You know what they say about what 'assume' means ...

*

I know what you're thinking, you're not reading this to be insulted. But most consumers don't wanna know what's under the hourglass cursor. I really don't understand why people are so scared of Command Line Interfaces. After all, you're reading words now, not pointing to icons. That's all a CLI is, words. Only two-year-olds need to point to things!

Cisco routers use CLI. So they've got built-in security, not everyone knows how to use 'em. The Script Kiddies get stopped dead, no mouse, not even a display! But I know CLIs and I know routers use memory that stays even when the power's off to hold programming to load into working memory.

So first fix, shut the power down! I've run a help desk, and you'd be surprised how many calls I get from people who are actually appalled I say turn the damn thing off! It could have been a smaller problem, but just reboot the damn thing clears almost every problem. Unless the computer doesn't work because the person doesn't remember when he saved a document.

There's even people who get confused when I ask when they saved last! They say 'save? what's that? doesn't the app do that by itself?' The answer's a resounding NO! You're not one of those furs, are ya?

OK router off and on. It reloads, bingo! It starts working, and talks to the previous one. Figgers out what it needs, and that it can't talk to the next. Try that one, off and on. But it still won't work. OK get the test/hack laptop, connect as a control console.

I could tell you how, and what plug to use, but you're already gettin bored. So I use the text-based terminal program, the router says hi, and asks for a password. The Script Kiddies would run a program that tries all possible passwords till they find it. But that's really stupid! Who cares what the password is?

I just turn the router off and on again. But I tell the laptop to send a Break signal. The router responds with a rommon> prompt and I do the hack that lets me skip over the damn password! I don't need to find it or care what it was! I just make a new one I know, CiscoC, and tell the router to reload. Bingo! I get in with the password I just made up!

That's real hacking, Kiddies!

*

So I'm in, and I see the router needs to know which plugs it's got and which traffic to send out which one. An internet router is just a traffic cop. The router looks at each envelope with a message, looks at the From: and To: addresses, and stops ones from people it's told to, like known spammers. Don't clog up the internet!

I won't bore you with IPv4 addresses and how to interpret them. The router keeps tabs on where to send the message, another says yeah I can get it where you want. But here's the kicker. *The router believes whatever it's told, even when it's wrong!* The dumb machine just lets traffic die, and you just get a 'The Web Site Is Not Responding' message.

That's why the browser gives you hints like 'maybe you're not connected to the internet' which it should already know! Every router sends back an echo if you ask, saying it got the message; your browser should know it's connected through the ISP to the internet!

You can't do anything if the web site's computer is really busy, but you can see that it got sent the message. So the browser should be a lot more helpful. But programmers aren't that bright, for some reason.

OK, the routing table's messed up. Someone purposely stuck in wrong information, and the dumb router believes it, so traffic goes... lesse a specific address. That means when you try to log into Fur Nation, you type your email and password. But now it doesn't go to FurNation, it goes to someone who... can now log in as you and mess up whatever he feels like, and FN doesn't know the difference!

No web site knows who's signing on, just it's the right password for the email it's given. So that's what's been going on, why traffic hasn't been getting through, why part of the internet's disappeared! And I tried tracing the other routes, they're messed up too, going to a similar hacker address!

So fix it. Delete all the routes, one by one, to other networks. Keep the one between this company's routers. And between its computers. Then wait a minute and a half for the route update, that's three question-and-answer periods. The others make sure this router isn't just busy.

How do you twiddle your paws? When I was human I had normal fingers but now they're short. I see Jenny the yummy Cougar. Time for a break, because I've passed the first and second router tests. Now Jenny has to pass the Fox Test!

Who says tech-heads can't get any?!

*

Later ...

I know what you're thinking: get out of the Cougar's lap, get a room. I'm a Fox, Jenny's a Cougar, bigger than me. She's also a higher Dark and I'm her entertainment.

OK, I know a bit about Information Technology, I told Lu that way back in the hospital. He worked with it, got me in college courses, and spotty job history. Old programming languages, and tech school. Hey, someone actually does research on ocean waves and water-air mixing, and uses FORTRAN for the math!

Now I'm paying Lu for Raising me, helping Jenny with IT tech stuff. Remember how I got the internet routers working? I can do something similar in a company's private network. Tech again, you can sigh. But believe me, what I told you was just skimming the surface of what tech furs deal with.

We also work out addressing rules. Don't care? OK, but remember you use snail mail addresses. You don't get to make them up, your country's postal service does. IT furs have to do what the government agency does! Or again, you get to sign up for email, make up a screen name; but can't use someone else's name or change the dot whatever. I make up the ISP name and domain, I hafta make it work.

Hey furries, ever try kevfox.t35 ? Remember, type that in the address bar, FORGET THE DAMN MOUSE! Just type Ctrl-Enter, you get http://www.kevfox.t35.com/ and GO. It's like looking up a country code and going to their phone directory to look up a number by name. The internet's Domain Naming System works the same way. The browser looks up who to ask for the Top Level Domain com, asks them, finds out who keeps the 'com' phone book, asks them for t35, then asks t35 for the web server handling kevfox. The browser gets the IPv4 number, plugs it in, and gets a web page.

Try it now, I'll wait... OK, whaddya think? Don't like the dirty words in Kevin? Try Jake or CatGirl. OK, shameless plug for my own silly amateur writing. How about the company I made up, Biological Synthetics? Or the fake website BioSyn.cq in a fake TLD?

Or am I just prattling on, getting further off topic?