From: Shri <skc@huge.net.hk>
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 1996 01:51:10 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: [Fwd: Re: ABOI: Desperate User Support]
Message-ID: <30F17C73.4765@huge.net.hk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Seen on Alt.best.of.internet. Would love to find out if this is 
true! 

Shri

> >     Origination: alt.sysadmin.recovery
> >      Originator: jerry@worf.tcs.com (Jerry Carlin)
> >Original Subject: support call - urban legand or fact?
> >            Date: 27 Jul 1995 16:44:18 -0700
> >... (many forwards deleted)...
> 
> >This falls into the "Why did it have to happen on *MY* shift?" category.
> 
> >A friend of mine is a chief engineer at SuperMac, and he related this
> >story to me.
> 
> >SuperMac records a certain number of technical support calls at random,
> >to keep tabs on customer satisfaction.  By wild "luck", they managed to
> >catch the following conversation on tape.
> 
> >Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official...
> >from the legitimate government of Trinidad.  The fellow spoke very good
> >English, and fairly calmly described the problem.
> 
> >It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment.  However,
> >the national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the
> >Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door
> >to the armoury.  Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the
> >Chief of the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to
> >the lock, and they had already been killed.
> 
> >So, this officer of the government of Trinidad continued, the problem is
> >this.  The combination to the lock is stored in a file on the Macintosh,
> >but the file has been encrypted with the SuperMac product called Sentinel.
> >Was there any chance, he asked, that there was a "back door" to the
> >application, so they could get the combination, open the armoury door,
> >and defend the Capitol Building and the legitimately elected government
> >of Trinidad against the insurgents?
> 
> >All the while he is asking this in a very calm voice, there is the sound
> >of gunfire in the background. The Technical Support guy put the person on
> >hold. A phone call to the phone company verified that the origin of the
> >call was in fact Trinidad.  Meanwhile, there was this mad scramble to see
> >if anybody knew of any "back doors" in the Sentinel program.
> 
> >As it turned out, Sentinel uses DES to encrypt the files, and there was
> >no known back door.  The Tech Support fellow told the customer that aside
> >from trying to guess the password, there was no way through Sentinel, and
> >that they'd be better off trying to physically destroy the lock.
> 
> >The official was very polite, thanked him for the effort, and hung up.
> >That night, the legitimate government of Trinidad fell.  One of the BBC
> >reporters mentioned that the casualties seemed heaviest in the capitol,
> >where for some reason, there seemed to be little return fire from the
> >government forces.
> 
> >O.K., so they shouldn't have kept the combination in so precarious a
> >fashion. But it does place, "I can't see my Microsoft Mail server"
> >complaints in a different sort of perspective, does it not?