unforum

[lauriek]

I managed to get through again, I asked about the planned upgrade to buldings maintenance on the 14th September. The tech support guy is pretty good at winging it but I gather from his response that that is a red herring at the moment, he said I should contact 'sarah jones' for more info on that (and I'm 99% sure he made up sarah jones as he said it! He also said as I couldn't contact her without a key I was stuffed. He mentioned that a lot of keys seem to have broken today. I said I'd heard there was some strange electromagnetic activity which was probably the cause!

[pentasyllabic]

I've tried the line several times, but only ever reached the answerphone message.

I was thinking that possibly this

[quote]
20th August 268:
The Disaster Maintenance system is due for a scheduled upgrade on November 2nd, 268. Please contact technical support for more information.[/quote]

is the information we should be focussing on. Like asking for an overview of the work to be carried out, and then if there would be need for a temp. access code whilst work was carried out + can we have one please. etc. etc.

[lauriek]

How did you know they're extending the lines 20 minutes, did the technical support chap tell you?

Perhaps we need to say yes we've spoken to alex and he's given us form t980, the code is

and we need to try 250 through 258. I've been trying but I can't get through Im never going to be able to test more than one or two numbers...

[Enigmaster]

Tried the honest route - failed:

Tech-guy: Ascendancy Point, how may I help you?

Me: Look, I'm going to be really honest here, I'm from Earth and Sente has given me explicit instructions to follow any leads we see fit, so if yo-

Tech-guy: NO, I'm sorry, but until I get direct verification From Mr. Kiteway himself, there is nothing I can do for any of you. I'm only supposed to deal with employees, so please go away. -hangs up-

Me: -to myself- Nice move, Einstein...

In all fairness though, it was right at the end, and if I was answering calls from over insistent 'employees' for two hours I'd be pretty pissed off too.

[braincoffee.com]

yep the tech support chap said they were.

stay awake,

m

[zoombini]

Pineapple finally got through while posing as the advisor - we're going to have access to air conditioning debugging within 48 hours.


Of course we know that data leaks to air conditioning occur during maintanance times . .


and we should be able to find those out by the heat logs . . .

[PuzzledPineapple]

Just about to have dinner, need to go, but I will give you the full details (or as close as I can remember) later.

[lauriek]

Well done! I managed to get through twice and got no-where at all! I suck!

I look forward to hearing how you managed to get round him!!

[neuromancer]

I got pretty far, then dropped at the last minute.

...

Me: Hi, I'm having some trouble with my account, I've already contacted alex mitchel and filled in form t980.

Guy: OK, can you tell me your code please?

Me: Sure, its 254. My username is theadvisor.

Guy: You know you're the 2nd person to call using the account the advisor, I might be able to help you, but I'm not sure, I need to talk to my supervisor.

Call is then cut off.

Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the advisor. I tried after this but couldn't get through. I guess they blocked my number from calling too much!!! lol

edit:

I didn't see zoombini's post. Well done puzzledpineaple. Let's hope something good comes of this.

[JamesDart]

Is our time up? I really wanted to call and give them 257 as the code. I never got the chance to actually talk to anyone. Seems like if we didn't get the info we needed they will set up another time when we can call.

[Crane]

*sigh*

We're just a bunch of puzzle-solving dilettantes... How can we ever figure it out?

[perplexed]

i practically hung up on him he was like blah blah blah, key blah blah etc,, an im like: what about via the internet? guy: whats the internet? *perplexed realises this is gonna be a long pointless convo, me: um a semi-earth thing, guy: EARTH!?, *perplexed realises he has well and truly blown it , me: well um... thanx-for-your-help-bye *hangs up phone*

[PuzzledPineapple]

I warn you, my memory is rubbish, and I think my friend is fed up with me spending time on the internet when I should be talking to her, but that's life.

The first conversation is posted above.

The second conversation started off with me saying that I'd called earlier and that I had heard from some of my colleagues that other people were logging into my account and that I was worried about this. He said that he'd had a lot of weird phone calls about my account and asked me what I wanted him to do. I did a little indignant act and made sure he wasn't giving out my details. I mentioned that my account was behaving oddly and asked if he could give me back access to what I needed. It all got a bit complicated, and I don't think either of us was actually responding to what the other was saying but the gist of it was that he could set me up with some systems that I needed on an emergency basis, he couldn't give me complete access, and then I got cut off. This is possibly due to my habit of walking about when I'm on the phone.

The third conversation started with me identifying myself, saying I had got cut off, and the conversation kind of picked up again. I said I just had to leaf through my work to find out what was most urgent to stall for time, asked the other guys on irc and got cut off again.

Anyone on irc probably noticed that I was a little panicked at this point as it was seven o'clock. Called a couple of times but couldn't get through. When I did, I identified myself and he mentioned that someone else had called and pretended to be me (neuromancer, I guess, from the time, although is there anyone who didn't pretend to be the Advisor?). I acted shocked in the same way for the five hundredth time, he said that he had better only talk to me about it. I thanked him and started asking about what systems he could give me. I asked for key sensors, but he said that was too high access and he couldn't do that, and then started throwing information at me to try and get me to guess what system. He said the advisor was working on air conditioning and that he could give me that. Then I got the standard lecture about keeping my details safe and not letting anyone use my account, I sounded flustered and said that I was wondering if someone had got into my key. So he said he would give me the access in 48 hours and that it was only a test system, as I presumably knew, and that I wouldn't have full access, just access for debugging, but since that was what I was working on, it would be fine. I thanked him very much and apologised for all the trouble they had had with my account, and he was saying how I should keep my password safe, how it was silly that some people used the name of favourite places, forests etc (sorry I didn't mention that on irc, I forgot, but any guesses as to the picnic place?) and how he was glad to be going home after a long day of weird calls (he was very glad that he didn't have to take any more calls from daft people like me). I thanked him again and he hung up.

I get the feeling that they were fed up of an hour and a half of calls and were just jumping on any opportunity to give anyone the information we needed. I can honestly say I don't know anything about these codes (where did the code idea come from anyway, I'm very confused, but that's normal), and whether we were ever supposed to give one, but we sould get that access soon. If we don't, then I'll call up my nice friendly guy at tech support and see why!

[neuromancer]

[robotnik2200]

I don't understand... isn't this a bit like hacking, but with people? i remember hearing about a guy called kevin mitnick who used to get passwords and access just by calling up tech support and making up a story, pretending to have talked to supervisors and managers? i think it's called social engineering.

So maybe the thing to do was to just pretend you've spoken to alex or rajiv, or pretend you were really busy and had talked to his supervisors and would get the tech support guy in trouble if he didn't activate it? still, i wasn't around for the chat so i don't know exactly what happened. but it sounds like that's people ended up doing, so it's all fine.