Topic: How not to get tech support - threaten to call FBI

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

Who gave you permission to invade my website and block me and anyone else from accessing it???," Taylor wrote to CentOS. "Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!! I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma."

"Unless this software is removed I will file a complaint with the FBI," Taylor replied.

What brought this on?

Taylor had popped onto the city's web site and found the standard Apache server configuration boilerplate that appears with a new web server installation. Taylor seemed to confuse this with a potential hack attack on the bustling town's IT infrastructure.

After a few more exciting exchanges, CentOS managed to track down the problem for Taylor. It turns out that hosting provider Vidia Communications is running CentOS on some of its servers and had not configured the Tuttle web site properly. CentOS informed Taylor of the situation, and, a day later, Taylor had calmed down.

Time for someone to be removed from a postion of public authority they are clearly not tempermentally suited to hold I would think.

[Overmind]

Nice situation.
The stupidity of some has no limits...

[Sirgod]

Well he is from Tuttle.

Stephen

[Just plain old Punisher]

Is this teh interwebs?!

[Darth Sidious]

Is this teh interwebs?!

You called?

[Nemesis]

For anyone who may still be interested:

Link to CentOS page with full text of E-Mail exchange

Link to information page Taylor would have seen

Text of first message from Taylor:

Who gave you permission to invade my website and block me and anyone else from accessing it???
Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!!
I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma.

Text of first response to Taylor

I feel sorry for your city.

CentOS is an operating system. It is probably installed on the computer
that runs your website.

We hope you are happy with it, since we produced it for free and you are
able to use it without paying us ... and are even threatening to have us
arrested for providing to you free of charge.

Please contact someone who does IT for you and show them the page so
that they can configure your apache webserver correctly.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes,
CentOS 4 Lead Developer

Link to Tuttle Times version of the story:

Quote from said story:

“I am sorry that we had to go through the process and accusations to get the problem resolved,” Taylor wrote in his final e-mail to Hughes. “It could have been resolved a lot quicker if the initial correspondence with you provided the helpful information that was transmitted in the last messages.”

Hughes apparently felt that the apology wasn’t enough to make up for the accusations and FBI threats for a problem he didn’t cause and really had no obligation to fix, and he posted the entire e-mail exchange on the CentOS website on Friday. That day, the first e-mails started coming in to the Tuttle Times, to Mayor Lonnie Paxton, and to Taylor. As more and more people read the exchange, the more people grew interested.

So he starts off with a threat to an party who is not involved with the problem and it is the fault of the threatened party that things were not resolved faster?  I also don't see where he actually apologized, do you?

The City Motto: The place where people grow - Friendly.

I'd say that Taylor has a lot of growing to do.

[Strat]

And the Idiot city manager still thinks he was right in his attitude and responses.

How coulda 'friendly' city be managed by such a 'jerk'.