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tale of woe
``` [I thought this was funny.]
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Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:54:01 -0700 (PDT) From: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: RISKS DIGEST 19.68
RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Thursday 16 April 1998 Volume 19 : Issue 68
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Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 10:14:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Cohen
I just had an amazing conversation with Hewlett Packard's support services.
My HP200 lost it's mind this morning and corrupted the content of it's RAM disk. I was able to reboot the computer and get a copy of the data onto a PCMCIA memory card and put it onto other computers at my site. The next step was to try to recover the content, so naturally, I called HP's support line.
They told me that the palmtop computers they were selling only a few months ago used formats for their calendar and quicken databases that they did not know how to read. They claimed that they went directly to their own engineers who had designed the products and that these folks did not know what the data formats were - even for their own proprietary file formats!
I guess it's the end of an era when a company with a long reputation for high quality and reliability doesn't even know how their own products work.
I guess I'll just have to hack their software to get my data back.
[Added later:]
So I tried to call Intuit to get technical support for data recovery from corrupt pocket quicken data files, and wouldn't you know...
The Intuit Web page refers you to HP for support of the HP-based quicken products, but as we already know, HP doesn't know the format information required for file recovery. So next I tried the number for Intuit's corporate headquarters as posted on their Web page - 1-800-446-8848
But lo and behold, the area code for the area I live in recently changed from 510 to 925, so apparently the phone switch at quicken decided I was calling from Canada. Instead of technical support, I got a new telephone number to call that was toll-free from Canada - but of course it doesn't work from the United States.
Next I tried the operator (not the quicken operator - no such option on their answering machine and buttins like 0 don't work) and got a number in Mountain View for the real Quicken headquarters - which I called. Naturally, I finally did get an operator - and I found out that there is a number for quicken technical people - it's 520-618-7292 - but the operator told me that it wouldn't help to have the number today (Thursday) since all the employees were having a party today to celebrate that 15th anniversary of the founding of the company. I tried anyway and got a fast busy signal.
So my denial of service was caused by:
A human design failure in my willingness to trust a computer with my upcoming appointments.
A hardware failure in a palmtop computer.
A software failure in the inability to read the hardware-corrupted files.
A business failure by HP not having the necessary information on their own products.
An information failure in the Intuit Web page not leading you to technical support that knows the answer to your questions.
An infrastructure failure in the telephone system deciding I am from Canada.
A business model failure in my expectation that during normal business hours a company that is supposed to be a major player in a financial industry would be available to support their products. AND A support failure in that they were not available to support their product.
The probability of all of this set of events must be astronomically small by the calculations of any competent risk analysis system, but that just goes to show you - tightly coupled systems with interdependencies... yada yada yada
As a postscript, by now I have recovered most of my data -- using an old fashioned text editor and the normal tools available from Unix. Under DOS or Windows there was no hope.
Fred Cohen & Associates: http://all.net - fc@all.net - tel/fax:510-454-0171
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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 19.68
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