Web Site Glitch Leads to Online Duel of Words
By Jim Stafford, The Daily Oklahoman
Mar. 29–In the movie “The Shaggy Dog,” when the soon-to-be canine Tim Allen sensed the presence of an intruder in his front yard, he rushed out the door barking, “My yard! My yard! My yard!”
The neighbor’s bulldog ran off in terror.
Life sometimes imitates art, as they say. It did last week when Tuttle City Manager Jerry Taylor emulated Tim Allen’s vicious attack dog act. Taylor sensed an intruder on the city’s Web page when its office computers could no longer access the site.
Instead of logging onto the city’s Web site, the office computers revealed only an advisory page from the Community ENTerprise Operating System — CentOS — organization.
No one around city hall had ever seen the page or was aware of CentOS, which is an open source, Linux-based operating system. It is the software that operates the servers used to host the city’s Web site — www.cityoftuttle.org.
So, Taylor rushed into his virtual front yard hoping to scare away the intruder with a vicious e-mail.
“Who gave you permission to invade my Web site and block me and anyone else from accessing it???” Taylor demanded in his opening salvo fired off to the CentOS contact address.
“Please remove your software immediately before I report it to government officials!! I am the City Manager of Tuttle, Oklahoma.”
CentOS developer Johnny Hughes replied with a biting comment of his own — “I feel sorry for your city” — and a two-day e-mail exchange full of threats and vitriol ensued. Some highlights:
Taylor: “Get this Web site off my home page!!!!! It is blocking access to my Web site!!!!â!”
Hughes: “It is not a Web site … it is an operating system.”
Taylor: “I do not want this software!!!! This is the City of Tuttle, Oklahoma. Get rid of this software!!!!! Second notice!”
Taylor: “Unless this software is removed I will file a complaint with the FBI.”
Hughes: “CentOS is not spyware, it is not spam. It does not take over Web sites. If you will not let me help you, find someone who is computer literate and has heard of Linux to look at your problem. I am trying very, very hard to save you from great embarrassment.”
The exchange climaxed with another threat to call in the FBI.
“Stop with the FBI already,” Hughes said. He provided a step-by-step explanation of the problem and how it could be corrected.
Finally, Taylor contacted the company that hosted the city’s Web site on its servers. Apparently, some work on a server resulted in a misconfiguration that triggered the CentOS message page.
The problem was resolved.
However, the ill will created by Taylor’s accusations had spilled over onto a much wider audience. Hughes posted the entire exchange on a CentOS message board, and the whole World Wide Web picked up on the fight.
Taylor was inundated with phone calls and e-mail messages, many of them mocking and profane.
“The guy is having a lot fun with it. He put it out on the registry, I guess,” Taylor said Monday afternoon. “I’ve gotten about 500 e-mails with it, all kinds of obscene (stuff), so you know the level of person who is responding.”
Taylor said he had no regrets about his attack-dog mode against the CentOs organization.
“I was frustrated because I couldn’t get any help,” he said. “The guy kept telling me to get an IT person. I don’t know how to break this loop without threatening him with the FBI because this is not getting anywhere.”
My yard! My yard! My yard!
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