Technical knowledege fail



  • A few weeks ago, my wgets started failing, so I submitted an incident to IT to try and get wget pushed through the firewall. Here's the text of the incident: (note how I pasted the command and the error)



    just recently my wgets have started failing. firewall issue?
    wget -P . 'http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/read_more-7.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz'
    --2011-11-11 11:46:05-- (try: 2) http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/read_more-7.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz
    Connecting to ftp.drupal.org (ftp.drupal.org)|140.211.166.134|:80... connected.
    HTTP request sent, awaiting response... Read error (Connection reset by peer) in headers.
    Retrying.


    So a few days later, someone from IT (happens to be the CTO) comes to my desk to help me with my issue. The first words out of his mouth are: "So, which widgets are you having troubles with?"

    wtf?! face palm! This is not getting resolved quickly is it?



    [Mod - adjusted formatting - PJH]



  • Since they seem totally clueless, first try

      -d,  --debug               print lots of debugging information.

    to determine why the firewall is screwing you. Then, either set the http_proxy as an env var, or use

      -U,  --user-agent=AGENT      identify as AGENT instead of Wget/VERSION.

    to fool the firewall. Once you figure out the work-around, you can set http_proxy and/or user_agent in your .wgetrc.


  • :belt_onion:

    I'd be surprised if the firewall was blocking based on user agent. At my old workplace, we had a few problems like this caused by our SonicWALL firewall; it was always something to do with its gateway antivirus service. Usually the remote IP would have to be exempted or blocking encrypted files would have to be toggled.



  • @heterodox said:

    I'd be surprised if the firewall was blocking based on user agent. At my old workplace, we had a few problems like this caused by our SonicWALL firewall; it was always something to do with its gateway antivirus service. Usually the remote IP would have to be exempted or blocking encrypted files would have to be toggled.
     

    Not so much AV, I think you mean blocking HTTP 1.1 Range Requests. This tactic seems to be employed by malware downloading payload from remote sites so it is blocked by Sonicwall. Royal PITA with BITS and large HTTP downloads.


  • :belt_onion:

    @badcaseofspace said:

    Not so much AV, I think you mean blocking HTTP 1.1 Range Requests. This tactic seems to be employed by malware downloading payload from remote sites so it is blocked by Sonicwall. Royal PITA with BITS and large HTTP downloads.
     

    It was most certainly the Gateway Antivirus Service. Now, as to why that service was blocking certain downloads, you may be correct, though toggling download of password-protected ZIP files seemed to solve most problems. (I think its heuristics are a bit dodgy.)

     



  • @pandaPowder said:

    The first words out of his mouth are: "So, which widgets are you having troubles with?"

    wtf?! face palm!

     

     

    If I was being charitable maybe I'd assume that "widget" is one of those regional pronunciations for unpronouncable IT acronyms? It's certainly shorter to say than "double-u get".  You'd be surprised by how some people pronounce abbreviations- I dated a girl once who pronounced Ctrl "sittril" instead of "control", and I was surprised when I found out the official pronunciation for .PNG is "ping".



  • @orange_robot said:

    @pandaPowder said:

    The first words out of his mouth are: "So, which widgets are you having troubles with?"

    wtf?! face palm!

     

     

    If I was being charitable maybe I'd assume that "widget" is one of those regional pronunciations for unpronouncable IT acronyms? It's certainly shorter to say than "double-u get".  You'd be surprised by how some people pronounce abbreviations- I dated a girl once who pronounced Ctrl "sittril" instead of "control", and I was surprised when I found out the official pronunciation for .PNG is "ping".

    SQL like a pig, boy!

     



  • @DaveK said:

    SQL like a pig, boy!

    I've heard people pronounce SQL as "squirrel" and "skull", but never "squeal".

     



  • @orange_robot said:

    I dated a girl once who pronounced Ctrl "sittril" instead of "control"
    I hope she was hot.



  • great ideas everybody. Thanks! I'll at least go to IT armed with some information. I'm going to try identifying as a browser right now.



  • I guess you're right! It could be an alternate pronunciation. I should probably give the CTO the benefit of the doubt for the sake of my future here :)



  • @cconroy said:

    @orange_robot said:

    I dated a girl once who pronounced Ctrl "sittril" instead of "control"
    I hope she was hot.


    me too! that is rare I'm sure.



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    @DaveK said:

    SQL like a pig, boy!

    I've heard people pronounce SQL as "squirrel" and "skull", but never "squeal".

    You mean that is not how you pronounce it!!?

     



  • @DaveK said:

    SQL like a [b]SQL-ing[/b] pig, boy!

    FTFY



  • @pandaPowder said:

    great ideas everybody. Thanks! I'll at least go to IT armed with some information. I'm going to try identifying as a browser right now.
     

    If you can get by the proxy by imitating a browser, can we at least mock your IT for security measures that don't work? Otherwise, we get to mock them for everything else.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @badcaseofspace said:

    If you can get by the proxy by imitating a browser, can we at least mock your IT for security measures that don't work? Otherwise, we get to mock them for everything else.

    Hey, since when did we have to ask permission to mock stuff?!



  •  @Mason Wheeler said:

    @DaveK said:

    SQL like a pig, boy!

    I've heard people pronounce SQL as "squirrel" and "skull", but never "squeal".

    I've always felt like "HDMI" ought to be pronounced to rhyme with "sodomy".

     

     



  • @DaveK said:

    @orange_robot said:

    You'd be surprised by how some people pronounce abbreviations- I dated a girl once who pronounced Ctrl "sittril" instead of "control", and I was surprised when I found out the official pronunciation for .PNG is "ping".

    SQL like a pig, boy!

     

    I was surprised when none of my teammates on a contest understood that I meant != when I said "bang-equals".


  • Garbage Person

     Meh. I've overheard conversations between developers featuring failure to comprehend the meaning of such simple, ingrained-in-society things as text messaging and streaming video. There's a lot of fluff seats in IT and development that are filled by people who just manage to know the one thing they do well enough to perform. C-level is made up ENTIRELY of people to whom that statement applies.



  • @serguey123 said:

    @Mason Wheeler said:

    @DaveK said:

    SQL like a pig, boy!

    I've heard people pronounce SQL as "squirrel" and "skull", but never "squeal".

    You mean that is not how you pronounce it!!?

    TBH I generally pronounce it like squeal without the e sound, i.e. 'skwul', but I've heard that the conventional pronunciation is more like "sequel".

    However, "sequel like a pig" isn't as funny, so I did it wrong on purpose.




  • Reminds me of the first time I heard someone refer to a .gif file as a Jiff and not the Giff I had always used.

    Of course my assumptions have usually been wrong. I called warez WARez and not where's like I've head some use.

    I also call .png Pee-En-Gee and not Ping.

    When in doubt don't listen to me!

    ---my sisters mother-in-law referred to wi-fi as wee-fee when asking a store to reciever her free wee-fee as the ad said!



  • @DeLos said:

    I called warez WARez and not where's like I've head some use.
     

    It's a derivate of "wares" i.e. "goods". How did you end up anywhere but "wares"?

    Tu habla espanol?



  • @dhromed said:

    @DeLos said:

    I called warez WARez and not where's like I've head some use.
     

    It's a derivate of "wares" i.e. "goods". How did you end up anywhere but "wares"?

    Tu habla espanol?

    No, no creo que lo hable, no suena asi en  espanol.  btw dhromed do you speak spanish?



  • @Weng said:

     Meh. I've overheard conversations between developers featuring failure to comprehend the meaning of such simple, ingrained-in-society things as text messaging and streaming video. There's a lot of fluff seats in IT and development that are filled by people who just manage to know the one thing they do well enough to perform. C-level is made up ENTIRELY of people to whom that statement applies.

    That sure makes me glad that all my computing jobs have been underwater.



  • @badcaseofspace said:

    @pandaPowder said:

    great ideas everybody. Thanks! I'll at least go to IT armed with some information. I'm going to try identifying as a browser right now.
     

    If you can get by the proxy by imitating a browser, can we at least mock your IT for security measures that don't work? Otherwise, we get to mock them for everything else.

    Ha ha! I tried using the --user-agent flag and it worked so I put it in my .wgetrc and now I don't even worry about the firewall anymore. So many reasons to mock my IT Department! HaHa!



  • @serguey123 said:

    No, no creo que lo hable, no suena asi en  espanol.  btw dhromed do you speak spanish?
     

    una micropocos españolõs

     



  • @dtobias said:

    I've always felt like "HDMI" ought to be pronounced to rhyme with "sodomy".

     

     

     Nonsense, it is clearly pronounced 'hujdimmi'[1].

     

    [1] http://notalwaysright.com/because-oosbs-just-dont-cut-it-any-more/10808



  • @serguey123 said:

    @dhromed said:

    @DeLos said:

    I called warez WARez and not where's like I've head some use.
     

    It's a derivate of "wares" i.e. "goods". How did you end up anywhere but "wares"?

    Tu habla espanol?

    No, no creo que lo hable, no suena asi en  espanol.  btw dhromed do you speak spanish?

    Más probable que no. Escribir
    Tu hablas espanol
    en vez de
    ¿Tú hablas español?
    se puede explicar por tener un teclado inglés, pero mezclar tú y usted en tres palabras es un error bastante básico, ¿no te parece?


  • @pjt33 said:

    @serguey123 said:

    @dhromed said:

    @DeLos said:

    I called warez WARez and not where's like I've head some use.
     

    It's a derivate of "wares" i.e. "goods". How did you end up anywhere but "wares"?

    Tu habla espanol?

    No, no creo que lo hable, no suena asi en  espanol.  btw dhromed do you speak spanish?

    Más probable que no. Escribir
    Tu hablas espanol
    en vez de
    ¿Tú hablas español?
    se puede explicar por tener un teclado inglés, pero mezclar tú y usted en tres palabras es un error bastante básico, ¿no te parece?

    Bueno, yo pense que simplemente se le habia olvidado la 's', mas bien un error a la hora de escribir aqui en vez de ignorancia de la gramatica espannola, tambien pudiera ser imperativo, aunque es poco probable. (ahh por cierto, este es un teclado en ingles asi que ignora la falta de tildes y eñes).



  • @bullestock said:

    @dtobias said:

    I've always felt like "HDMI" ought to be pronounced to rhyme with "sodomy".

     

     

     Nonsense, it is clearly pronounced 'hujdimmi'[1].

     

    Now you're just being silly.

    It's pronounced "hold me" if you think it's a good thing, or "hide me" if you don't.

     



  • @serguey123 said:

    simplemente
     

    I always think foreigners are talking about deep things muy importante, but I run it through Google Translate and it's always banal crap like "meh, it's my keyboard and a typo"

    And you know what?

    The same applies to programming languages and systems you are not familiar with.

    ooh OOP, ohh functional oooh imperative Quit fawning, it's just a different syntax for the same old shit.



  • @dhromed said:

    @serguey123 said:

    simplemente
     

    I always think foreigners are talking about deep things muy importante, but I run it through Google Translate and it's always banal crap like "meh, it's my keyboard and a typo"

    And you know what?

    The same applies to programming languages and systems you are not familiar with.

    ooh OOP, ohh functional oooh imperative Quit fawning, it's just a different syntax for the same old shit.

    Hmmmm, that is life for you



  • @DeLos said:

    Reminds me of the first time I heard someone refer to a .gif file as a Jiff and not the Giff I had always used.

    Choosy programmers choose GIF.


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