Automagic Asshattery

I'm a big fan of automated attendants. What a great technology, I can call into a company and transfer to the department or person I would like to talk to, without a myriad of questions from a curious or screening secretary. Well, in theory.

I call RandomV company today to speak with tech support, and my call is answered by auto attendant #1 (female voice, we'll call it Susan). Susan says I can press 2 for sales, 5 for finance, or 7 for technical support. I hit the 7 key, hear a moment of silence, followed by a single ring, AA2, Janet (who has a much deeper robotic voice but still female), answers the phone. Janet kindly informs me that I can press 2 for sales, 5 for finance, or 7 for technical support. Eager now, knowing I must be closing in on the prize, I mash the 7 key like it's going out of style.

After a short pause, the line begins to ring. Anxiously awaiting the completion of my call, I wonder how many rings before I get to talk to my technician. Perhaps I'll be put into a queue to wait, but maybe I'll get lucky and just get right in, now that I've found the super secret back door. 5 rings, 6 rings, 7 ri.. Wait! Could it be, someone has answered! AA3, or Rick as I like to call him (not that gender refernce is particularly useful when referring to automated systems)comes on the line, and begins repeating the company mantra/prayer press 2 for sales, 5 for finance, or 7 for technical support. Quickly losing faith now, I pound that damn 7 key with everything I've got, hoping beyond hope to make it somewhere in the vicinty of the support phones.

With no delay I hear 2 short rings, and someone comes on the line. Could this be it? Have I finally proven myself worthy to be admitted into the hallowed virtual halls of V-Support? The excitement at the possibility of finally accomplishing my goal nearly overwhelms me, but I manage to retain enough lucidity to hear AA4, James, begin to speak. "Please enter the number of the individual you are calling, or press 0/stay on the line for an operator" Sudden silence on the line as James' message winds to a close. I sit, stunned, unable to comprehend the black magic technology that has allowed me to transfer myself to the Saturn office of V (who knew they had outsourced their tech support off planet?) Steeling myself for a new life experience, obtaining tech support from a Saturnian (I hope they speak english/human better than some of the Indian support folks I've worked with, no offense guys I know your trying) I hit the 0 with enough force to start an atomic chain reaction, had my desk been made of plutonium.

"We're sorry, our system operator is busy, please leave a message at the beep or try your call again later."

So what's the moral of this story? While automated systems can save a tremendous amount of time and money, they don't necessarily mean a company allows access to their technical support.

Z

New Breed

Golden Age



Remember when choosing a new ISP was all about who could provide the cheapest and fastest connection? Even a small town could usually field 15-20 different ISPs with different value added services and additional offerings. Because of the relatively slow connections in those times, we often experienced the web much more as a sea of text information than the multimedia rich experience we find ourselves with today, yet information was available equal to all. I mean, we all knew that no ISP would dare interfere with our right to all the content and services the Internet had to offer us and why would they want to?



Isn't it a sad statement of the times we live in that it is becoming quite common for alleged "Internet Service Providers" to block/modify/remove/replace content for their own nefarious purposes without even so much as a by your leave or even a simple statement of intent? These content providers, for that is what they really are the moment they decided to dictate which traffic I can send and receive through my connection. And yet, where is the outrage, where the frustration from the outraged users, decrying the behind the scenes big brother acts of their providers?



America and others continue to allow their service providers greater and greater leeway in the name of "security" and "property rights". Make no mistake, I believe in the benefits of security, at a host, network, state, national and global level. As someone involved in IT security, I am in complete agreement that any entity, organization or individual should be allowed to protect their OWN systems from threats. The problem begins when said organization/individual takes it upon themselves to protect others without their knowledge. To me this is completely analagous to the idea of someone writing a self propogating Love Letter style trojan that is intended to crack vulnerable systems and then fix the vulnerability, before moving on to infect yet further hosts. Inevitably, the benefits of this action would be overwhelmed by the negative impact on hosts/networks around the world, especially once someone else takes that benevelant software and modifies it so that instead of fixing the vulnerability, it creates/modifies/destroys other components of the system.



Let me put it to you all in a different manner. How would you feel if your phone service provider decided that to protect you from scam artists and criminals, it would block any instance of the words "buy, sell, land, stock" from any phone conversation running on your line, without any prior notification to you? Or to take it one step further, what if the provider privately and without any customer notifications decided that since a great many phone scams originate from the 818 (one of the larger Southern California area codes), they will no longer allow any calls to or from that area code? Oh, your parents live in So. Cal? Unfortunate, but we're looking after your best interests, whether you like it or not.



I challenge everyone to think about the real world implications of these issues. Freedoms form the underpinnings of any society, and just like the supports of the Golden Gate bridge, removing a freedom makes our society that much weaker. Who knows which one will be the final blow that causes the bridge to collapse? I hope and pray that our children don't look back on this time as the Good Old Days when we still enjoyed some amount of personal freedom, and every day I fear that this is exactly the path on which we are headed.



Z

A Real Shocker

In what I'm sure comes as a shock to most of you, Asshat Telco Inc decides to charge additional fees to customers paying by credit card. Why? "Because we can." When asked if they would then provide a corresponding discount to customers who pay their bill in cash, RandomA Rep replied, "It's something we haven't considered, Senator. The assumption of course is doing it by cash is less costly...than by some other means. That isn't necessarily the case, it might be as costly as other methods." Thus once again defying anyone to attempt to meaningfuly use the words "logic" and "telephone company" in the same sentence.

Hooray for capitalmonopolyism!

Z