Source
- URL: https://x.com/pikuma/status/1785111027685765405
- Author: pikuma.com (@pikuma)
- Posted: 2024-04-30 00:56:49
Thread
1/ @pikuma
I had a friend that worked in the support team and was famous for being too friendly with the customers. He was also very unprofessional so it was just a matter of time before something went wrong.
Once, the system admin of an important customer called and asked him for a system update. He told the sysadmin that he would send an update via email soon.
But he saw an opportunity to have some fun with it.
He wrote a simple batch script that replaced the contents of the customer’s AUTOEXEC.BAT to display a silly ASCII message showing a middle finger.
Keep in mind that the client’s original autoexec contained super important configuration scripts; it loaded the printer drivers, configured the ERP server network connection, loaded high & low memory, and several other things that were crucial for the entire system to work.
And that’s why my friend, being the smart guy he was, added the following instructions in the first line of the script:
COPY AUTOEXEC.BAT AUTOEXEC.OLD
Of course, right? He creates a copy of the original/important autoexec.bat file before replacing it with the silly ASCII-art one. No harm! The customer would see the image, call him, he would have a laugh, the customer would say “what about my important autoexec scripts?”, he would revert the backup file, and everything would go back to normal.
He proceeds to send the email to the customer with the batch script attached.
The customer executed the script.
After a couple of minutes, the customer calls: “Ha ha. Very funny. What did you do to my computer?”
My friend laughs and says: “Don’t worry. I made a backup of the old autoexec.bat. Just copy over the autoexec.old file and replace it.”
The customer does exactly that. The machine reboots.
…the middle finger still shows. 😐
Client: “Well, I replaced the file with the .old one but the image is still appearing.”
My friend smile fades away. He doesn’t understand; he tested it before! The script made a copy of the original autoexec.bat to autoexec.old before replacing it. What could possibly be the issue?
And then he finally gets it! 😐
My friend: “Wait! Wait!!! How many times did you execute the email attachment?”
Client: “I don’t know. Probably 3 or 4 times. I clicked on it, a console window appeared and disappeared, so I clicked on it a again a couple more times.”
…
…
…aaaand there goes the original autoexec.bat. 😅
2/ @pikuma
By the way, this is really not one of those “My friend did something” stories. I would definitely say if it was me.
I also remember he spent the entire night recreating the original AUTOEXEC.BAT content by hand! 😂
Lessons were learned.
Branches: 2024-04-30-arturofiliov-best-humor-is-the-one-when-you-dont-know-if-its, 2024-04-30-Kknewkles-hehe-this-is-why-i-do-crap-like-that-with-high, 2024-04-30-hashsys4q-lol, 2024-05-01-FuyukiSakura-the-remarkable-lesson-for-me-was-placing-nyancat