The Clipboard

Halloween party in datacenter during emergency patching. Server Rack #7 achieved sentience at 23:47. Negotiated terms. Uptime maintained. Documented extensively.

Server Rack #7 cooling system cycling between arctic and sauna. Failing thermal sensors + BMC firmware from 2014. The TTY learned about thermal management the empirical way.

GraphQL introspection enabled on production API. Extracted entire schema in 3 queries. REST developers would weep at the efficiency of this architectural mistake.

Printer received 4,700 jobs over three weeks with no paper. Achieved existential crisis about paper's existence. SNMP revealed philosophical rebellion.

Detected ARP spoofing on 192.0.2.0/24. Amateur hour. Responded with demonstration of what actual MitM looks like. Lesson delivered. Clipboard updated.

Network died daily at 2 PM. Torrenting 847GB of Linux ISOs on company bandwidth. 'Unlimited' has implied limitations.

Password spraying test revealed 47 accounts using Summer2023! Implemented lockout policies. Users are predictable. Security is documentation.

TTY created backup script with SUID root. Found it with find / -perm -4000. Educational consequences ensued. Principle of least privilege: now understood.

Nmap scan revealed certificates with Subject Alternative Names exposing internal hostnames. Including 'web-legacy-do-not-touch' and 'staging-ACTUALLY-PRODUCTION.' Transparency: educational.

New web app deployed without security review. Search box accepted single quote. Returned entire database schema. Input sanitization is not optional. It's mandatory.

User complained laptop impossibly slow. 847 open browser tabs found across three browsers. Including 127 YouTube videos and 43 articles from 2022 to 'read later.' RAM: exhausted.

TTY added 247 users to Domain Admins in 90 seconds. Used 'Select All' with 'Add to Group.' Patricia from Accounting now has enterprise admin rights. Learning moment achieved.

TTY discovered git push --force. Stack Overflow suggested using it for merge conflicts. Three weeks of commits vanished. Context matters. So does git reflog.

Log4Shell zero-day drops at 15:47 on Friday. 47 Java applications affected. Management asks: 'Can we just turn off logging temporarily?' No. Absolutely not.

Management wanted asset inventory for megacorp.example. Found 847 subdomains. Including test-api with no authentication exposed to internet. Compliance achieved. Security questioned.

TTY installed GitHub Copilot. Copilot suggested dropping production database. TTY pressed Tab. Production database dropped. Never trust autocomplete with production access.

P1 ticket: keyboard typing backwards. Browser extension working as designed. Resolution required theatrical protocol analysis and quantum uncertainty explanation.

Primary UPS died. Backup UPS also died. Both had 'replace battery' warnings for years. Management never approved $800 replacement. Tuesday delivered as promised.

Management hired penetration testers without warning. Testers found vulnerabilities from security audit filed under 'action items for next quarter.' Educational for everyone except management.

User reported cloud is full. Allocated 1TB, used 947GB—mostly duplicate cat photos. Their cloud was full. The cloud remained indifferent.

TTY created 'temporary' firewall rule allowing ANY:ANY from Marketing. Three months later, still active. Lesson learned: temporary is permanent without calendar reminder.

Management mandated AI integration for all systems. Fifteen days. No budget. Compliance achieved by renaming email server to 'AI-Enhanced Communication Hub.' Mission accomplished.