Having fun at work. Computer stuff that’ll entertain Kilbo, Bery, and those other nerds.
Posted by
Mopsy (aka rburriel)
Aug 11 '20, 20:30
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The team I’m in took over a department that’s been struggling. The University was finally able to get rid of the guy who was handling their computer stuff and I’m tasked with trying to figure out what the fuck-all he did.
Some months before the pandemic, we were called to their computer room because some machine in there had apparently been compromised. Still being new to the system at the time, we barely had access to the machines, much less understood what they did. It was difficult to even identify the machines. With the machines not labeled, we resorted to turning them off one at a time to see “Is this the one?”
We finally found some obscure unlabeled machine that didn’t really look like a PC at the top of a rack, shut it down, and ended the breach.
Some weeks later we discovered, inevitably, that some service the department was using wasn’t working any more. Sure enough, the machine we shut down was integral to the service.
I got to work assembling a new one. I appropriated another of their machines that was clearly unused (we’d done an inventory in the meantime). But there were parameters on that compromised machine that I would need.
Then... the pandemic.
Today, my engineer and I went over to the facility which was creepy. Everything was shut down and locked up. Security doors were down in some places. But we have access. We got in, went to the computer room, and tried to remove the compromised machine from the rack. But one of the screws was stripped. Fortunately, that’s why I brought an engineer. A hammer did the trick. We recovered the machine and brought it back to my office where I planned to power it back up in an isolated environment. The machine is running Windows XP and has a clearly dying fan so it’s *NOISY*. I booted it up and unfortunately got stumped at the login screen. None of the credentials we had worked. I also tried some feeble attempts at cracking Windows XP security. But I’ve got a better idea. I opened up the case (which, frankly, should have been easier... stupid old computer) to recover the hard drives (two of them!) The box was clearly built as an appliance. The connectors were epoxied to the hard drive. But I’ve been watching a lot of computer fix-‘em videos on YouTube during the pandemic so nothing deterred me. I now have two hard drives to dig through.
I got my SATA to USB kit from the garage tonight and tomorrow hopefully I get the data I need.
I still can’t believe I get paid for this.
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