Washii Ponderings

Facebook! You are the weakest link, good-bye!

Seriously, how do you solve a problem like Maria…err, Facebook (odd time to have Sound of Music on the mind…).

I like ’social rules,’ they help keep me in check. And here’s why I don’t like Facebook: you’re ’supposed’ to only friend people you actually know (which I take to mean IRL). I have only very few exceptions on my otherwise small Facebook account. I like the people that I have friended there, but I already knew them, didn’t I?
For me, Facebook is _incredibly_ inflexible.

Twitter, however: Twitter’s paradigm is “watch whom interests you;” while this may include friends you already know, Twitter is much more open to ‘friend vagrancy’ than Facebook (somewhat minus private accounts, but those seem more the exception than rule).

This makes me think that Twitter has much more ‘linking’ power than Facebook. Sure you can generate some interesting chains of friends in Facebook, but I’d just rather go watch those friends than have some wall in the form of ‘How do you know this person?’

However, Twitter: I need a better, no-nonsense way to have longer posts. I’m honestly pushing hard on the boundaries of 160 character SMS at times, how do you think I feel about 140 characters? You cramp my style more than…’liberate’ it? Using multiple tweets for a thought feels like a very strong faux pas.

Honestly, though? Twitter wins the fight over my mind. I’ll continue using Facebook occasionally, but Twitter is what will keep me ensnared; sorry Facebook.

A customer service representative at Microsoft got back to me again. How funny that it would be 10 days after I began to de-facto work for Microsoft, and now hold 3 accounts to log onto Microsoft computers in some way! At the largest data-center in the world, too.

Hum.

Text of the reply follows:
>>
Hello,

This is regarding the Service Request SRX1109907523ID.
Thanks you for letting us know about the spelling error and we are correcting it.

We have received a reply from our colleagues that generally the ISO image supported by MSFT is a single flat file – the underlying network transport layer ensures that the ISO is copied correctly. We have also posted the hash values next to the downloads for RTM.

I hope the above information is helpful.

Thank you,

(name removed)
Microsoft Customer Service Representative
>>

So, my impressions:
a.) Huh, this guy referred to themselves as MSFT. Interesting.

b.) Just because an ISO is a flat file means freaking squat if it gets corrupted on-disk! The point was, I want to know should it get corrupted before I get to burn a copy (or burn more copies).

c.) “the underlying network transport layer ensures that the ISO is copied correctly”? Aha..ahahahaha. Unless they were basically using BitTorrent or at least some sort of file verification hash (which, based on the downloader, I highly doubt), the ‘underlying network transport layer’ don’t do squat but try to get some bits to you, especially when using multiple download connections at once.

d.) I’m not really going to bother looking for the hash values posted right now, since it was about 9 days too late to matter, as the downloads went offline the 31st of August. If they did actually post them, maybe a link to such a page would have been a good idea if they didn’t want me to brush it off.

e.) Somebody at Microsoft actually entered the link to my blog from the first contact, or else they wouldn’t have known there was a spelling mistake! I never got to submit the original text to them that said it was misspelled.

So, I got a response from Microsoft regarding “What’s the point of saying things like that to me?”

Here follows the reply:
>>
Hello,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Customer Service.

This is regarding the Service Request SRX1109907523ID.

We have received a reply from our colleagues and they have stated that Microsoft does not use BitTorrent or other P2P as an official distribution vehicle for Microsoft products.

If you have any additional questions or concerns, please write back to us.

Thank you,

(name removed)
Microsoft Customer Service Representative

If you have any feedback about your Online Customer Service experience, please send it to my manager, (name removed), by clicking the link below.
>>

Talk about not seeing the forest for the frickin’ trees.

Yeah, I sent feedback. Here it is:
>>
Subject: I wasn’t asking about P2P or BitTorrent!

The answer I got in this case makes no sense whatsoever. I wasn’t asking for Microsoft-authorized BitTorrents or P2P, since I know they won’t happen until they get their heads out of somewhere.

What I _was_ asking for is publically available file verification hashes on your files, especially the large ones like the Windows 7 RC DVD ISO! If I keep the ISO on a computer, I want to ensure it has the proper MD5, SHA-1 or SHA-512 hash.

The only time that BitTorrent even comes up is when mentioning that I had to find a site which DID have the hash around. They just happened to be uploading .torrents of the x86 and x64 ISOs to a particular BitTorrent site and helpfully posted the hashes for the full downloads from Microsoft (and, yes, I DID download the ISO from Microsoft).

I should not have to rely on a third party for something as simple as file verification hashes, especially on files >50-100MB. There is a very good reason that most Linux distributions have an MD5 or other verification file hash side-by-side to the download links.
>>

So, I just downloaded the Windows 7 RC DVD ISO from Microsoft, since the download links go dead on Thursday (2009-Aug-20). Figured I’d grab a copy to play with in VirtualBox until March or June.

After I downloaded it, I wanted to ensure I had a bit-for-bit perfect copy, something a torrent would have provided me, of course. So, I quickly searched Google and grabbed an MD5 given with some torrents uploaded to The Pirate Bay.

Okay, good, the MD5 passed. So, since I had the bug up my bum now, why not go pester Microsoft a little bit about adding MD5 hashes for all their files?

I got to the Microsoft Help and Support page, entered ‘file hash’ in the ‘Ask our Automated Customer Service Agent’ search bar and clicked ‘Ask’

Here’s what I got in the pop-up ‘chat’:

>>>>
Guest: file hash

Ask Customer Service: It seems I may be having trouble answering your question. I am available to assist with common customer service issues. For questions about error messages, technical issues, and how-to articles, visit our product solution centers by selecting your product.

Guest: provide file verification hashes with downloads MD5 SHA-1 SHA-512

Ask Customer Service: What’s the point of saying things like that to me?
>>>>

Err..what? Automated Customer Service FAIL.

(A crude PDF of the conversation is available by request.)

The text I sent to Microsoft on the ‘e-mail customer service’ page I had to dig for with that automated agent will follow, but first, want to know what is awesome? The header for the page is: “E-mail this converstation to a Customer Service Support Agent”

That’s directly copy-pasted. They allowed a misspelling like ‘converstation’ onto a production contact page!

Here’s the text I sent them:
>>>>
_Please_ provide publically-available MD5/SHA-1/SHA-512 file hashes for your downloadable files! I just downloaded the Windows 7 RC from Microsoft before the download links are pulled on 2009-Aug-20.

After I downloaded it, I wanted to ensure I had a mostly _bit-for-bit_ copy, and had to resort to a blog post of somebody uploading torrents for x86 and x64 to a notorious BitTorrent tracker. Thankfully, they also listed the ‘true’ MD5s there, which matched the ISO I downloaded directly from Microsoft.

–Now I have to nitpick:
First, if I make a request on the ‘Automated Customer Service Agent,’ and that request is “provide file verification hashes with downloads MD5 SHA-1 SHA-512,” the Automated Agent _better damn well NOT_ reply with “What’s the point of saying things like that to me?” and then ask me in the same ‘breath’ if that answered my question.
My blog post about that is here: http://washii.110mb.com/blog/?p=185
I also made a crude PDF of the chat.
>>>>

However, the text box was character locked, something they failed to mention on that page. Here’s what I actually wanted to send them:
>>>>
_Please_ provide publically-available MD5/SHA-1/SHA-512 file hashes for your downloadable files! I just downloaded the Windows 7 RC from Microsoft before the download links are pulled on 2009-Aug-20.

After I downloaded it, I wanted to ensure I had a mostly _bit-for-bit_ copy, and had to resort to a blog post of somebody uploading torrents for x86 and x64 to a notorious BitTorrent tracker. Thankfully, they also listed the ‘true’ MD5s there, which matched the ISO I downloaded directly from Microsoft.

Now I have to nitpick:
First, if I make a request on the ‘Automated Customer Service Agent,’ and that request is “provide file verification hashes with downloads MD5 SHA-1 SHA-512,” the Automated Agent _better damn well NOT_ reply with “What’s the point of saying things like that to me?” and then ask me in the same ‘breath’ if that answered my question.
As shown in the ‘Questions submitted’ text, I mentioned I was going to blog about it. That post is available here: http://washii.110mb.com/blog/?p=185 (A stand-alone WordPress installation).
I also made a crude PDF of the chat with the Automated Agent which I will try to keep for perpetuity.

Second, on this ‘e-mail a customer service support agent page (https://support.microsoft.com/contactus/emailcontact.aspx), ‘conversation’ is spelled wrong in the header.
It should be
“E-mail this conversation to a Customer Service Support Agent”
and not
“E-mail this converstation to a Customer Service Support Agent”

I make that error too, but it’s really awful that got into production.
>>>>

I was watching The Today Show this morning, where they interviewed a lady whom was a retired VP from Wells Fargo. Several years back, her wallet was stolen while on a trip to San Francisco. (Link – Story at the San Francisco Chronicle)

She did all the right things: filed reports with the police and her bank, canceled the credit cards, filed fraud alerts with the credit agencies. Some time passes. Then, police call to tell her she would be arrested for felony fraud.

The police came to her home, arrested her and walked her out in front of all her neighbors, handcuffed. She was arrested for 19 counts of felony fraud and some other ‘identify theft’-related crimes. The identity theft victim became the suspect.

For over half a year she fought in court. Turns out she was fully arraigned because her handwriting (from a handwriting test) was so similar to the handwriting on checks cashed by a specific woman who pulled over 60,000 dollars from various Well Fargo customers. That included this lady’s bank account. The DAs never inspected her banking or phone records, and it took those months to even fingerprint any of the checks, even though they fingerprinted her within days of being arrested.

Shocker? None of the checks had this lady’s fingerprints on them. The DA dropped the charges on grounds of insufficient evidence to convict. The police detectives publicly stated to the newspapers that they still believed this woman should go to jail. She’s a prime suspect only because her handwriting was similar to that on the fraudulent checks.

And the justice system…it isn’t corrupt? This woman is now attempting to be reimbursed some of the $50,000 she paid to her attorneys; money that some puny DA, with absolutely no evidence, essentially defrauded of her. That leaves out roughly $20,000 that Wells Fargo had to reimburse for cashing out the fraudulent checks. And they probably only did that because she was a retired VP.