More Christmas Goodness

[myndcraft]

'Twas The Night Before Going Public

-By Michael Crassweller



'Twas the night before going public,

And all through the company,



Not a creature was stirring,

Well, maybe a few techies.



The techies were staring at the server with care,

In hopes that no hackers would disturb anything there.



With the executives all snug in their beds,

With visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads.



And I with my espresso to give me a lift,

Had just settled myself for a long graveyard shift



When out on the server there arose such a beeping,

I sprang from my chair to see what could be happening.



Away to the machine room I flew like a flash,

Tore open the door and to the monitor at a dash.



The monitors on the desk by the office window,

Cast a bluish glow on the sidewalk below.



When what to my firewall monitor should appear,

But a miniature backdoor, and eight tiny security holes.



With a little old script so effective and quick,

I knew in a moment, this must be a script kiddie.



More rapid than GPFs his pings they came,

And the kiddie clicked and typed and found each machine by name.



Get Polaris! Now Betel! Now Orion and Vega!

Now Apollo! Now Quasar! Down Deneb and Cassiopeia!



To the top of the domain! To the main router!

Now hack away! Hack away! Shut down it all!



As fast as I could block them, new IPs appeared on the fly

When I blocked an account, they logged in as some other guy



So in towards the router his scripts they flew

With a pack full of virii and that script kiddie too



And then, in an instant I saw on my screen

The type and number of each little ping.



As I typed in a command, and was swiveling around,

Down went my computer, without a single sound.



Down went all the machines from workstation to server,

And I ran around to each, in quite a fervor;



A series of others had slipped in the backdoor,

And they all went to work, I just couldn't take much more.



The lights – how they blinked! The beeps how numerous!

The screens were going blue, the messages erroneous!



I could imagine his face, drawn up in a sneer,

Just thinking of what he could do gave me reason for fear;



The list of passwords he now held in his hands,

To the series of machines he could now command;



He had the root password, and that access I now lacked,

Those he could now use, to find other systems and attack.



I was frantic and exhausted, a right tired old geek,

And I sighed when I saw the damage, to fix would take weeks;



A wink of a screen and a few dozen errors,

Soon gave me to know, the worst was now over;



I said not a word, but went straight to my work,

And unplugged all the servers; then realized with a jerk,



That there was a machine left alone by all night,

And I ran over to it, to track down the kiddies' site;



He logged out of root, to his friends sent a few e-mails,

And away they all fled right on his heels.



But I saw his message, ere my traces he blocked,

"Good luck tomorrow as down goes your stock!"

[Myk]

Computer geeks write the best poetry!! :D

[myndcraft]

Twas the night be for Christmas(Open Source)



T'was the night before christmas in the back of my house

my machine was not working, not even the mouse;

The computer had hung, I cried out with dispair,

"Why, why windows? Who the [censored] put it there?"



The screen was all frozen, the ping response dead,

Died once again? Something had to be said,

"They still haven't fixed this? I should give Bill a slap,

I've lost all my work, I'm [censored] sick of this crap!"



Restarting the machine, it refused to come up,

Non-System disk or disk error, this really does suck.

I grabbed my boot floppy, stuck it in with a rattle,

I'll yet fix this thing, though it may be a battle.



Up came my prompt, see-colon-back-slash,

fdisk /mbr, struck enter with a bash.

whir-whir-whir done, I hope this is it,

This inferior software has given me the [censored].



I reset the sick beast, waited for it to boot,

Windows splash screen came up, then the desktop with a toot.

Illegal operation, this program will shut down,

"Mother @#%king @&@#( @#&*", the computer powered down.



Oh dear oh dear me, what am I to do?

From the corner of my eye I catch sigh of GNU.

Well what have we here? A free o/s et al?

"Hmmm," I think, "I'll give it a go."



And so on an impulse I take up the dare,

With an optimistic feeling I load this Slackware.

From fdisk to setup to install to reboot,

I quiver from excitement and nervousness too.



It looks like it's done and has finished its reboot,

What do I do now, and what the [censored] is this 'root'?

I spy on the shelf a helpful little gem,

I grab 'Slack for beginners' and rtfm.



Tentatively but deftly I tap out commands,

Satisfied that it works I denounce microsoft's plan,

"You'll never prevail so long as I am around!,

You, Mr Gates, are nought but a clown!".



Through study and trial, error and progress,

I make use of what at first seems such a mess.

I work hard and learn how it all fits together,

I'm no longer led at the end of my tether!



"Now, BitchX! now, Emacs! now, X and Blackbox!

On, Eterm! on, Star Office! on, Gimp and Netscape!

All hail Linus Torvalds! All hail Larry Wall!

Stop what you're doing, just go and install!"



Never a bigger evangeliser have you seen,

Than the form of myself when I let out this scream,

"Don't use that nasty, proprietary shite,

it's not yet too late to install Linux tonight!"



And so with this tale my experiences I recount,

I hope from his story you learn something profound,

In Redmond you will find only trouble and dispair,

The true answer lies in Open Source Software!

[myndcraft]

Microsoft is Coming To Town (To the tune of Santa Claus is Coming To Town)



You better watch out

You better not cry,

"I don't know where all my licenses lie!"

Microsoft is coming to town



You paid for it list,

You paid for it twice;

You paid even more for legal advice.

Microsoft is coming to town



They know when you run Windows

They know when you use Word

They treat a loyal customer

Like a lying, thieving turd.



With auditing threats

In letters that come

Their lawyers will have you reaching for Tums

Microsoft is coming to town



Bill's desperate now

There's no time to play

He's casting dot-Net to drag in your pay

Microsoft is coming to town



They offer a solution

When you are left in tears

Just sign here on the bottom line

And subscribe for fifty years!



Oh, you should have watched out

Gave Linux a try

Now licensing six is bleeding you dry

Microsoft is coming to town

Microsoft is coming to town!

[myndcraft]

Silent Bells (To the tune of Silver Bells)



We got laid off, hit the sidewalks

Dressed in interview style,

In the air there's a feeling so listless.



No one's offering, people scoffing,

Walking mile after mile,

Then you wait by the phone just to hear:



Silent bells! Silent bells!

It's jobless time, such a pity.

Ring-a-ling, won't you ring?

You'll take whatever they pay.



Dim the hall lights, use the street lights,

Gotta save all our green

We've run out of all our unemployment.



It's the big crunch, we've a good hunch

That our 401K

Will be empty by early next year.



Silent bells! Silent Bells!

It's jobless time, such a pity.

Ring-a-ling, won't you ring?

We may be homeless today.

[myndcraft]

They're Beginning to Lock Out All Your Freedoms (To the tune of It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas)



They're beginning to lock out all your freedoms

No matter how you moan;

You'll have to pay five and ten, for listening once again

To songs you already own;

It's beginning to look a lot like Russia

Or 1984

What a frightening sight to see, a recording company

Can knock down your front door.



Some encryption that bloops and software that snoops

Is the wish of Disney's top men;

Dolls that never talk and you never use chalk,

Every word is copywritten!

And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for the revolution to begin.



It's beginning to look a lot like prison

Ev'rywhere you go;

There's a camera on the Hotel, one in the park as well,

There's nothing they don't know.

They're beginning to lock out all your freedoms

Soon the bills will start,

And the thing that will make you pay, is the coming and fateful day

When they copyright your heart.

[myndcraft]

Slay Ride (To the tune of Sleigh Ride)



Don't hear that cash drawer jingling,

Ring ting tingling tee

Come on, it's time we better

Put a network together that's free.



Outside our stock is falling

And friends are calling 'boo hoo,'

Come on, it's time we'd better

Put some software together that's GNU.



Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, let's go

Our money can grow,

When Linux puts a lid on TCO.

Set it up, set it up, set it up, it's grand

We're now in command,

We're gliding along with the source

And we finally took our stand.



Our checkbook's nice and rosy

And comfy cozy are we

We finally got it together

With a network that's better and free.



We took that road before us

And sang a chorus of GNU,

'Cause Billy's "Road Ahead-us"

Made us far into "Debt-us" and blue.



Don't hear that cash drawer jingling,

Ring ting tingling tee

Come on, it's time we'd better

Put a network together that's free.



Outside our stock is falling

And friends are calling 'boo hoo,'

Come on, it's time we better

Put some software together that's GNU.

[myndcraft]

Slay Ride (To the tune of Sleigh Ride)



Don't hear that cash drawer jingling,

Ring ting tingling tee

Come on, it's time we better

Put a network together that's free.



Outside our stock is falling

And friends are calling 'boo hoo,'

Come on, it's time we'd better

Put some software together that's GNU.



Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, let's go

Our money can grow,

When Linux puts a lid on TCO.

Set it up, set it up, set it up, it's grand

We're now in command,

We're gliding along with the source

And we finally took our stand.



Our checkbook's nice and rosy

And comfy cozy are we

We finally got it together

With a network that's better and free.



We took that road before us

And sang a chorus of GNU,

'Cause Billy's "Road Ahead-us"

Made us far into "Debt-us" and blue.



Don't hear that cash drawer jingling,

Ring ting tingling tee

Come on, it's time we'd better

Put a network together that's free.



Outside our stock is falling

And friends are calling 'boo hoo,'

Come on, it's time we better

Put some software together that's GNU.