fucking chefs kiss
https://layer3intel.com/blog/residential-proxies-white-house-network
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z0mg, I remember. As someone who had to administer BES (Blackberry Enterprise Servers) at past employers; I remember the feelings of horror I felt. Folks who never had such miseries, probably never learned first hand that RIM (what a name! aka Research In Motion, the company behind Blackberry) would ship versions of MSDE with BES that were still vulnerable to Slammer, years after Micro$oft had patched that upstream.
As the 2023 movie Blackberry phrased it (they even included it in their preview, e.g. https://youtu.be/cXL_HDzBQsM?t=131) "You said they were the best engineers in the world!"
"I said they were the best engineers in Canada."
The movie, directed by Matt Johnson (also directed nirvanna the band the show the movie [2025]) is pretty hilarious. Actually administering Blackberry devices and their "Enterprise" Server for some past employers? Absolute nightmare.
I'm sure it would have been "fine" for the POTUS though, right?
sigh Meanwhile, the current POTUS seems to be fixated on a SCIF masquerading as a ballroom as one of his hills to die on along with an arch and uhh, reflecting pool BS? So SNAFU.
At least I don't work in politics, nor anywhere near it? After one of my friend's from high school's dad retired, I learned: he had been in the CIA. (Which filled in some confusing things about my friend and his family as if a puzzle piece clicked into place after decades) Not much later, over Thanksgiving dinner preparations or whatever it was, his dad began regaling me with stories about JFK's cocaine binge during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
sigh
Something something, with absolute power comes absolute corruption, something something.
CC: @Viss@mastodon.social
You managed a BlackBerry Enterprise Server? Do I recall correctly that to initiate the bootstrap process to onboard a new device to the network server, a password was required as part of the initial handshake, and the password was (unchangeable default) "cat"?
I swear this is a real memory, but it seems absurd enough, I suppose I might have imagined it. This would have been back in the late 90s, so about 30 years ago
I did indeed administer BES at a couple of past employers.
I do not recall a "cat" passphrase; though those past employers came to Blackberries relatively late in their life cycle; and were both places which used Exchange as their MTA (and in both places, I also administered other hardened BSD gateways as anti-spam/abuse intermediaries in front of the Exchange servers, because putting Exchange on the public facing Internet was a dumb idea, decades ago. Alas, IMHO everything Micro$oft ships is stupid, yet I don't make the calls about what my employers may choose to deploy. BES would have been shot down too if folks listened to me.). One of my employers (circa 1999-2001) had some coworkers who attended CTIA (previously: Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association) and all came back with a bunch of "free" Blackberries.
My impression: like drug dealers, giving a "free" sample, the users, once addicted? Only have downsides. The "nickname" of "crackberry" for Blackberry devices seemed apt.
It's entirely possible that "cat" was a default unchangeable bootstrapping passphrase for those earlier era Blackberries? Thankfully, at least back then, I wasn't tasked with any administrative duties related to them at that employer. I don't think any of my employers got bit with the crackberry habit where it became my responsibility to administer such things until around 2004 or 2005 maybe?
@Viss : remember when Obama wanted to use a blackberry and the secret service refused and Blackberry built a custom network only for Obama?
Pepperidge farm remember…