[Sussex] Openworld goes pingless ....

[Iain Stevenson]

Last week was a bad week for my DSL connection.  It went slow, it went 
completely .... then ping stopped working.

Why is this important?  Well, because of the previous unreliability of BT 
Openworld I'd written a script for my (Linux) server that uses ping to see 
that the Internet is reachable and, if it isn't, cycles the power supply to 
the ADSL router - which often restores service.

I wearily phoned Openworld's technical support line ....

   "I think you've tampered with ping" said I.
   "Yes, we have" they said - "BECAUSE MICROSOFT TOLD US TO".   Grrrrrr.
   "So when are you going to restore it?"
   "We're not sure", they said.

Of course, they hadn't bothered to tell their customers (I'm on the 
business service too) they'd changed the technical parameters of the 
service.  Furthermore, why should everyone be affected because Microsoft 
wants to help its own efforts to patch weaknesses in its own code (oh, 
sorry, they probably sell this as defending the Internet against "the 
worm").

A plague on both their shabby houses!

  Iain