Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!edm!rroot
From: rroot@edm.UUCP (Stephen Samuel)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: computer follies
Message-ID: <3276@edm.UUCP>
Date: 22 Sep 88 22:14:59 GMT
References: <827@cernvax.UUCP>
Organization: Unexsys Systems Inc., Edmonton,AB.
Lines: 63

From article <827@cernvax.UUCP>, by rbt@cernvax.UUCP (rbt):
> 
> Finally, he went to the police station to complain. There they worked out that
> the bill was computer-made, and the standard plate reported for plateless car
> was "NONE".
> He changed plate.

I has a similar problem:  I had two IDs at one time: 
  LIST and NONE (all accounts on MTS are 4 chars long).
(this was on our MTS (Michigan Terminal System) machine -- an amdahl (V8 at
the time) capable of handling about 500 people at once (~7-800 on our new
machine).. Needless to say, it's the main processor for non-admin work on 
the campus)

ANYWAYS:  One day I started recieving stacks of mail saying that I had 
printouts from our PLATO (cai) system).  MTS was used for all PLATO 
printing, and they had just started notifying people who had MTS accounts
when their print jobs  were done.  Lots of people when they filled out
their PLATO ID had filled in 'none' in the "MTS Account" box.

I complained to the people in charge of PLATO and got a note back that the
problem would be fixed "fast".  

 a day, or so, later, my mail tripled  (100+ messages/day) and I sent
another message.  What had happened is that they had made any ID with
NONE as their MTS accound the same as IDs with blanks as their MTS account,
but somebody had a wrong-way branch, and ALL thos people got messages going
to me.... (yeuch)... The problem was handled with dispatch.

   The account LIST, on the other hand, had other problems.  There was a
relatively new program (UNSP:HASPLOG) that allowed users to get info about
print jobs they had sent off in the last few days (Really useful if 
you've forgotten your print job #). Unfortunately, hasplog always 
refused to acknowledge print jobs I'd sent off.

whenever I queried for jobs sent off by me, hasplog would reply: 
   'no jobs submitted by user LIST'
The consultants claimed that I just wasn't waiting long enough for the 
hasp queue results to get to UNSP:HASPLOG (I STILL don't know why there's
a delay in the first place). 
 Finally I gave them a listing of a terminal session that looked
(roughly) as follows:
Locate User LIST
 No jobs submitted by user "LIST".
Locate Job 803447
 Job 803447 (5534234) submitted by user LIST at ......
Locate User LIST
 No jobs submitted by user "LIST".

A couple of days later, the person in charge of UNSP:HASPLOG told me that

   The account LIST was used at Michigan to print listings of card decks..
so when I used UNSP:HASPLOG to locate jobs by user 'LIST', hasplog 
treated it as a special case (security considerations -- you need the
pring job # to get the print job).
   
   Oh well:  my logins are now: ASDF and ZXCV. (easier to type, and 
no special-case problems...).
-- 
-------------
 Stephen Samuel 			Disclaimer: You betcha!
  {ihnp4,ubc-vision,seismo!mnetor,vax135}!alberta!edm!steve
  BITNET: USERZXCV@UQV-MTS