NotQuiteLeet.com

The brunt of my recent headaches has been with an AT&T policy that seems not only intrusive, but simply appalling.

Want a job with AT&T? You’ll have to give them your social security number before even being considered for an interview.

I receive emails from headhunters almost daily. In some of these emails I have responded with interest to an AT&T opportunity, but an interest that quickly evaporated. This happened when several head hunters from different agencies (that shall remain unnamed) requested that I *email* them my social security number. This was a requirement and one that was neither waived nor circumvented.

Upon questioning this method one head hunter sent me the confidential letter from AT&T to the Enterprise Contractor Acquisition and Management (eCAM) group which I suppose the head hunter agency is a member of.

Here is the letter in its entirety:

February 20, 2008

[name removed]
eCAM Vendor Liaison
675 West Peachtree Street
39M30
Atlanta, Georgia 30375
[phone number removed]

*I removed the name and phone number of the employee out of respect and privacy of that individual. It is my position that any change in this policy is above the head of this employee, and complaining etc directly to the liaison would not be productive nor fruitful. However if the readers of this site desire to contact AT&T, please use the mailing address provided in the letter.

I have two questions for AT&T representatives.

#1. “What the hell are you thinking?”

#2 “Who is actually stupid enough to email *anyone* their social security number?”

Aside from this issue AT&Ts ethical behavior in the telecommunications industry is almost, in my opinion, a bit abhorred. These behaviors include but are not limited to: consumer rights violations which has moved in to class action status, suppression of Internet based Civil Rights, “illegal” cell phone locking which is still very controversial, the huge whammy of illegal involvement in the NSA domestic wiretap campaign - of which Wired Blog Network had a huge contribution in publicizing this issue, and Im sure a myriad of other things I have neither the time nor patience to keep up with.

I appreciate the efforts of AT&T in the Net Neutrality campaign, a campaign I think is vital to the future growth and maturity of the internet. However I find a very conflicting and utterly confusing message when the Head of AT&T finds that Net Neutrality isnt necessary.

As you can see the issues I have spread across many markets, each equally as concerning as the other. For a company with the profile and influence such as AT&T, I can only hope that more ethical and *reasonable* policies come to fruition from this point forward. Until then this is why I won’t, and blatantly refuse to work for AT&T in any capacity.

In order to add Telnet access to the console and set the idle timeout, issue the telnet command in global configuration mode. By default, Telnet sessions that are left idle for five minutes are closed by the security appliance. In order to remove Telnet access from a previously set IP address, use the no form of this command.

telnet {{hostname | IP_address mask interface_name} | {IPv6_address interface_name} | {timeout number}}

no telnet {{hostname | IP_address mask interface_name} | {IPv6_address interface_name} | {timeout number}}

The telnet command lets you specify which hosts can access the security appliance console with Telnet. You can enable Telnet to the security appliance on all interfaces. But, the security appliance enforces that all Telnet traffic to the outside interface be protected by IPsec. In order to enable a Telnet session to the outside interface, configure IPsec on the outside interface to include IP traffic that is generated by the security appliance and enable Telnet on the outside interface.

Note: It is not recommended to access the security appliance through a Telnet session. The authentication credential information, such as password, is sent as clear text. The Telnet server and client communication happens only with the clear text. Cisco recommends to use SSH for a more secured data communication.

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Opening up the Cisco IOS of which has traditionally been proprietary is a huge push toward collaboration with competitors. Cisco has clearly taken a step in a different direction from its traditional position. This isnt just collaborative services between Cisco and its competitors, this is a full fledged effort to, shall we say, standardize infrastructure software.

Just imagine the benefit of your company to write API’s that can access the Cisco IOS services. This is a profound move to solicit competitors working together to provide a solution thats in the best interest of their customers. Service Providers should take more than a few notes from this mentality.

Cisco plans to “componentize” IOS – developing only one implementation of a specific function instead of several, depending on the image – dynamically link IOS services and move the software onto a Unix-based kernel. Cisco then plans to open up interfaces on IOS to allow third-party and customer-developed applications to access IOS services.

4 years, 578 engineers, $250 million, and 1,513 Cisco patents issued or pending. Those are the numbers behind what some say are Cisco Systems’ next flagship switching line.

This is the future of the Data Center. Cisco’s Nexus 7000 is a 10 slot or 18 slot chassis that can deliver up to 15 Terabits per second. So where do we begin?

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