9 ms·

The thing that's so irritating about large telco's is not just that they're evil, but the casual stupidity of their actions, including their evil actions. I me

The thing that's so irritating about large telco's is not just that they're evil, but the casual stupidity of their actions, including their evil actions. I mean, look at the code. Look at the function of this code. Look at the business purpose of this code. Look at the security aspects of using this code. Look at the legal ramifications (why the hell is that LGPL thing up top there ?). Look at their internal communication. Look at how easy it is to see exactly what they're doing ... All of it screams "no double digit IQs anywhere near this thing". And yes, I mean, I know that's not true. Their people are not this stupid (though some must be). But they do this anyway. The organisation does business analysis at the level of a 5 year old, codes like a 10 year old, obviously this has not passed legal review, ... How can an organisation that executes this badly become this big ? I mean, I know the answer is "government" and government making them a monopoly, but still. WTF.

exikyut 9y ago
Yep. The random classList polyfill at the bottom was a nice touch. As I scrolled to this bit I was initially like "oh this'll be nice they encrypted some of--oh. :(" My favorite bit was the "this detects the browser type and version" snippet that was copyrighted 2001. Nice! I think the move to open-source the code was a ham-fisted way to get the "we're modifying copyrighted documents in flight" part past the lawyers. It's admittedly a pretty decent legal move.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I think the move to open-source the code was a ham-fisted way to get the "we're modifying copyrighted documents in flight" part past the lawyers. It's admittedly a pretty decent legal move. I don't get it, how does that work?
  - Sephr 9y ago
    He is mistaken, it has nothing to do with it. My code is included in Comcast's injected code, but that doesn't mean any of Comcast's liability has shifted to me.
cm2187 9y ago
I don’t think it is just telcos. It is amazing how scale, inertia, lack of accountability and bureaucracy dumbs down large corporations that mostly consist of smart educated people. A million Shakespeares typing on typewriters write no better than a monkey!
- scrollaway 9y ago
  > A million Shakespeares typing on typewriters write no better than a monkey! I like it, although I think the analogy fails here. How about "An infinite amount of Shakespeares typing on the same typewriter will inevitably produce garbage"? :)
  - GlennS 9y ago
    I wonder what Shakespeare would have thought of typewriters? Would we have gotten twice as many plays out of him? He was clearly slacking.
- neonhomer 9y ago
  It's not just telcos. The second-hand details I hear from a major bank makes me cringe everyday. And the main issues tend to be laziness and selfishness.
Sharlin 9y ago
> I mean, I know the answer is "government" and government making them a monopoly, but still. WTF. Eh, telco infrastructure is a natural monopoly. No government needed for that.
- Hendrikto 9y ago
  Bs. Heard about the 1996 telecommunicatins act? The government payed for their monopoly, and now it lets them keep it and not share it.
  - pas 9y ago
    They have to share the last mile infrastructure with new entrants. And the FCC can preempt local and state level requirements to help new entrants. The current problems are that a) since Trump the FCC is shit, b) local municipalities "vowing" to not enter the market (and others have no incentive). See these for b: - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-cable-lobby-misinformation-campaign-against-muni-broadband/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-ca... - https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju...
    - djrogers 9y ago
      > The current problems are that a) since Trump the FCC is $#\¥ Oh please, he’s been in office less than a year - none of this amazing ‘sharing’ happened under the previous administration either. It’s totally understandable to have (in my case many) disagreements with the Presidents and their policies, but this knee-jerk habit of blaming whoever is currently in office for everything because he’s not on our team is counterproductive.
      - charcoal23 9y ago
        The FCC under Trump has been very friendly to the large enterprises at the expense of small businesses and customers. Trump himself has approved many regulatory changes which are hostile to small businesses, employees and customers across many different industries. It's safe to say at this point that we have a clear idea of what decisions Trump and his FCC will make in the future, and that there would little to no hope for decisions which will increase competition. A year is plenty of time for assessing the character of an adminstration, and Trump's has been remarkably consistent in this regard.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
betterunix2 9y ago
Under Ajit Pai's reasoning, by doing this, Comcast is adding to the evidence that it is an "information service" rather than a "communication service."
raverbashing 9y ago
> How can an organisation that executes this badly become this big ? Lots of ads, undercut your competition by something like $1 and "new customer deals" and then shaft your customers after a while The average customer just go to the store with the flashier lights (or the one which is more convenient)
- nasredin 9y ago
  LMFTFY: The average customer just goes to their cable company (coax cable) or their telephone company (DSL). (And the kicker is... they both suck!)
- morganvachon 9y ago
  > "undercut your competition" When there even is any competition. Where I live, it's literally Comcast or else tether my mobile phone. Satellite is technically an option, but realistically between the cost and my tree coverage there's no way to make it work.
- mr_toad 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly "A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors."
kw71 9y ago
I have a few years of experience inside Comcast and I've concluded that Comcast's executive management are the ones at fault here. Across several divisions, their engineers have been fantastic and a pleasure to work with. This all goes to shit when the businesspeople around the engineers are making terrible, selfish decisions and optimizing their hourly employees for numbers (call center I'm looking at YOU)
- taf2 9y ago
  If more people blew up the call center like the guy in the posted forum.. they would notice. But very few people notice
- jstanley 9y ago
  Good engineers don't do evil things, even if their bosses tell them to.
  - nkrisc 9y ago
    A mortgage and tuition for kids is a powerful motivator.
    - kodablah 9y ago
      To be fair, I'd say "good engineers" especially where Comcast is, probably choose their employer not the other way around. Not to say whether they are right or wrong for working there, but we shouldn't pretend "good engineers" are otherwise destitute.
    - frogperson 9y ago
      A good person doesnt blindly follow orders period. You dont get to call yourself a good person just because you signed a mortgauge or had a kid. If your actions are bad, then you are bad.
      - sopooneo 9y ago
        Reality forces a choice between lesser evils at times.
syshum 9y ago
it is my experiance the more smart people you add to a team the lower the collective IQ becomes Once you get up to around 20+ people on the team, the collective IQ of that teams drops to level where stupid things like this happen... Nothing good from development by committee, this appears to be a project that was developed by committee
- drdaeman 9y ago
  I'm not sure it's about developers. Just consider - a pointy haired boss returns from a meeting and says "it's decided - make it show our sales-boosting popup here". Rather than arguing, I guess, many (who haven't left for one reason or another) would just go with "uh, whatever" attitude and slap something together just enough for PHB to see that popup (and let customer complaints do the rest).
lawn 9y ago
True evil isn't of the calculating kind. It's the incredibly stupid kind.
autokad 9y ago
i look at some companies and I just shake my head. Microsoft in the last 10 years, and consider how much talent and budget they have access to. i remember when zynga had to lay off programmers by the thousands. I was thinking, they had THOUSANDS of programmers and the best they came up with was skins over top of farmville?
eternalban 9y ago
> How can an organisation that executes this badly become this big ? I mean, I know the answer is "government" and government making them a monopoly, but still. WTF. Because "National Security".
throwanem 9y ago
You're assuming it was written any time in the last, oh, decade or more? That's surprising. Perhaps you've never spent time in a cost center far outside the profit centers of a large enterprise, where things that work are left alone to do so, because you're not going to get investment in replacing them or bringing them up to date with modern best practices, because they work. I mean, there are weekend hacks of similar age and quality, with my name on them, that I know are still in active service. Because, for all their myriad other faults, they mostly work, and everyone who works with them is used to using them and to dealing with the occasional cases in which they misbehave. These are not things which anyone rebuilds just for the sake of it. So they go on being used until they stop working entirely, and the the business replaces them with something else. Whether or not that's a sensible way to go about things is an open question, if you like. I don't think it is, because these aren't the sorts of things which cripple a business if they misfire - or make much impact even if they don't. So investing heavily in them would seem like a waste of money, though perhaps you disagree. But the world need not be mad for this to be the way of things.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
>obviously this has not passed legal review // What makes that obvious to you - appears to pass the "we're unlikely to be fined and any fine will be too small to bother us" legal review.

exikyut 9y ago

Yep. The random classList polyfill at the bottom was a nice touch. As I scrolled to this bit I was initially like "oh this'll be nice they encrypted some of--oh. :(" My favorite bit was the "this detects the browser type and version" snippet that was copyrighted 2001. Nice! I think the move to open-source the code was a ham-fisted way to get the "we're modifying copyrighted documents in flight" part past the lawyers. It's admittedly a pretty decent legal move.

icebraining 9y ago
I think the move to open-source the code was a ham-fisted way to get the "we're modifying copyrighted documents in flight" part past the lawyers. It's admittedly a pretty decent legal move. I don't get it, how does that work?
- Sephr 9y ago
  He is mistaken, it has nothing to do with it. My code is included in Comcast's injected code, but that doesn't mean any of Comcast's liability has shifted to me.

cm2187 9y ago

I don’t think it is just telcos. It is amazing how scale, inertia, lack of accountability and bureaucracy dumbs down large corporations that mostly consist of smart educated people. A million Shakespeares typing on typewriters write no better than a monkey!

scrollaway 9y ago
> A million Shakespeares typing on typewriters write no better than a monkey! I like it, although I think the analogy fails here. How about "An infinite amount of Shakespeares typing on the same typewriter will inevitably produce garbage"? :)
- GlennS 9y ago
  I wonder what Shakespeare would have thought of typewriters? Would we have gotten twice as many plays out of him? He was clearly slacking.
neonhomer 9y ago
It's not just telcos. The second-hand details I hear from a major bank makes me cringe everyday. And the main issues tend to be laziness and selfishness.

Sharlin 9y ago

> I mean, I know the answer is "government" and government making them a monopoly, but still. WTF. Eh, telco infrastructure is a natural monopoly. No government needed for that.

Hendrikto 9y ago
Bs. Heard about the 1996 telecommunicatins act? The government payed for their monopoly, and now it lets them keep it and not share it.
- pas 9y ago
  They have to share the last mile infrastructure with new entrants. And the FCC can preempt local and state level requirements to help new entrants. The current problems are that a) since Trump the FCC is shit, b) local municipalities "vowing" to not enter the market (and others have no incentive). See these for b: - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-cable-lobby-misinformation-campaign-against-muni-broadband/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/voters-reject-ca... - https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-just-cable-companies-and-blame-local-government-for-dismal-broadband-competition/ https://www.wired.com/2013/07/we-need-to-stop-focusing-on-ju...
  - djrogers 9y ago
    > The current problems are that a) since Trump the FCC is $#\¥ Oh please, he’s been in office less than a year - none of this amazing ‘sharing’ happened under the previous administration either. It’s totally understandable to have (in my case many) disagreements with the Presidents and their policies, but this knee-jerk habit of blaming whoever is currently in office for everything because he’s not on our team is counterproductive.
    - charcoal23 9y ago
      The FCC under Trump has been very friendly to the large enterprises at the expense of small businesses and customers. Trump himself has approved many regulatory changes which are hostile to small businesses, employees and customers across many different industries. It's safe to say at this point that we have a clear idea of what decisions Trump and his FCC will make in the future, and that there would little to no hope for decisions which will increase competition. A year is plenty of time for assessing the character of an adminstration, and Trump's has been remarkably consistent in this regard.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

betterunix2 9y ago

Under Ajit Pai's reasoning, by doing this, Comcast is adding to the evidence that it is an "information service" rather than a "communication service."

raverbashing 9y ago

> How can an organisation that executes this badly become this big ? Lots of ads, undercut your competition by something like $1 and "new customer deals" and then shaft your customers after a while The average customer just go to the store with the flashier lights (or the one which is more convenient)

nasredin 9y ago
LMFTFY: The average customer just goes to their cable company (coax cable) or their telephone company (DSL). (And the kicker is... they both suck!)
morganvachon 9y ago
> "undercut your competition" When there even is any competition. Where I live, it's literally Comcast or else tether my mobile phone. Satellite is technically an option, but realistically between the cost and my tree coverage there's no way to make it work.
mr_toad 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly "A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors."

kw71 9y ago

I have a few years of experience inside Comcast and I've concluded that Comcast's executive management are the ones at fault here. Across several divisions, their engineers have been fantastic and a pleasure to work with. This all goes to shit when the businesspeople around the engineers are making terrible, selfish decisions and optimizing their hourly employees for numbers (call center I'm looking at YOU)

taf2 9y ago
If more people blew up the call center like the guy in the posted forum.. they would notice. But very few people notice
jstanley 9y ago
Good engineers don't do evil things, even if their bosses tell them to.
- nkrisc 9y ago
  A mortgage and tuition for kids is a powerful motivator.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    To be fair, I'd say "good engineers" especially where Comcast is, probably choose their employer not the other way around. Not to say whether they are right or wrong for working there, but we shouldn't pretend "good engineers" are otherwise destitute.
  - frogperson 9y ago
    A good person doesnt blindly follow orders period. You dont get to call yourself a good person just because you signed a mortgauge or had a kid. If your actions are bad, then you are bad.
    - sopooneo 9y ago
      Reality forces a choice between lesser evils at times.

syshum 9y ago

it is my experiance the more smart people you add to a team the lower the collective IQ becomes Once you get up to around 20+ people on the team, the collective IQ of that teams drops to level where stupid things like this happen... Nothing good from development by committee, this appears to be a project that was developed by committee

drdaeman 9y ago
I'm not sure it's about developers. Just consider - a pointy haired boss returns from a meeting and says "it's decided - make it show our sales-boosting popup here". Rather than arguing, I guess, many (who haven't left for one reason or another) would just go with "uh, whatever" attitude and slap something together just enough for PHB to see that popup (and let customer complaints do the rest).

lawn 9y ago

True evil isn't of the calculating kind. It's the incredibly stupid kind.

autokad 9y ago

i look at some companies and I just shake my head. Microsoft in the last 10 years, and consider how much talent and budget they have access to. i remember when zynga had to lay off programmers by the thousands. I was thinking, they had THOUSANDS of programmers and the best they came up with was skins over top of farmville?

eternalban 9y ago

> How can an organisation that executes this badly become this big ? I mean, I know the answer is "government" and government making them a monopoly, but still. WTF. Because "National Security".

throwanem 9y ago

You're assuming it was written any time in the last, oh, decade or more? That's surprising. Perhaps you've never spent time in a cost center far outside the profit centers of a large enterprise, where things that work are left alone to do so, because you're not going to get investment in replacing them or bringing them up to date with modern best practices, because they work. I mean, there are weekend hacks of similar age and quality, with my name on them, that I know are still in active service. Because, for all their myriad other faults, they mostly work, and everyone who works with them is used to using them and to dealing with the occasional cases in which they misbehave. These are not things which anyone rebuilds just for the sake of it. So they go on being used until they stop working entirely, and the the business replaces them with something else. Whether or not that's a sensible way to go about things is an open question, if you like. I don't think it is, because these aren't the sorts of things which cripple a business if they misfire - or make much impact even if they don't. So investing heavily in them would seem like a waste of money, though perhaps you disagree. But the world need not be mad for this to be the way of things.

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

>obviously this has not passed legal review // What makes that obvious to you - appears to pass the "we're unlikely to be fined and any fine will be too small to bother us" legal review.