[sf-lug] email/communication: Re: How I learned that my modem/WiFi router had been corrupted

[Michael Paoli]

Uhm, ... I think (possibly among other things?), what we've got (meta)
going on here is some miscommunication (maybe mostly? misinterpretation?,
though well intended).

Anyway, some reference bits, bit 'o commentary, and ... more
reference bits:

> From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Re: [sf-lug] How I learned that my modem/WiFi router had  
> been corrupted
> Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 21:15:43 -0700

> Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):
>
>>     This is at the request of Rick Moen who asked for this.
>
>
> No, I most certainly didn't.
>
> I asked you:  'Your so-called 'DSL modem' just got pwned:  How do you
> figure that happened, Bobbie?'  I then made a pretty decent (IMO)

There's also (slightly earlier) in the thread:
"No, you really didn't.  You said that Cloudfare advised that the Netgear
had been pwned, but nothing about how."

And also taking a (somewhat) broader context ... most notably general
SF-LUG list context and general history, and commonly more technical
person(s) often asking much more specifically/directedly
(and perhaps my not-so-accurate and definitely not exactly verbatim)
paraphrasing of such, more pointed questions at least roughly like:
"What exactly did you see/observe and do / not do?  E.g. specific
commands/responses, diagnostics, log messages, etc.?"
And more generally as opposed to and tease out separately from what
many users often (mis-)report ... notably often having not
recorded in detail what happened, not specifically cited (relevant) log
bits, etc., but rather having seen something they believed was anomalous,
being in position of not well (or certainly not fully) understanding what
had occurred, having some question(s) about it or needing/wanting help,
waiting some bit, then attempting to regurgitate from wetware (human memory
is far from perfect) what they think they remembered doing/observing and
often significantly to heavily biased/distorted by what they *think*
is going on or happened, and reporting that, which is often a highly
incomplete, ambiguous, and often quite inaccurate representation of
not only what did/didn't happen, but also any original actual observations.
E.g. user sees some (relatively) cryptic error message that has little
to no meaning to them (other than they surmise that something didn't
work).  Then hours/days later, they report on it ... without having
recorded it, and quite biased by their interpretation of what they
think happened and a highly incomplete (and often substantially
incorrect) recollection of what diagnostic they saw or what they
observed.  Then based upon *that* they're asking folks for help ...
when what is often highly important is, e.g. much more highly accurate
information on exactly what was done / not done, observed,
exact/specific diagnostics, etc. - not some highly rough and
often very inaccurate partial representation thereof.

So ... given *that* quite common context, I think in this case,
attempt was made to answer *that* type of question/request ...
notably "exactly" (or perhaps as feasibly as possible well after
the fact, and perhaps without much of it having been captured
earlier in great detail) what was in fact observed/seen/done (at
least in response), checked, not checked, etc.

And, some of the ways the questions/requests were done and added on to
may have confused the question at least a wee bit, e.g., would seem
in attempt to clarify (at least as it was placed) the earlier
"just got pwned:  How do you
figure that happened"?
There was follow-on ... well, to show it in that context:
"
>> important point.  Your so-called 'DSL modem' just got pwned:  How do you
>> figure that happened, Bobbie?
>
> I detailed that previously.

No, you really didn't.  You said that Cloudfare advised that the Netgear
had been pwned, but nothing about how.
"

So, that latter bit ..., notably:
"Cloudfare advised that the Netgear
had been pwned, but nothing about how"
Well, ... even in that context, I see at least two possible quite different
ways of interpreting that.  Especially if one takes the later as an attempted
clarification or adjustment to the earlier.
Could interpret it as: "How did it get pwned?" - which is what I presume
was quite intended.
But could also quite interpret it as: "How did Cloudfare advise
that it got pwned?" - or even more loosely, "How, up to/through
the Cloudfare notification, did one come to discover/learn it got pwned?"
I'm guestimating from the thread, that the later interpretations weren't
what was intended, but how the question(s) got interpreted and responed
to.

Anyway, just guestmating that may well be how the question/response track
appeared to have gone relatively off-track - or at least not mutually
meeting expectations there.

Yes, email can be hard.  Things are more likely to go off-track or be
misinterpreted (or missed, etc.) too.  Things can be ambiguous or
misinterpreted.  Sure, email has many advantages too ... but even
some of those "advantages" can be double-edged swords also.
Can often dump lots of detail/verbiage/text/data/bytes into email.
That can (help) clarify ... and/or overwhelm ... and to the extent
of the latter, folks may miss or fail to take in key points (or even
not read them at all! - or portions thereof).

Anyway, just sayin' ... I'm guestimating that is - at least in that
wee bit and specific instance, where that communication probably
went rather off-track there - not that that's at all what anyone was
trying or intending to do, ... but ... sometimes it happens.

references:
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013199.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013198.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013197.html
http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2018q2/013189.html