Maybe OT: Network ethics

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Sun Feb 3 01:29:47 2002

On Sun, 3 Feb 2002, Chris wrote:

> I like this for the "teach them a lesson" factor... but if you are
> going to go thru the trouble of using custom patch cables... why not
> just use custom port connectors as well? Maybe something like the old
> 4 prong phone connectors (don't know the name... those 4 straight pin
> blocks old telco supplied phones used to have), or even something like
> a DIN connector.

Custom port connectors would give away the fact that something is
nonstandard. There would be no "shock value" (no pun intended) compared to
someone plugging in their favorite laptop NIC and having it smoke
(literally) due to 48VDC across its TX and RX pairs.

I imagine some company has already built and marketed some kind of network
gear with a "revenge" feature built-in. (If not, and someone uses this
idea, I want half the profits ;)

> I don't know the electrical side of things though... so I don't know
> how bad this would screw up the cat rating for high speed connections.

Well, 100mb would be out of the question, although 10mb is quite tolerant
of improper network connections. I don't think the network reliability
problems would be worth the cost of the potential gains.

-Toth
Received on Sun Feb 03 2002 - 01:29:47 GMT