There’s a Back Door to the University’s Email!

 

The university has latched onto the “Plain English” philosophy for written and spoken departmental and interdepartmental communication. That’s a good thing. I don’t need to know the technical reasons why my email doesn’t work. The IT department learned a long time ago not to try to explain that the ring-modulating connection blew out the zizz cap code gates. Nobody in my department understands Internet Speak outside of Twitter and Facebook, and that’s not really technical. SMH is as technical as it gets in social media. I’m not quite sure what that means, so I was surprised by the answers that I got from the university’s own IT Elf this week.

I wanted to know why my email doesn’t work. I really didn’t want it to be fixed because then I’d be “in the loop” and I’d learn about all of the disturbing things that are going on in the department. I was just curious. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t do anything to fix my email problem.

“Think of it like this,” Katniss, the IT Elf said. ”Your connection and everyone else’s connection to the email server is like a tunnel. The server is sort of like a turnstile that knows where to send email to all of the other tunnels. Do you follow me?”

“Yes. Got it. So what’s the problem?”

“In your case, the system spit out a wad of digital chewing gum at the end of your tunnel and jammed up the turnstile so that it doesn’t turn. Now your email can’t pass through.”

“Is everyone’s turnstile jammed like mine?” I asked.

“I haven’t gotten any complaints from anyone except you,” she said.

“So it’s just my email that doesn’t work. Is that it?”

“Possibly,” she said.

 "You don’t know?” I asked.

 “We haven’t gotten any notices from anyone, so until we’re told that something is wrong, we can’t fix it.”

“Notices? What kind of notices?” I was getting a little hot at this point.

“Well, you know, like, emails.” The  IT Elf explained.

“How can anyone notify the IT department of a problem with the email if his email doesn’t work?” Her answer amazed me. The plain English approach to explaining the technical side of IT-ness involves reasoning that is beyond my comprehension.

“What’s your email password?” Katniss asked.

“Why do you need my password? I’ve been told over and over again not to divulge my password to anyone under any circumstances,” I said. “Can’t you just shine a flashlight down the tunnel, fish a straightened coat hanger down to the turnstile, and pull out the chewing gum?” I asked. “I’m not going to give you my password.”

“Oh. That’s okay,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll just go in through the back door. It’ll take me a little time to figure it out because I’m just an intern, but I’ll do it for you.”

Good God, I thought. There’s a secret entrance to it all. A back door of all things! They really can get into faculty emails and find out what’s going on. I don’t subscribe to the paranoia about the IT department being a western form of Stasi, the East German communist spy apparatus that kept tabs on its citizens for decades, but this revelation of a backdoor that can get around passwords worried me. Maybe they can tap the phones too.

That must be how it was revealed that the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences was having a torrid affair with his secretary. I never suspected a thing. I know the guy pretty well. Somebody in the IT department must have been spying on him. Maybe that smoke detector apparatus in everyone's office is really a camera.

“You know what, Katniss? I’m looking at my computer screen, and suddenly my email is working! I have dozens of emails just waiting to be answered. Whatever you did worked! I can’t thank you enough!” I said.

It was a lie. I didn’t want any back door opened. If somebody opened that back door, maybe my email would start working, and I’d have no reason for missing faculty meetings. Sometimes it's best to leave things alone.

With a little luck maybe that back door will get jammed up with Plain English chewing gum, prophylactics, bottle caps, and potato chip bags, the same stuff that plugs up the university’s plumbing and sewer system.