the little ssh that (sometimes) couldn't

[rdrake at direcpath.com (Robert Drake)]

On 10/29/2012 02:54 PM, Jon Lewis wrote:
>
> Bush league.  I debugged a similar issue on Sprint's network about 15
> years ago, also nailing it down to which router/router hop had the problem

When I was working for Sprint about 12 years ago, we had a circuit where 
the customer complained that we were blocking executable downloads.

We essentially dismissed his complaints because they were ridiculous. 
We would test his T1 and it would show everything fine.  I was willing 
to entertain his concern because it sounded weird and he had a UNIX box 
I could login to.

Running wget I saw the same issues.  If I zipped a file I could download 
it without issue, anything that was an exe would not.

We narrowed it down to 2-4 bytes of the exe header that the circuit just 
wouldn't pass.  Called the local telco and had them test the circuit 
from the customer prem, they found errors on the reverse.

We fixed it and he could download executables again.  I got an award for 
persistence and the customer canceled his account.