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So last week I try to get a hold of someone at TCF bank to get info about a safe deposit at one of their locations. This was a call made for a friend.

To be certain that we would be able to have someone go in and take a look at the box, I tried to call the bank directly. Believe it or not, there is NO way for me to call someone at that bank directly. I have to call some bullshit TCF bank call center that then takes a message and will have someone call me within 24 to 48 hours. So I have to wait two days for a call back? I can’t get transferred to a personal banker. I can’t even get transferred to someone who manages the safe deposit boxes. It’s fucking brilliant!

You’re a fucking bank! I’ve been there and from the looks of it, you’re not going to last very long TCF! There was no one there except me, two tellers, and a security guard because the bank managers are gone too!

The person who picks up the phone at the call center (no, it’s not in India) has absolutely no information about the kind of documents that I need.

Customer Service Rep: “You need to get a document from the state.”
Me: Fine, what is the document called?
Customer Service Rep: Oh I don’t know. It’s from the state.
Me: Where can I go to get this document? Do you maybe know a website or a number I can call?
Customer Service Rep: No you have to contact the state.

Well thanks a fucking bunch for the shit ton of information lady. If you don’t have the fucking information then how about you get off your ass and get a hold of someone who definitively has the answer. Believe me, you won’t look like a fool for asking a proper question.

What world do we live in where it’s becoming more and more common to simply drop the guy on the phone so you can fuck over the next caller?

We are a service based economy. We provide services mainly as opposed to manufacturing which went offshore to other nations that do it cheaper (and maybe better). If we’re giving up that last value then there is no hope for Change.

My point is simple. I’m not banking with anyone if I don’t have a direct line to the folks that took my money in the first place. If Chase can do it, any one can!

You should know that I only recommend doing this on systems that you ABSOLUTELY trust. If you have any doubt what so ever, do NOT continue.

I never thought i’d actually need this but i ended up actually providing it as a solution for securing database accounts.

To get this working on CentOS 5, I had to do the following

# yum install xinetd authd

authd is an xinetd service and authd is the RFC 1413 identd service

Out of the box, authd comes a little more secure than I expected. It’s not bad but it’s definitely a hindrance for other systems when they don’t know what to send.

/etc/xinetd.d/auth will come by default with

server_args = -t60 --xerror --os -E


This tells inetd to expect the ‘uname’ instead of ‘UNIX’ as the OS name. It’s great that it offers this option but I don’t know if all identd clients need to know what OS it is. You can leave it in if you like. Lastly, it tells identd to encrypt the username and then send it. I’m not sure how many identd clients can handle that.

I changed it to


server_args = -t60 --xerror


start or restart xinetd and you should see 113 listening.

I’m a lazy guy so I can’t be bothered to open more than one connection to a server. You can open two if you prefer.

I login and start tcpdump


tcpdump -i lo -nn "port 113" &
telnet localhost 113


It should show you distinctly what port two ports are involved in the connection you just made.

IP 127.0.0.1.SOURCE_PORT_NUM > 127.0.0.1.113

Next type in “SOURCE_PORT_NUM,113″ and hit Enter. Note that “SOURCE_PORT” here is a NUMBER not actually “SOURCE_PORT”

Amidst all the messy tcpdump output, you should see a line

SOURCE_PORT_NUM , 113 : USERID : UNIX :root

That shows you that identd is working properly. At least locally.

So if you ever find any of this useless knowledge helpful, let me know.

Unix/Linux admins are taught to hate identd because it’s pretty much the least secure protocol but I have to believe that it has a place in an environment that is completely trusted. You don’t have random users logging in or random accounts being created.

I think the overall advantage here is that you can use this to provide an additional layer of security across your trusted enterprise.

I’m not a big Food Network fan by any means. I don’t really like any of their shows except for Good Eats which is only good because of the man behind it. Alton Brown. I never caught the other show he does either because I gave up cable a few months ago and life has been just fine.

Little known fact about Good Eats is that the Pilot episode first aired in Chicago’s very own WTTW. I was very excited to hear that because I love PBS and I love WTTW. Food Network now owns the rights to the show since it was picked up in 1999. That’s unfortunate but at least it explains the one show I love on that network.

The only other thing that I enjoy on Food Network is Giada De Laurentiis’ giant smile.