[SGVLUG] Oh, the pain, the agony -- "online chat" support...

[Solomon K. Chang]

Well, Tom, did you not realize that "Aaron McQuillan" was an anagram of "Or in-call qua man"?  That explains everything!

* Qua is latin for "in the capacity of", as in:
- Barack Obama, qua the President Elect
- Sherry, qua our waitress at Burger Continental

Thank you, Internet Anagram Server, for showing us what's in a name.  However, "Tom Emerson" is equally suspect.  I get these following anagrams:
- Metronomes
- Mono's Meter
- Sermon Mote
- Some Mentor
- Meson Metro
- No, Mom - reset!

Hmm...


Solomon

--- On Fri, 1/9/09, Emerson, Tom (*IC) <Tom.Emerson at wbconsultant.com> wrote:
From: Emerson, Tom (*IC) <Tom.Emerson at wbconsultant.com>
Subject: [SGVLUG] Oh, the pain, the agony -- "online chat" support...
To: "SGVLUG Discussion List." <sgvlug at sgvlug.net>
Date: Friday, January 9, 2009, 6:26 PM




 
 
Oh, the pain, the agony -- "online chat" support...
For a while now, my DSL was down (which is/was a good thing -- kept me from being up late at night for a while...)  I finally got around to investigating, and after pacbell/sbc/att/whomever "fixed" my phone/DSL line, I fired up my server(s), including my e-mail server (picks up mail via POP and makes it available as IMAP) and soon enough I was getting an e-mail from Yahoo telling me to "enable SSL" in my outlook express client...

Ummm -- yeah, right -- I use fetchmail, and a quick search of the web for "fetchmail" and "ssl" gave me the instructions on what to do.  Now that I've done that, it appears that AT&T's certificate is "not trusted" -- I suspect it is simply because I don't have their root CA's certificate [VERY likely...] but I thought I'd give their support a whirl since they started it.

So, checking the e-mail, I see it says "don't reply -- this came from a bot" [or words to that effect], so it's to the support web pages I go...

The support pages (at some point) popped up a box that said "e-mail support is no longer available for high-speed DSL users, use online chat instead"

[grrrr] ok, start at the beginning again, get the "chat" client fired up, and I "notify" them that their SSL cert is invalid -- here is the "chat" that ensued...

<!-- div { line-height: 18px; }-->


Please wait while we find an agent to assist you...

Thank you for contacting AT&T Internet Services, my name is Aaron McQuillan. One moment while I review your information.

Aaron McQuillan: Hi, Tom Emerson! I hope you are doing fine.

Aaron McQuillan: As I understand your concern, I see that you are having issues with your email SSL update. Is that correct?

tom emerson: hello. I've been getting an e-mail urging me to switch to SSL for POP; I've done that, and in my logs I see that my system cannot validate your SSL certificate

Aaron McQuillan: I understand your question and I'm glad to assist you with your inquiry.

tom emerson: osnut:/etc # fetchmail -v -f /etc/fetchmailrc

fetchmail: 6.2.3 querying pop.att.yahoo.com (protocol POP3) at Fri Jan 9 17:14:57 2009: poll started

fetchmail: Issuer Organization: Equifax

fetchmail: Unknown Issuer CommonName

fetchmail: Server CommonName: pop.att.yahoo.com

fetchmail: pop.att.yahoo.com key fingerprint: 66:89:36:BA:15:CD:9B:DA:BE:39:02:34:5C:0B:C1:30

fetchmail: Warning: server certificate verification: unable to get local issu

Aaron McQuillan: How do you normally check your emails? Is it through AT&T Yahoo! email on the web or through other means like Outlook perhaps?

tom emerson: I run my own e-mail server at home. I've configured it to use Fetchmail to pull e-mails from your system and make them available via imap

tom emerson: since fetchmail was previously configured for "regular" pop e-mail [and my DSL was down for a while] I was unaware of the recent push to go to SSL until this week. Now that I've enabled it, I'm getting the error/warning shown above

Aaron McQuillan: Are you getting any sending / receiving error?

tom emerson: Here is the efetchmail: Warning: server certificate verification: unable to get local issuer certificate

fetchmail: Issuer Organization: Equifax

fetchmail: Unknown Issuer CommonName

fetchmail: Server CommonName: pop.att.yahoo.com

fetchmail: Warning: server certificate verification: certificate not trusted

rror message:

tom emerson: whups, that pasted funny -- here it is a little clearer: fetchmail: Warning: server certificate verification: unable to get local issuer certificate

fetchmail: Issuer Organization: Equifax

fetchmail: Unknown Issuer CommonName

fetchmail: Server CommonName: pop.att.yahoo.com

fetchmail: Warning: server certificate verification: certificate not trusted

Aaron McQuillan: Thank you.

Aaron McQuillan: I can give you the servers and ports used by AT&T.

tom emerson: and that will help me how?

Aaron McQuillan: Incoming mail (POP3) is pop.att.yahoo.com and Outgoing mail (SMTP) is smtp.att.yahoo.com.

Aaron McQuillan: Outgoing mail (SMTP) port is 465 and the box next to This server requires a secure connection (SSL) is checked.

Aaron McQuillan: Incoming mail (POP3) it should be port 995 and the box next to This server requires a secure connection (SSL) is checked.

tom emerson: fetchmail is configured via a plain text file -- there are no "boxes to check"

Aaron McQuillan: As much as I want to assist you but we only have limited resources for this kind of issue. We have a special department with specially trained agents who handles this unique issue of yours and we call them the ConnecTech / Support+ Department.

Aaron McQuillan: Tom Emerson, Fetchmail is a product that AT&T Internet Services does not support, I can offer you AT&T ConnecTech / Support+ (866-294-3464), a fee-based technical support service that can assist you. If you'd like, I can refer you to AT&T ConnecTech / Support+ to explain more about the service and to resolve your issue, or we have some information about many of these common products on the Member Facing Support Site at http://help.sbcglobal.net. Another option is to contact Fetchmail directly. If you'd like I can provide you that contact information.

tom emerson: sure, please let me know how to contact fetchmail directly.

Aaron McQuillan: Ok.




[note: INCREDIBLY long pause here...]


Aaron McQuillan: I believe you can find the contact number of Fetchmail thru fetchmail.com

Aaron McQuillan: Is there anything else I can help you with?

tom emerson: hmm.. fetchmail is open source software, "fetchmail.com" goes to a generic search page -- fwiw, I was using the page at http://fetchmail.berlios.de/fetchmail-FAQ.html#K5 to configure my system

Aaron McQuillan: I am sorry but I do not have the number here for Fetchmail.

tom emerson: that's OK -- I think I have what I need for the moment -- say hello to your aunt Eliza for me

Aaron McQuillan: Will there be anything else?

tom emerson: no

Aaron McQuillan: Thank you for using AT&T Self Support Tool. I attempted to speak with you but there was no response from your side, if you have any further queries, please feel free to connect back to us. We will be more than happy to assist you. 


Since the "tech" didn't get the Eliza reference, I graded his Turing test with an "F"...


 



      
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