Nothing pisses me off more than this horse shit.
Both the fact that this is a common attitude amongst people, and the fact that yes, while I suffer from major depression, I can get shit done.
High functioning depression is what they call it.
And it fucking sucks.
So, last week I did yet another thing that I am totally NOT QUALIFIED* to do at work.
I know that networking is not covered in any of the 4th class Power Engineering modules that I undertook via correspondence.
At work there was a standalone building management system put in that wasn’t connected to the main network for an unknown reason.
Wasn’t a concern until the system started doing funny things during the recent cold snap and we had no way of logging into it to see what was up.
It had become painfully obvious to me that this standalone system needed to be connected to the main network so that the shift engineers could get into it to manually override it if required.
I think this is the 4th MOXA NAT that I’ve installed at work in the last couple of years in order to put building automation and HVAC equipment on to the main network.
The most significant problem is the addressing for the network and the building automation equipment and the HVAC equipment have two completely different addressing schemes.
Most equipment shows up with the factory default addresses being used which typically are in the Class C range and are usually beginning with 192.168.xxx.xxx
The main network is a Class B network and starts with 172.24.xxx.xxx.
The NAT allows communication to flow between the Class C network and the Class B network without causing any headaches.
Basically in the NAT I have to create two VLANS (virtual local area networks) assign the WAN (wide area network) to one VLAN and the LAN (local area network) to the other VLAN and then create very specific rules to allow traffic to flow between the LAN and the WAN.
I create a 1-to-1 routing rule. The rule would look like this:
incoming -> 172.24.81.30 goes to 192.168.3.1, blocks ICMP, allows TCP and UDP.
outgoing – 192.168.3.1 goes to 171.24.81.30, blocks ICMP, allows TCP and UDP
All other IP addresses on the LAN are blocked from any type of communication with the WAN port and conversely the WAN can only see the single device on the LAN.
The MOXA device itself is set to respond to pings so at least IMIT can see the device is present, but even IMIT can’t see to the other side of the NAT.
I’ve had to use NATs before to let the Emergency Generator Control system and the Elevator Dispatcher to be accessed from the main network for access to readings, logs, and alarms.
Well Bobbie, the answer is clear, you need to take a course in networking if you like this so much!!!!!!
The thing is, I don’t like this.
There is absolutely nothing special about this, and the way I look at this, if an imbecile such as myself can do this, then really anyone can do this.
I had an interest in computers and electronics when I was a kid. But my father did everything that he could in order to shit all over that.
My father would spare no expense when I was a kid extolling how much of a fuck up I was, and that I was pretty fucking stupid no matter how good I was a picking up electronics and computers.
My father’s disdain for my interest in electronics and computers was legendary.
When I was in grade 8 (1985 – 1986) I had built a 5mW helium neon laser as a science project. Not going to go too far into it, but by using a pair of mirror mounted on voice coils I could scan the beam to any X-Y coordinate on a wall or screen. Or I could just feed audio into the amplifiers that drove the voice coils and I could create patterns.
My science teacher, Mr. Bowles, was blown away by this.
My brother Scott decided that he was going to sell the device that I was using to generate the X-Y scan patterns.
My father of course wasn’t concerned in the least.
Scott was acting this way because of what I had let the babysitter do to him.
Scott was acting this way because I wasn’t raising him properly.
If you’ve followed my story, you’ll know that I moved out of the house in late 1987. I really wasn’t safe in the house. Richard was absolutely unsuitable as a parent, and my brother Scott had become uncontrollable and was definitely running with a dangerous crew.
Getting work right away wasn’t an issue. Since I was about 14 I had been servicing arcade games, pinball machines, and jukeboxes for two different route operators in Toronto.
I beat a DeVry certified electronics technician at the repair of one video game that he had been stumped on for over 2 months. Took me four hours to get the machine up and running again. And it was just an 8-bit bi-directional latch that crippled the machine.
I realized quickly that although my knowledge in digital electronics had saved my bacon, without a certificate or diploma I was never going to make a living off this.
No matter how much I’ve tried to steer clear of anything to do with electronics or computers, I always get drawn back into it. And as much as I despise electronics and computers, they have saved my bacon as they offset all of my character flaws.
The last time I spoke with my father was in August / September of 2006. He brought up the topic of my laser himself and he wanted to know why the fuck that was such a big deal. It wasn’t like I had made the laser tube from scratch, or designed the power supply from scratch, I had just purchased a used laser tube and I had built the power supply using pre-made components.
When my brother came down to see me in 2021 after the public release of the 1980 Military Police investigation paperwork which proved that our father was a liar, we went for a walk around the seawall.
Out of nowhere he brought up the topic of the laser and wanted to know why it was such a big deal. Apparently while Richard was still alive between 2006 and 2017 he had talked to Scott and compared me and my laser to that kid in the states that was busted by the FBI for modifying a clock controller from a VCR and using it to control things at preset times.
I asked him if he knew what a “hacker” was and how the term originated.
I explained to him that the term “hacker” originated with people who would take electronic devices or computer devices and make them do things that they weren’t originally intended to do by “hacking” the components or the programs.
Almost everyone who is a somebody in the field of computers or electronics started off by taking things apart or decompiling code in order to see how things worked, and then making changes to make the devices work better or to do things that were more beneficial to the user.
Christ, some of the earliest hacking / phreaking involved blowing a Captain Crunch toy whistle into the receiver of a payphone in order to make free phone calls.
But, back to me. I turned my back on electronics and computers many, many moons ago.
The memories of my father’s derision, and his utter contempt towards my interests in computers and electronics was just too fucking painful.
I still work with electronics, computers, and networking even though I am NOT QUALIFIED*. I have no choice. In this day and age there is no reason for a facility like mine to not be able to extract operational data from building automation equipment and HVAC equipment.
But, every time that I do this work it tears me apart with never ending thoughts of what might have been or what could have been or what should have been.
Sure, it was my father that was an asshole.
But it was Captain McRae and his teenage accomplice what diddled about 25 children on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 to 1980. It was also the Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Totzke that ensured that I knew that I was to blame for allowing myself and my brother to be abused.
And of course, my father being a lowly corporal in the Canadian Forces ensured that Captain Totzke’s opinion of me would notn be questioned by my father.
So, not only does working with electronics and networking at the hospital raise up questions about the way my father belittled my blossoming interests, but it also make me wonder how things would have turned out had my brother and I not been molested, had the Canadian Forces not buried the matter in 1980, and had I not had Captain Totzke as my social worker.
Beeshive 