(posted at 06:15PM GMT) 
A few things they won't tell you when you sign up for Tiscali Broadband service; firstly, they have two technical support teams - one that handles support via e-mail and one that handles support via telephone.
Both are as equally incompetent as each other.
Both have totally separate ticket systems and the staff manning one do not have access to the other.
The long and the short of it was that I had to explain to the individual on the other end of the phone the entirety of what had gone on a month ago when this was initially reported (see my past journal entry on this topic).
I was then asked why I was submitting traceroutes.
I responded by saying that this is standard practice when reporting an issue with a providers' routing and that I would expect my own customers to do the same.
The individual then responded, "A traceroute is the last thing you need to test - have you checked to make sure your browser is configured correctly ?"
My mouth fell wide open at this.
In order for a browser to connect to a webserver, there must be stable routing between the users' computer and the network where the server resides - which is exactly what a traceroute provides evidence of.
In short, if a traceroute doesn't get there (port filtering notwithstanding), a browser definitely won't.
I said that the customers' browser was a clean install of Mozilla Firefox but regardless of that, I was told to set the browser security settings as low as possible (you can't do this in Firefox - only in IE) - this at least explains why I see several thousand rogue connections from machines in the Tiscali ADSL pool every day; if this is the advice their techs are kicking out, it would certainly explain the amount of compromised machines out there in Tiscali-land.
I was asked if I had disabled the antivirus/firewall on the computer to which I responded, "What antivirus ?" (this is Linux after all) and "What firewall ?" (no iptables loaded - so no firewall - no services listening either bar sshd).
I said that the machine wasn't running Windows but I could replicate the problem on a Windows machine if requested.
I asked to be escalated to second-line support but was refused as I had not yet proved that the issue could not be resolved by first-line support (i.e. by this individual).
I retorted by saying that if you do not understand the nature of the problem which this connection is experiencing, how the hell can you expect to solve it ?
The individual then said that a traceroute won't work between two Tiscali Broadband connections unless I am using a VPN connection; thankfully my 'hold' button was within reach as I was both hysterical and insanely angry at this point.
I can only end this how dwmw2 usually ends his BT-related rants:
| 
