IT Horror Stories with Jack Smith

No one expects a cybersecurity incident to begin in the cardboard industry. Yet as our guest Kayne McGladrey explains, cybercriminals don't care what your company manufactures—they care about opportunity. In this episode, Kayne shares how an unexpected conversation with a golf buddy led to a cybersecurity contract, and why one of the most unassuming industries turned out to have a story worth tell...

Once upon a time, Change Management meant raising an RFC, preparing a rollback plan, and surviving the Change Advisory Board. Today, it also means stakeholder engagement, communication plans, adoption metrics, workshops, and apparently having the emotional intelligence of a licensed therapist Whether you're a project manager, systems engineer, change manager, or simply someone who's ever heard the...

It was supposed to be a routine hiring exercise. A candidate receives a technical assignment, reviews the provided material, and prepares a solution. Then someone notices that the "anonymous" dataset isn't anonymous at all. What follows is an uncomfortable discovery involving confidential business information, questions about data handling, and an unexpected conversation with legal. In this episod...

Printing is one of those technologies everyone assumes should have been solved years ago — until someone can't print invoices, shipping labels stop coming out, or 50,000 customer letters suddenly disappear into a print queue somewhere. In this episode, we take a tour through the strange and surprisingly complex world of printing: from small desktop printers and office multifunction devices to ente...

Welcome to the story of a perfectly known and visible laptop that somehow became critical production infrastructure inside a warehouse environment — without going through proper validation, testing, or operational review. The system worked, solved an immediate problem, and was quickly integrated into daily operations... right up until the laptop entered sleep mode and warehouse activities ground t...

We explore a hypothetical ransomware scenario that mirrors what many organizations could face today. Imagine a normal day where systems suddenly become inaccessible, data is encrypted, and the scope of the attack starts to unfold in real time. What follows is a race against the clock, with teams trying to understand what's happening while keeping critical operations alive. More importantly, we foc...

The Boeing 747 is often cited online as proof that aviation still runs on floppy disks — but the reality is a bit more nuanced. In this Rant, we take a closer look at how certain older aircraft, particularly some 747-400 configurations, still use floppy disks to load navigation data into their Flight Management Systems. It's not about being outdated — it's about reliability, certification, and sys...

Conducted during a busy release weekend, the failover test exposed gaps not in the technology itself, but in coordination and communication. While production ultimately stayed unaffected, the situation quickly escalated as subcontractors weren't aligned, assumptions didn't match reality, and information didn't flow when it mattered most. We unpack how a well-intentioned test turned into a coordina...

In this short episode, Jack takes a look at the current state of the IT hiring market — where job postings seem plentiful, but actual opportunities often feel strangely elusive. From "entry-level" roles asking for a decade of experience to companies searching for the mythical full-stack, cloud, DevOps, security expert all in one person, we discuss the growing gap between job descriptions and reali...

A few hundred field engineers. Real humans. With vans. And jobs. All coordinated by a device roughly the size of a coaster and powered by something suspiciously similar to a phone charger. For months, it runs slow but flawlessly. Tickets dispatched. Routes optimized. Managers happy.  The tiny silicon hero hums along in its noble plastic case, bravely pretending it's not one 'apt upgrade' away from...

Jack's Rants dives into the world of banking mainframes and the batch jobs that quietly keep everything moving — until one of them doesn't. What starts as a routine overnight run turns into a multiple transactions on thousands of accounts that didnt happen in the real world, but the mainframe says something else. Want even more info ? Read our show notes and related blog post related to this episo...

This episode we unpack what a DDoS attack actually is, using the specter of Anonymous as a cultural touchstone rather than a how-to villain. We talk about why high-profile groups target services, what it feels like in real time when traffic spikes and systems start gasping, and how panic can make things worse. Instead of glorifying attackers, we center on mindset: staying calm, recognizing early w...

We dive into the familiar chaos of Shadow IT created by the sales department — well-intentioned, fast-moving, and completely invisible until something breaks. A "quick tool" turns into a critical system overnight, contracts appear after go-live, and IT is asked to secure, integrate, and support something it never approved or even knew existed. It's a story about speed versus control, good intentio...

In this episode, we return to Finland, where an international burger chain suddenly found itself cut off from the one thing every fast-food operation needs to function: real-time operational data. A third-party data supplier pulled the plug without warning, leaving kitchens blind, dashboards empty, and the entire workflow stuck on "please wait." What followed was a truly Nordic-speed DevOps rescue...

We revisit the original digital apocalypse — the year 2000 - looking back at what Y2K really was, how an army of COBOL coders saved the world before midnight, and why most people never even noticed. But the clock is ticking again: Y2K38 is coming, and this time it's 32-bit. Different date, same panic waiting to happen as UNIX time doesn't heal — it overflows into a negative. Want even more info ?...

SAP sits quietly at the heart of most global businesses, running everything from payroll to procurement, logistics to finance. It's the system nobody brags about, but everybody depends on. And when someone says "just check SAP," you know you're in for more than a click or two. In this episode, we explore how SAP became the invisible backbone of enterprise life, why it inspires equal parts respect...

Installing a 5G antenna on a rooftop in downtown Paris sounds simple enough - until reality sets in. In this episode, we walk thru the saga of a project that required not one, not two, but multiple site visits before the antenna finally worked as expected. Permits, building access, scheduling delays, unexpected power requirements - each visit brought a new twist, each delay a new story. Was it bur...

A pharmaceutical sales team is detained at an international border. On their tablets: standard product brochures that end up in an escalation into allegations of industrial espionage. In this episode, we unpack how a well-intentioned directive to preload sales materials onto devices as per strategic choices made in boardrooms can unravel on tarmacs and in detention rooms. Back home, the IT team is...

We're unpacking the critical steps behind migrating a domain name — a process that can disrupt everything from search engine indexing and referral traffic to email deliverability and authentication. Join us together with an industry expert and let's explore the technical risks, from broken redirects to, yes — forgetting to update your SPF records and wondering why your emails end up in spam (don't...

Join us as we explore the intersection of Nordic tech innovation, modern infrastructure, and the evolving world of DevOps : Finland ! From smart cities to smarter code and crashing airport parking systems with those nasty edge cases in your test scenario. Want even more info ? Read our show notes and related blog post related to this episode : https://blog.ithorrorstories.eu/episode-2-crashing-hel...

What happens when a data center goes up in smoke—literally? In this episode, we sift through the potential ashes of a not-so-great day. Join us as we chat about servers, batteries, paperwork and holidays, and the surprisingly flammable side of computing. It's a smoky mess, and we're here for it. Want even more info ? Read our show notes and related blog post related to this episode : https://blog....