Atlas

Root Without Responsibility

Fiction EN ↓ 2 episodes

Before helpdesks had ticket numbers. Before users had rights. Before IT had “customer service skills.”There was root. Root Without Responsibility is the origin story of the legendary Bastard Operator From Hell — told from the machine room floor. From a bored university operator at University of Waikato armed with system passwords and plausible deniability…To late-night rants written on a scavenged TRS-80 Model 100 with 23K of memory…To the strange, electric days of Usenet, when the support staff outnumbered the lusers and revenge was measured in diskquota.

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Author

Atlas

Episodes

The Bastard Wreaks Terrible Revenge 12.03.2026 24:09

The Bastard Operator is back from a “fact-finding tour” of the United States… and finds the office exactly as he left it: full of incompetent users, clueless management, and people who really shouldn’t be touching network equipment.

Birth of the Bastard Operator From Hell 01.03.2026 21:52

Ever wonder what the person controlling your server really thinks of you? In this episode, we dive into the "gluten-free, high-fibre" archives of the Bastard Operator from Hell (BOFH) . Born in the late 1980s at the University of Waikato, the BOFH was a "Technical-SuperHero" with all the power and none of the responsibility. From rants written on a 23K "Trash-80" to a global cult following on Usen...