Hachiko: The World's Most Loyal Dog
27/03/2008

If you've ever seen the canceled-before-its-time (but now revived!) show Futurama, you'll probably remember Bender, the alcoholic robot; Leela, the beautiful one-eyed captain; and Philip J. Fry, the bumbling pizza delivery boy who was cryogenically frozen for a thousand years before joining the Planet Express intergalactic mail delivery team. But do you remember Fry's loyal, loving dog, who waited for his master until the end of his life? If you didn't think a cartoon character could make you cry, it might be time to reevaluate after you watch this heart-wrenching scene.

Now, of course, Fry's dog never really existed (nor did the murderous Killbots, luckily), and you might scoff at the idea that any canine could really exercise such supreme loyalty. After all, your dog forgets that you're alive whenever your sister stops by bearing bags of Pupperoni. And while it's true that most animals are more loyal to their meals than to their masters, we know of an amazingly faithful dog that could be a real-life counterpart to Fry's ever-loving pooch: Hachiko, an Akita from Tokyo.

Hachiko was brought to Tokyo in 1924 by his owner, a college professor named Hidesamuro Ueno. Each day, when Ueno left for work, Hachiko would stand by the door to watch him go. When the professor came home at 4 o'clock, Hachiko would go to the Shibuya Station to meet him.

Though this simple act alone shows a tremendous amount of loyalty, that's not the end of it: The following year, Ueno died of a stroke while at the university. Hachiko didn't realize that he was gone, and so the dog returned to the train station every single day to await his master. He became such a familiar presence there, in fact, that the station master set out food for the dog and gave him a bed in the station. Even so, Hachiko never shifted loyalties – every day at 4 o'clock, he hopefully waited by the tracks as the train pulled in, searching for his best friend's face among the people getting off.

Hachiko's love for his master impressed many people who passed through the station, including one of Ueno's former students, who became fascinated by the Akita breed after seeing Hachiko. He discovered that there were only 30 Akitas living in Japan, and began to write articles about Hachiko and his remarkable breed, turning the world's most loyal dog into a household name, and creating a resurgence in popularity for the Akita.

Hachiko died in 1935, after 10 long years of waiting for his master. But the dog would not be forgotten – a year before his death, Shibuya Station installed a bronze statue of the aging dog, to honor its mascot. Though the statue was melted down during World War II, a new version was created in 1948 by the son of the original artist. Go to the station now, and you'll be able to see the bronze statue of Hachiko – still waiting, as ever, for his master to come home.

Outsourced Comcast Tech Gets Vengeance On Xbox Cheaters
But in the process abuses Comcast support systems, violating user privacy...
11:38AM Wednesday Apr 02 2008 by Karl
tags: business · cable · trouble · privacy · networking · Comcast
Tipped by dispatcher21 See Profile
A Convergsys support technician outsourced by Comcast may have gone a little overboard in a quest for righteous videogame vengeance. After getting packet flooded (a networking trick that essentially DDoS's a user's Xbox) by some fellow gamers on Microsoft's Xbox Live! service, the rep decided to use Comcast support systems to wage war on the perpetrator. Once he identified the cheater as a Comcast user, he accessed their account information to get revenge. Unfortunately for him, he posted his personal information while bragging about violating the user's privacy.

I work for Comcast as a tier 2.5 support agent, which essentially means im one of the top 1% elitest agents
-"Sir Lagzalot"
"I work for Comcast as a tier 2.5 support agent, which essentially means im one of the top 1% elitest agents," brags the tech to the Halo3 forums. According to "Sir Lagzalot," he used Comcast systems while at work to track down the cheater. "I proceeded to input his ip address into a program we have called SERVICE VISIBILITY PORTAL -- SVP for short -- and it brought up his account, address phone number, daddy's credit card info -- the whole nine yards," he says.

"I decided that since this kid was indeed involved in illegal activity I'd give his daddy a call," he continues. If his melodramatic post is to be believed, his call to the father resulted in the Xbox live cheater getting a beating and his Xbox getting smashed with a hammer. As evidence, the tech in question posted these two screenshots of the internal Comcast tools he supposedly used to enact his revenge. The support rep then brags about being able to terminate user accounts at any time:
i basically added these two pics for the non believers...and YES I can powercycle "shut off your modem" and lag you out of matchmaking as well...let this stupid little boy be a lesson to u all, dont flood my ip, or anyone elses...because if you plan on doing so i will cancel your service and you WILL have to find an new isp which can mean up to 500$ in installation charges, and for many of you comcast is the ONLY isp in your area...so let me rephrase this..IS IT WORTH IT????
Click for full size
With this power didn't come the wisdom to avoid using a real name before publicly bragging about abusing Comcast support systems for personal reasons. As a result, here's the Myspace page and some tasteful party photos of one twenty-year-old Mark Ribeiro of Canada. Ironically, he's a third year Criminology major.

While nobody likes a cheater, nobody likes having their personal ISP information accessed for vendettas, either. Or at least you'd think so. Not one post in the ten-page original thread so much as suggests it might have been a dumb idea. Several call Ribeiro a hero.

Comcast, for one, isn't laughing.

"We have identified the person who created this inappropriate post as an employee of Convergys, a third-party vendor who provides technical customer support for Comcast customers," Comcast spokesperson Jenni Moyer tells us. Moyer calls the tech's behavior "completely unacceptable," given he ignored proper protocols for reporting network abuse. He potentially ran afoul of several laws as well.

"We've contacted Convergys to demand that he be immediately removed from performing any work for Comcast and that they conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate disciplinary action," Moyer says.