Root Without Responsibility

Podcast by Atlas

English

Entertainment

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20 hours of audiobooks / month
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About Root Without Responsibility

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.

All episodes

2 episodes

The Bastard Wreaks Terrible Revenge

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.

12 Mar 2026 - 24 min

Birth of the Bastard Operator From Hell

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 Usenet and The Register, we explore how Simon Travaglia turned IT boredom into a cynical digital legacy. Discover why "I'm just an operator" became the most dangerous phrase in tech, and how one man from Hautapu, New Zealand, managed to terrify "lusers" for decades. Listen now to see if your disk quota is safe. 💾🚫

1 Mar 2026 - 21 min

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