The Codeless Code: Case 28 Echo 
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 The Clan of Iron Bones was charged with keeping the servers
running. This was their purpose, and this was their pride.

A monk of that clan was running a security sweep when he
noticed several non-essential services enabled. He reported
his findings to the abbot.

“We should shut down the echo service on port seven,” said
the monk. “It is a holdover from forgotten times, and serves
no useful purpose now. All it does is vomit back whatever is
fed to it, as an aid to testing network latency and
connectivity.”

To the monk’s astonishment, the abbot immediately banished
him for a year to a distant hermitage high in the mountains.
No reason was given.

The journey took many weeks. The road wound upward and
eventually disappeared beneath drifts of snow. The air grew
thin. In the final miles the mountain became treacherously
steep: the almost-invisible path skirted a sheer drop into
oblivion. When night fell the monk nearly lost his life by
straying too close to the edge.

Eventually he reached a hut perched atop a lonely crag. The
hut was cold and bare except for a bed, a bowl, and an
ancient workstation with a VT220 terminal.

One day the monk was meditating when the terminal beeped.
Onscreen he read:

Connection received. Payload: Ten thousand greetings to our
distant cousin! Response?

The monk replied with a flurry of excited questions, but his
every input was rejected by the terminal. In a flash the
monk was enlightened, and typed:

Ten thousand greetings to our distant cousin!

After that the terminal would beep no more than once every
few days. Sometimes the message was a simple hello.
Sometimes it was a small poem about the antics of a quick
brown fox. Often it was a string of gibberish. But the monk
always answered promptly and faithfully. In this way did the
monk pass the year.

When he returned to the temple he continued in this manner:
speaking only when spoken to and returning the words exactly
as given. And although this earned him the scorn of his
fellows, all had to admit that he never spread rumors, lied
for personal gain, or insulted anyone who did not do him
injury first.

Qi’s commentary

The monk’s penance was far too lax; but then, he was a lucky
fox. Had he instead complained about the discard service on
port nine, he would have learned how to hold his tongue.

Qi’s poem

The tower stands proudly,

the statue gazes out to sea.

What great work was not created,

but that the builder might see his reflection in the world?