Imagine this scenario: You have a dial up internet connection. One day, out of the blue, you are unable to connect. An authentication error perhaps. You have not made any changes on your computer that would cause such a thing to happen. Now, tell me, where does the problem lie?
Oddly, there is a segment of the population who will believe that the problem lies on their computer. Having made this brilliant diagnosis, they proceed to contact said computer vendor's tech support to find out why their computer will not allow them to get on the internet.
For example, observe the following excerpt of a conversation between a tech support agent and one of the aforementioned users:
Customer: I can't connect to the internet. It says there was an authentication error.
Tech Support Agent: Ok. You're sure the password is correct?
C: Yes. It was working before and I haven't changed it.
TSA: Have you contacted your internet service provider to see if there is a problem on their end?
C: No. I don't think it's the service provider, because it was working yesterday.
TSA: I see.
The tech support agent, who would not dare argue with such sound logic, proceeds to troubleshoot the issue (including having the customer dial in to a test server, to which he connects successfully). Much to the dismay of all involved, he finds nothing wrong on the computer, and advises the customer to contact his ISP.
Sadly, this is a true story. I weep for the future of humanity.
I have a similar tale. My dial up suddenly stopped working, I had made no changes to the system (which was an old P90 dedicated to routing between the Internet and the LAN) so I called up my ISP (BT Internet).
"My dial up is failing to connect, but I haven't altered my config at all. Has anything change at your end?"
"Do you run NT or 98?"
Suddenly I felt pain forming behind my left eye.
"Neither, its a Linux system, but that's irrelevent. Yesterday it was working. Today it is not working. Nothing about the system has changed."
"Does that run under 98 or NT?"
The pain intensified.
"No, it is stand alone. All I want to know is if anything has changed with the log in server."
And so it went on. Eventually the tech support zombie had a word with a supervisor. It turned out that nothing had changed and they didn't support Linux. I was moving house three weeks later so it was a simple decision to make.
"OK then, I want to cancle my subscription to your service."
"Oh we can't do that - you'll have to call this number...."
A week later the unofficial Linux / BT Internet FAQ was updated... with the new logon process.