This question always.
Pottawatomie Co. pays hackers to restore computer systems after cyber attack
Chris Fisher reports:
Officials in Pottawatomie County say computer systems are slowly being restored after a ransom was paid to hackers.
County officials say several of their servers were encrypted during a cyber attack on September 17, 2021.
The county was able to resolve the attack by paying less than 10% of the hacker’s original demands.
Read more on WIBW.
While they brag about how they talked the threat actors down in amount of demand, did anyone ask them why they were unable to use a current backup? Did they even have one?
The most recent notice on the county’s site is from September 28. It states:
Pottawatomie County computer networks and systems are currently offline. We don’t have a date yet when systems will be fully restored, but we are working diligently to address the problem and restore services as soon as possible.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We are doing as much as we can with pen and paper, but some services are unavailable until systems are restored.
If you need to do business with a County department or agency, please call the appropriate office before stopping in to make sure we can provide what is needed. Click here for a Staff Directory. Thank you for your patience.
We will post updates here as the situation is resolved.
Yes, we know where you are and yes, we can use that information against you.
There’s a multibillion-dollar market for your phone’s location data
Companies that you likely have never heard of are hawking access to the location history on your mobile phone. An estimated $12 billion market, the location data industry has many players: collectors, aggregators, marketplaces, and location intelligence firms, all of which boast about the scale and precision of the data that they’ve amassed.
… “There isn’t a lot of transparency and there is a really, really complex shadowy web of interactions between these companies that’s hard to untangle,” Justin Sherman, a cyber policy fellow at the Duke Tech Policy Lab, said. “They operate on the fact that the general public and people in Washington and other regulatory centers aren’t paying attention to what they’re doing.”
Scenario away!
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/01/internet_archive_wayforward_machine/
Internet Archive's 2046 Wayforward Machine says Google will cease to exist
Stop cheering, you're meant to think this is a bad thing
The Internet Archive has launched a campaign against tech regulation by setting up a Wayforward Machine, semi-parodying its famous Wayback Machine archiving site.
The Wayforward Machine paints a picture of the internet in 2046 – smeared with censorship, regulation, governmental interference, and more.
On typing in any well-known web address to the Wayforward Machine, the viewer is presented with a number of popups – all of which suggest a nightmarish future where governmental surveillance reigns supreme and privacy is heavily frowned upon.
Visiting the BBC website brings up a popup stating: "Content on the site you are trying to access is protected by the Content Truth Gateway," while trying to reach Google.com shows that the Chocolate Factory has ceased to function after being regulated out of existence – perhaps intended as the sole light at the end of the tunnel rather than a sign of crushing defeat for freedom.
I’m not sure there is a point to this, but it is interesting.
https://www.androidcentral.com/ai-controversial-future-tech-whether-we-it-or-not
AI is the controversial future of tech whether we like it or not
Artificial Intelligence is the best and worst thing that's ever happened to our daily lives.
For my students.
https://www.makeuseof.com/google-scholar-alternatives/
4 Google Scholar Alternatives to Find Educational Material
… Here, we'll look at four alternative search tools, where you can find articles, textbooks, and other forms of educational material.
An elegant answer to an old question.
https://dilbert.com/strip/2021-10-02
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