Last weekend. But not enough to bring us out of the drought.
Getting back to the Gas Shortage Iād like to mention that Scientists are predicting a huge shortage of Brood X Cicadas in the coming weeks so Iām offering a rare collection of all natural and organic, for $5 a pop. Limited supply! Get 'em now before the supply runs out!!!
Send your money to āpanicstrickenstrickenturkeys.foolsā before the money runs out! 
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Do you guarantee live delivery of the cicadas?
Back to gasoline. My usual station has been out of gas for nearly two months, but that was because their tanks were being replaced.
I notice the convenience store switched to Texaco. Okay, I will use that. Pump says with Techron, when you start pumping, the video screen displays Chevron. Been years since I had even seen a Texaco.
Colonial Pipeline lucks out, with the help of The US DOJ:
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Whereās the beef?
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) ā As one of the largest meat suppliers in the U.S. begins to bounce back after being shut down by a cyber attack, meat producers are seeing an increase in prices.
Yeah the ferry boat too. Wear a life jacket so you can swim back to shore again. Never can be too careful or too prepared. The rabbits are coming back though so I have a food source if the cayotes donāt beat me to it.
Eat the coyotes.
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Heh heh. I guess Iāve always been tuned in to non-verbal communications. I used to bring home rabbits and an occasional squirrel, and Mom would dutifully cook them up like they were special. But I āsensedā that she didnāt really want them so I stopped. When I went fishing and came home with a whole string of bull heads, I didnāt even suggest we eat them and just buried them in the garden for fertilizer. Fun to catch anyway and not legal to throw them back. Gee I hope I donāt have to resort to the hunter gatherer role again.
Ransomware, not malware (to be more precise). The pipeline company paid millions in ransom. A recent The New Yorker article reveals that electronic ransoms are huge, one criminal group making $2 billion in a couple of years before closing shop. The success is mostly due to Bitcoin, which allows completely anonymous and untraceable ransom payments. If a billion$ company is going to lose hundreds of millions if it canāt operate until the ransom is paid, then $50 million makes business sense. Thereās ransom insurance, though itās getting rarer.
If DOJ really found a way to access Bitcoins, that would be the end of electronic ransoms. The operative word is āif.ā It would also probably be the end of Bitcoin. Letās see if they get the meat packerās ransom back.
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Seems like they found a way.
But itās NOT going away. FBI got involved because it was a big case. A few towns in MA and NH have been hit by Ransomware. They paidā¦but it was only $20k. Unfortunately those small cases have added up to well over $1BILLION paid out by US companies/Cities/Hospitalsā¦etc. And now theyāre going after individuals. Iām protectedā¦Everyone should.
It sounds like the DOJ figured out how to access a digital āwalletā that was used to store some of the Bitcoin ransom, and they were able to empty that wallet.
During the '50s & '60s, as both The US & The USSR raced to develop missiles, the key question was āwhich country has better German scientists?ā. In this new era, I think the question is nowā¦
Which country has better computer hackers?
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(Mike) How are you protected? Hackers have broken into the U.S. Federal Reserve, military systems, some of the best protected systems worldwide. North Korea has briefly shut down the electric grids in entire countries, presumably as a warning of what they can do. What stronger defenses do you have?
The New Yorker investigation found that one ransom group alone made $2billion in a couple of years, so the total extorted from U.S. sources is much more than $1billion.
It seems most unlikely theyād come after individuals. I several times have received email warnings that the sender has accessed my PC, knows all my āpersonalā information, all my contacts, and will send it to them, unless I pay several hundreds of dollars to their Bitcoin account, with instructions how to do that. I have nothing in my PC thatās secret and/or would ruin my lifeāhow many people do?āwouldnāt care if the threat was realāitās a bluff, though the Bitcoin account is probably real. I ignore them, as I do Nigerian princes who have millions of dollars they want to give me.
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(VDC) North Korea does, beyond doubt. They āraiseā super-techs from childhood, as Russia does Olympic athletes. I suggest googling that New Yorker article, itās the most comprehensive Iāve ever read.
Iām Bitcoin baffled, donāt know what a wallet is (donāt need to). Does that mean the FBI (or others) can now regain all ransoms paid by Bitcoin?
I assume that it is an account, of sorts.
I think it all depends on which group of cybercriminals one is dealing with. The group in this case was clearly not quite as slick as the computer boffins employed by The DOJ.
Itās actually quite simpleā¦Get a VM (Virtual Machine). A VM is basically a piece of software that runs on your computer. It acts like itās own computer. I have a high-end laptop running Windows 10. My VM is running Windows 8.1. My laptop has 32gb Ram and 1 TB of diskspace. I dedicate 8gb or Ram and 100gb of disk to the VM. I know you can get a VMā¦Oracle VM is free. I built my own with VMware. Once you have a VM, then you need a VM reader - which is free. I also have a backup of that VM. It can be completely sacrificed. If the VM gets a virus or ransomware, then I just delete it and restore the backup. Simple. I use the VM for all activity on the internet. This keeps my laptop completely protected. My laptop Windows 10 software is NOT connected to the Webā¦ only my VM Windows 8.1 system is.
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The word Hack is not the right term. 99% of the systems that have been compromised were not taking proper security precautions. Iām chief Software Architect and Engineering Manager for a small company that designs solutions for the Telecom industry. Our systems are very secure. We design it up front to be that way. Some of our solutions are for Foreign governments. Our solutions have never been compromised. Designing security up front is a lot easier then retrofitting it later.
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I had to look this word up! Thanks for expanding my vocabulary. Seems the scientific community (from google readings) is split weather it has good or bad connotations.
Boffin is pretty much standard terminology in The UK for someone who is a technical wizard. However, itās much less common to hear that word in The US.
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You said āIā am secure, which implied an individual, not a company. Much different.