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Ransom is the new Green

If you did not find a rock to hide under this past week you inevitably got bombarded by the news around a variety of snafus, hacks, intrusions, and modern day buccaneering.

It started with a popular streaming service called Netflix getting in the spotlight.  Netflix started as an online business model serving its subscribers with movies and shows for a monthly fee.  More recently Netflix expanded its scope to produce its own content.  More businesses in America now are expanding their envelope to become everything to everyone.  Look at Amazon - former bookstore and now for a large part of the American public their end-all be-all in terms of obtaining all manners of goods.

So Netflix decides to make its own shows and serials - a popular one called 'Orange is the New Black'.  Turns out some hacker in a former eastern block nation decides to hack into their servers and steal the newest episodes of this popular show.  Their threat - to release this to millions for free.  It is damaging to the brand and basically hits their bottom line but who you gonna catch?

Then days later some jackass at United Airlines - the same which was recently roasted for some unsavory videos -  put all Secure Airline Cockpit door lock codes online for anyone to see.  Hey everyone feel free to stop by the pilot's chambers and let him know if you liked his pretzels.  Fortunately no one was able to use that for another unsavory ransom.

And just recently we saw some Hackers steal the Pirates.  As in some trouble maker goon in cyberspace stole the latest installment of the Disney franchise - Pirates of the Caribbean.  They want to release it to online audiences and if Disney wants to stop it - they need to pay some green - pronto.

Of course the biggest news of the week came last night when the world woke up to news making them wanna cry.  The viral outbreak named WannaCry ironically was part of a code that the National Security Agency had built but fell into the wrong hands holding businesses and people's computer data as a condition to get the ransom.

Finally the jewel in the thorny crown might be apparently the Russian hacking into the recent Presidential elections and we might be watching the real life soap opera unravel over the days to come.


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