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The first ever case of ransomware wasn't from the internet.
Believe it or not, this story is from the website Cracked.com. According to them, the first ever case of ransomware happened in 1989. It didn’t spread online. It came in the form of floppy disks, mailed to 20,000 addresses worldwide. Supposedly, the software offered a tool for testing your likelihood of getting AIDS.
Once people popped the disk into their computers, it also installed a virus, which locked their data away. If you wanted your files back, you had to send money to a post office box in Panama. The ransom note phrased this as buying a license, obscuring the extortion.
The man behind this scheme was Joseph Popp, a Harvard-educated doctor working out of Kenya. He really was researching AIDS, and when he was caught, he claimed he only did this scheme to raise money for AIDS research. A judge actually sided with him — perhaps not agreeing this was a valid motive but at least agreeing that the guy was too nuts to stand trial. Popp claimed to be unwell and wore a condom over his nose to demonstrate this.
Popp didn’t generate much money for his AIDS research. In fact, he hurt AIDS research. One of his targets was a lab doing its own investigation of AIDS, and they said the attack cost them 10 years of work. It sounds absurd that he’d send his ransomware to AIDS research institutions, considering everyone else he could have hit. But he had to. Those were the people most interested in reading a disk labeled “AIDS.”
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Joe Biden cried at the Democratic National Convention last night as he gave one of his final major addresses as president, telling supporters that because of them 'democracy has prevailed' and that America has had 'one of the most extraordinary four years of progress ever'.
The 81-year-old took the stage on Monday night after midnight to 'pass the torch' to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris on a night of delays that bumped his historic farewell remarks from primetime TV.
He began by wiping away a tear as his daughter Ashley (did we know he had a daughter named Ashley?) introduced him in front of thousands of idiots in the United Center chanting 'we love Joe'. His eyes were also visibly watery during parts of his farewell speech, as the oldest president in US history was overcome with emotion. Today he probably doesn't even remember being there. Juss' sayin'...
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one full year ferfucksake...
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The question on celebrity endorsement needs to be broken into 2 parts. Will vote the endorsement or will make you vote against the endorsement.
ReplyDeleteIf I don't know anything else about a candidate or proposition, a celebrity endorsement will 100% sway my vote, just in the opposite direction. A clock that is never right is more useful than a clock that is right two times a day.
ReplyDeleteIn your list of leaving/left California, you forgot to include Toyota who moved some 4,000 jobs to Plano Texas a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteSo we have no president for the next 5 months?
ReplyDeleteNot to worry. We haven't had a President for the last three years and seven months anyway.
DeleteThat gif with Hill and Billary is funnyy. I think it was back in 2016 there was one floating around exactly like that one with a giant penis going in her mouth. I haven't seen it in a while.
ReplyDelete