Rewarding Hackers and Ransomware Crime

[Ernie]

https://www.state.gov/reward-offers-for ... o-justice/

Isn't there a better way than offering 10 million?

[Josh]

https://www.state.gov/reward-offers-for ... o-justice/

Isn't there a better way than offering 10 million?

Yes. They can spend $9 million on software and services from the latest hot cybersecurity tech startup I’m working for.

[Judas Maccabeus]

https://www.state.gov/reward-offers-for ... o-justice/

Isn't there a better way than offering 10 million?

Yes. They can spend $9 million on software and services from the latest hot cybersecurity tech startup I’m working for.

That might be good value. One such incident in Baltimore city suspended ALL real property sales for like two months. They could not check for tax payments, and could not verify that the property was free of leans. Could not collect recordation tax, and could not transfer the property. A huge mess. Some of their software was allegedly running on MS-DOS, but denials were issued.

I wonder how much that cost?

[Josh]

DOS would actually be more safe from ransomware attacks.

Local governments are some of the hardest customers to work with. I tried to dodge them when I worked in professional services.

[Ken]

It seems like every time there is a ransomware attack that takes down some governmental office or system it leads back to some agency that was neglectful in maintaining its systems and keeping software updated and modern.

• Maybe this is because government often doesn't pay as much as the private sector and the best tech people don't want to work for government agencies.
• Maybe this is because government budgets don't provide enough money to keep their systems modern and updated. I have walked into some offices before and it looked like they were still using Windows 95. Sometimes even running DOS programs.
• Maybe it is because tech people aren't highly ranked within government agencies. All the bosses and administrators are completely non-techie types and tech people are sort of at the bottom of the totem pole. That is definitely how it is at school districts. A tech person is never going to be made a top administrator at any school district. It will be some random EdD person. Even though education is becoming increasingly technology based. But I don't expect that is the case at places like Google or Apple where the top people, and especially mid level people tend to be tech engineers. And of course actual tech companies don't tend to get taken down by ransomware either.

Probably it is a combination of all three. I'm sure Josh has opinions.

[Ken]

DOS would actually be more safe from ransomware attacks.

Local governments are some of the hardest customers to work with. I tried to dodge them when I worked in professional services.

It is probably that they are running DOS applications but on more modern operating systems. That is actually pretty common. Even if you walk into places like Costco you can see that their inventory systems are still DOS applications even if the network itself and the computer OS is probably something much more modern. Even some of the airline reservation systems you see at airports if you look over the shoulder of a ticket agent look like DOS screens.

[ohio jones]

Maybe this is because government budgets don't provide enough money to keep their systems modern and updated.

Or to build a working system in the first place. Remember the launch of healthcare.gov?

[Ken]

Maybe this is because government budgets don't provide enough money to keep their systems modern and updated.

Or to build a working system in the first place. Remember the launch of healthcare.gov?

Yep. That usually happens because agencies don't have the internal expertise to do the work internally and so are forced to hire contractors. But government contracting rules requires that they go with low bidders. Which might work fine if you are building a highway where the work gets done to specific standards that can be monitored and inspected. But much more difficult to monitor when you are building some new web site or software.

[Soloist]

The military actually still uses dos for the medical booking. Works really well after you know how to use it.

[Josh]

I think y'all are saying "DOS" when what you mean is a "text based user interface", which are still quite common and run on the most modern of computer systems.

DOS was an operating system that was contemporary in the 1980s and could have either a text based user interface, but also could host graphical user interfaces, the most well known one of them being Windows.