ShinyHunters hacked Canvas during finals week and demanded a ransom. Why would anyone pay criminals who could just take the money and dump the data anyway? Pirates had the answer 300 years ago.
Lemme get this straight: Canvas gets hacked on Thursday, and MME has a whole article all ready to go by the following Monday? Seems a little sus....
Good article! My guess is there would have been a lot less piracy if fewer crews capitulated without resistance, for reasons of attrition if nothing else
Thank you! There are similar stories behind markets for illegal guns, illegal drugs, large-scale international transportation of underage females for the use of politicians and other influencers (that's YOU, Jeffrey!), etc. Criminals are people too...
I partly love teaching Economics of Crime because it's fun to watch them grapple with the notion that criminals weigh costs and benefits just like the rest of us upright citizens.
My all-time favorite is Martin Shkreli, the Pharma Bro -- the hedge fund guy who bought and legally raised the price of Daraprim, an AIDS drug, by 5,000%. He was not convicted for this, but was jailed for stock price manipulation. The best thing about him was the smirk on his face when he testified about his price increase before Congress. The second best thing was that he cried in court when told he was going to jail. The third -- but really the first -- is that Shkreli became something of a hero among the inmates for having "screwed the man" -- a less off-putting example of the hatred toward pharmaceutical companies also exemplified by the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione -- Mangione has also become something of an underground hero. Economics and life among the downtrodden.
The Invisible Hook sounds like a very fun book. At the risk of sounding old and cranky, this incident brings nostalgia for the days when professors with some technical know-how hosted their own sites with all the notes, problem sets, their papers, and if you're lucky, some family photos!
I posted stuff on my own website when I first started teaching, but then realized the student pushback wasn't worth it. We still have 1-2 people in our department posting things on their own website, but we're essentially all on Canvas.
Great read; there was a Dutch movie about this years ago. Showed the game theory of negotiations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hijacking
The plot summary sounds really interesting!
Lemme get this straight: Canvas gets hacked on Thursday, and MME has a whole article all ready to go by the following Monday? Seems a little sus....
Good article! My guess is there would have been a lot less piracy if fewer crews capitulated without resistance, for reasons of attrition if nothing else
I had some free time on Friday thanks to Thursday's events!
I think you'd like The Imvisible Hook. I'll see if I can find it
That's just a theory, a game theory!
🥁
Thank you! There are similar stories behind markets for illegal guns, illegal drugs, large-scale international transportation of underage females for the use of politicians and other influencers (that's YOU, Jeffrey!), etc. Criminals are people too...
I partly love teaching Economics of Crime because it's fun to watch them grapple with the notion that criminals weigh costs and benefits just like the rest of us upright citizens.
My all-time favorite is Martin Shkreli, the Pharma Bro -- the hedge fund guy who bought and legally raised the price of Daraprim, an AIDS drug, by 5,000%. He was not convicted for this, but was jailed for stock price manipulation. The best thing about him was the smirk on his face when he testified about his price increase before Congress. The second best thing was that he cried in court when told he was going to jail. The third -- but really the first -- is that Shkreli became something of a hero among the inmates for having "screwed the man" -- a less off-putting example of the hatred toward pharmaceutical companies also exemplified by the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione -- Mangione has also become something of an underground hero. Economics and life among the downtrodden.
Cool post!
We really need to get you a copy of The Invisible Hook. I think you'd like it a lot.
The Invisible Hook sounds like a very fun book. At the risk of sounding old and cranky, this incident brings nostalgia for the days when professors with some technical know-how hosted their own sites with all the notes, problem sets, their papers, and if you're lucky, some family photos!
I posted stuff on my own website when I first started teaching, but then realized the student pushback wasn't worth it. We still have 1-2 people in our department posting things on their own website, but we're essentially all on Canvas.
I think the benefits of an all-in-one LMS are real, but then so are the issues around hacking I guess!
Sad when we need to study pirates and the mafia to understand what's happening in society today.