Two winters ago, I got sick of texting the snowplow guy every time it snowed, to remind him that he needed to plow our drive. So I went out and bought a snowblower, and we’ve had hardly any snow ever since. Those of you who hate snow owe me one. Personally, I can’t get enough of it and blame my purchase for the miserable winter weather we’ve had lately.
This past spring, my big purchase was a portable generator, and unlike the blower, it’s been put to good use this week (and it sounds like we’ll still be using it until Sunday). While I can live without electricity, no power means no water from our well, and that can get old quickly. I guess I’m now batting .500 in terms of very large gasoline operated equipment in my garage… Well, come to think of it, I may be a little below that number now. I filled so many gas tanks the other day that I put the wrong kind in my backpack blower (straight gas rather than mixed) and didn’t realize it until the engine seized. Whoops. Hoping that can be fixed, but not holding my breath.
Anyway, I hope your power is on so that you’re not missing the fun stuff below including cotton candy burritos, data scraping, and prisoner swaps.
Something about ...
Earlier this week, Google lost an antitrust case regarding the search engine market, of which they own over 90%, and which generated $238B in revenues last year. I”ll let you figure out where Google has a monopoly or not, but if you’re interested to see how they make their money, you can read this article about the suit.
Stadium Food
Typically, it’s the Texas state fair or various professional baseball teams (majors and minors) getting notoriety for crazy concession stand offerings. This week, it’s the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals with what is quite possibly the most awful food item I’ve ever seen (other than broccoli or cauliflower); the cotton candy burrito.
Columbus, OH
It seems that there’s been a pretty large data breach regarding employees of the City of Columbus. An online auction was held for the data, with a minimum bid of $1.7M, and since that number was not met, the hackers released the data. According to this article, the fact that the reserve was not met could mean the data isn’t all that valuable. I’m sure it’ll take quite some time to figure out what was stolen and how.
"Public" Data
For $1.7M, you can have data about employees from the city of Columbus, OH. Or, for $3.5M, you could’ve had the data for 2.9 billion (!) people. (It’s nice that the journalist reminded us, with our population of 330 million, that this breach probably includes more than just Americans.) The company in question is National Public Data, which is ironic, considering that a lot of the data they were collecting was from non-public sources. If you don’t click through to the article, at least take this advice;
Ransomware
According to our friends at Sophos (“The State of Ransomware, 2024”), ransomware attacks last year decreased from the prior two years. That’s a good thing. But in case you think you’re not a target (you’re always a target- trust me), 47% of businesses with <$10M in revenues were hit (down from 58% in the year prior). Additionally, the number one methodology for ransomware attacks was through exploited vulnerabilities… that means you need to make sure that your IT resources are applying security updates on a regular basis. At the same time, the average ransom payment increased from $400K to $2M. A little less than the recent record-setting $75M ransom payment made by a Fortune 50 company.
I downloaded the Sophos whitepaper and posted it on our website if you’d like to read more.
Real Estate
The most expensive home ever sold in Ohio was sold last year. Now there’s a new home on the market (also in Hunting Valley) that would take the crown, as it’s listed at $19.995M. The house isn’t really my style, but I’d gladly take the 61 acres that back up to the Chagrin River.
Prisoner Swaps
I was at a networking event last night and got into a conversation with a guy who’s working to build a new hospital in Kyrgyzstan (had to look that one up to properly spell it), and mentioned that he’d also traveled to Moldova, amongst other countries, this year. Talk led to prisoner swaps and he explained that he does his best to keep his head down and not draw attention to himself, lest the Russians take him as tradebait for more criminals. Interesting then, to have this piece in my inbox this morning regarding the fact that criminals Russia is trading for often have a back ground in cyber crime. I guess that aligns with the ransomware piece, above
That’s all for this week. A couple of days left to watch random Olympic events like the badminton we watched the other night. When I was in college, the dean of students was also the chair of the US Olympic Badminton committee, so he insisted that the sport be offered as a PE credit. Of course my roommate and I took it and had a blast… if you’ve never played (or seen) badminton played the way it’s supposed to be played, it’s a lot different from your typical backyard cookout!
Instead of boring you with Olympic highlights, however, I’ll leave you with the recent dog surfing championships. The owners look like they’re having fun, but the dogs look like they’d rather be anywhere else. Including the vet.
Have a great weekend.
Abbey