Oddly enough, people in the San Francisco Bay area are generally expected to pay to ride transit systems there, which is markedly different in concept from the way things are done here in Portland, where only bus riders are required to pay at boarding - light rail and streetcar is based on the so-called "honor" system; you're supposed to pay, but many don't bother with that. Over the weekend, however, Bay Area transit was giving away free rides.
That's because the technological geniuses got their ticketing machines and point-of-payment systems infected with ransomware:
A message reading “You hacked. ALL data encrypted” appeared on ticket machines Saturday morning, along with a contact email address — suggesting a ransomware attack, in which a hacker can lock out a system from its owners.
Unlike Portland's "honor" system, the folks running the San Francisco Municipal Transportation System (Muni) figured out long ago that in order to recover at least some revenue from riders, you have to force them to pay. So they installed gates. The gates were raised, however, allowing for free rides over the weekend as they addressed the ransomware infection. Since they got things back up and running fairly quickly, it seems safe to guess that they paid the hacker, just as a hospital in southern California did earlier in the year.
And while we're on the subject of electronic fun and games:
SALEM, Ore. -- A Chicago woman is taking the Salem Police Department and Marion County Sheriff’s Office to task over an instance of politically fueled online trolling.
Wah! Little "Liz" got her feelings hurt!
McArthur said it all started on November 20th, when she posted a link to an editorial, written by a contributor to the Huffington Post.
The piece, titled “Women Of The World: It’s Time To March On Washington”, encouraged women to attend the planned “Women’s March on Washington” on January 21st, the day after Donald Trump’s scheduled inauguration.
McArthur’s caption read “I am going.”
She just wanted to feel empowered, you know, because Trump's really scary and hates women and is racist and....
And so it was that she posted on Facebook, because as everybody knows, it's a haven for privacy and self-expression. Sort of a virtual diary, as it were. So she was shocked - shocked, I tell you! - to find that a couple of cops in Oregon stumbled across it during off-duty hours, and they made FUN of her! So she behaved in a typically Lefty version of adulthood:
McArthur swore at the men, told them to stop and tried to ignore it.
Galusha then posted another meme, reading "Just a troll fishing for liberals."
Now she's really mad. As well as not very bright.
