Tag Archive for: Hostage

Match takes on Google, saying it’s ‘a hostage’ to monopolistic Play Store fees

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Dallas-based Match Group Inc. accused Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a lawsuit of acting as a monopolist with its app store billing rules, the latest escalation in a brawl over the mobile-app industry.

Match Group, which operates dating apps such as Tinder and OkCupid, alleged that Google breaks federal and state laws and abuses its power with a requirement that app developers use its billing system on Android devices.

“Ten years ago, Match Group was Google’s partner. We are now its hostage,” Match Group said in a complaint filed Monday in northern California federal court. “Blinded by the possibility of getting an ever-greater cut of the billions of dollars users spend each year on Android apps, Google set out to monopolize the market for how users pay for their Android apps.”

Google, like Apple Inc., has faced enormous recent legal and political scrutiny over the commission fees and billing restrictions both companies apply to paid services in their app stores. Congress is currently weighing a bill to force Google and Apple to change their business models.

In response to public pressure, Google has halved its 30% fee for some apps. But the company said it would tighten its rules that require the use of its billing system for in-app purchases, citing security concerns. Google gave a June 1 deadline to comply or be removed from its Play Store.

In March, Google announced it was letting select apps offer their own billing service in addition to Google’s on Android devices. Spotify Technology SA, another app store critic, said it was using this option and Google suggested more companies would follow.

Not Match Group, apparently.

“This lawsuit is a measure of last resort,” Chief Executive Officer Shar Dubey wrote in a statement.

Dubey said her company tried “in good faith” to resolve its concerns with Google but was left with “no choice but to take legal action.” In its filing, Match Group said that it asked Google to adopt this new “user billing” feature but Google refused.

Google representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.

Match is forecasting $42 million in additional costs for Google’s Play Store during 2022, chief…

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Ransomware: How cybercriminals hold data hostage… and why the best solution is often paying a ransom – 60 Minutes

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We’re seeing just how defenseless our food and fuel supplies can be to hackers. This month, the largest meat producer in America was forced to close for several days. And that was only three weeks after hackers shut down the main source of gasoline for the East Coast. Both were ransomware, attacks by hackers who break into a computer network and lock it until ransom is paid. Colonial pipeline paid more than $4 million, in May, to get fuel flowing in the East again. As we first told you in 2019, critical public service networks are also targets. Twenty-six percent of cities and counties, for example, report that they fend off network attacks every hour. Perhaps even worse, dozens of hospitals have been held hostage all across the country.

In January 2018, the night shift at Hancock Regional Hospital watched its computers crash with deepest apologies. The 100-bed facility in the suburbs of Indianapolis got its CEO, Steve Long, out of bed.

Steve Long: We had never been through this before. And it’s something that I read in the journals. And I say, “Oh, those poor folks. I’m glad that’s never going to happen to us.” But when you come in and you see that the files on your computer have been renamed and all of the files were renamed either “we apologize for files” or “we’re sorry.” And there was a moment when I thought, “Well, maybe they’re not so bad. They said they were sorry.” But, in fact, they had encrypted every file that we had on our computers and on the network.

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Steve Long

Long told 911 to divert emergency patients to a hospital 20 miles away. His staff turned to pen and paper. Nothing electronic could be trusted.

Steve Long: This is a ransomware, so this is a virus that has gotten into the computer system. “Would it have the ability to jump to a piece of clinical equipment? Could it jump to an IV pump? Could it jump to a ventilator? We needed a little time just to make sure about that.”

But time was a luxury not offered in the ransom demand.

Steve Long: “Your network has been encrypted. If you would like to purchase the decryption keys, you have seven days to do so or your network files will be permanently deleted.” And then it gave us the…

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Ransomware cyber attacks spike, protect yourself from hackers holding your computer hostage

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“Do penetration testing and what penetration testing is simulating an attack on your systems. They see what type of vulnerabilities they can find, what type of information they can gather while doing that, and then recommend fixes to close those security holes. Also making constant backups, that way if something like this does happen, you do have current backups to restore your data,” Quellos said.

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How Hackers Held People’s Genitals Hostage

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Imagine sitting there one day, minding your own business, wearing your Internet-connected chastity belt as you always do, when a message arrives from a hacker. The message tells you that your chastity belt or cage is locked so that you can’t access your genitals and that your only recourse would be to pay 0.02 Bitcoin, which is around $750.

That would constitute a bad day. After all, your genitals aren’t like your social media accounts. At least, they shouldn’t be. You can always delete your social media accounts should they become compromised. But your genitals? Deleting them may be a bit more complicated.

Well, recently Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai described for VICE such ransomware attempts. Apparently, hackers took advantage of a security hole in Cellmates. In this case, Cellmates weren’t prison roommates or cellphones serving as mates. Rather, these Cellmates were Internet of Things chastity cages made by Qiui, a company based in China. Hackers exploited existing holes to try to control these chastity cages and lock them remotely. Victims would then get wonderful messages like, “Your rock is mine now,” except the word wasn’t “rock” and instead was a word that rhymed with “rock” and referred to male genitalia (but could also have meant “rooster.”) If the chastity belt or cage wearers did not pay the demanded ransom, they and their genitals could have been stuck in the cage indefinitely or at least until they visited a doctor, a hardware store, or someone with a real space laser.

The following tweet from The Guardian showed a picture of the Cellmate device:

Hmmm, it sort of looks like an electric shaver or a microphone but shouldn’t be confused for either. Singing karaoke into a chastity belt may bring some interesting looks and is not going to make your rendition of Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart” sound better. As the Tweet thread indicated, there is some debate over…

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