The game has far surpassed false promises of marriage defrauding widows.
As the outlandish coercions of Covid-19 public hysteria has created seismic fiscal shifts amidst global markets in decimating traditional e-commerce markets and online dating, militant factions of digital pirates harbored in Western Africa have been forced to adapt or face the eternal fate and stagnation endured by the once household brand of American Online. The “Dear John” malicious emails have been banished to the spam folders of obscurity, and “catfishing” has reached its shelf life. Rather than falling into an endless well of irrelevance, and executing a series of Greg Lougainas breathtaking aerial manuevers in a lame attempt to postpone the impending purgatory of darkness, a group of Nigerian hackers hit paydirt in what purists would describe as a victimless crime.
The Seattle Times, at times, resembles its roots as a journalistic entity, and reports that a syndicate of crypto-thieves made off with somewhere in the neighborhood of hundreds of millions of dollars directly from the Washington state unemployment department through a glaring online security breach. The scathing and brutally critical article lambasting elected officials and calling for reform included in the pages of the typically left-leaning publication is quite telling, especially with election season right around the corner.
Purists aside, the grand scale of larceny measured in light years and not trivial miles, caused a massive collision and derailment of an already haphazard and temperamental service, by effectively nailing the state’s coffin’s coffers shut, in ultimately halting payments to struggling citizens jobless as a result of the Coronavirus shutdown. Leading up to the system invasion, the underwhelming performance of the automated unemployment application system plagued by software bugs and delays, was met by the large-scale frustration and surrender of end users, many of which were unable to apply for assistance, because of deliberate changes to the software environment. This allowed the Nigerian hackers to steal identities, make false unemployment claims, and change account settings to deposit mountains of cash in accounts spanning the globe, all from the comfort of a sophisticated strain of floating IP addresses emanating from the outskirts of Lagos, the country’s largest city. It’s amusing that the majority of the uniformed public places all the onus on Russian digital perps, when concentrations of active and thriving cells exist in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and within rogue nations.
On perfect and refreshingly spineless cue, Washington’s governor Jay Inslee, artfully and deviously deflected blame from the unprecedented financial and policy disaster by grouping the scope of the coordinated attack with the current epidemic international wave of cyber crime. In Jay’s world, nothing could have been done to avert the Fort Know magnitude liquidation of capital. Inslee’s complete lack of cupability is simply a glaring understatement in the mediocre track record of a career politician wary of effective management and unwilling to be decisive when weighing job security against the best interest of constituents. His underwhelming style resembles an agency deftly lounging on a social media account and expecting results through a hope and a prayer of doing absolutely nothing.
As more than 1 million Washington residents (nearly 15% of the state’s total population) have swamped the inadequate automated unemployment system with claims in the wake of the initial Covid-19 outbreak, the audacity of the three-term governor to precariously balance on a sanctimonious perch constructed of trendiness and needing a reality check regarding the complete duties as an elected official, transcends the oath of the office in egregious fashion. To make matters worse, Inslee is engaged in the unsavory game of extending a strict stay at home order as long as possible in counteracting incompetency and pursuing the cold-blooded reality of a nationwide mail-in voting protocol for the 2020 election. If it were up to the venerable noble royal of state politics, the relentless nanny state limiting personal freedoms would extend until a vaccine is discovered.
Apparently, in a riveting real life plug and play script of a best selling paperback, the gang of thieves affectionately known around the shadowy corners of the digital marix as the “Scattered Canary” orchestrated the lucrative heist. In entering the computing community realm of immortality, they etched their name into the hacking hall of fame, the now wealthy team ready for the Lagos version Cooperstown, as the hits keep on coming. The reverberating echoes of laughter can be heard across the entire internet, as the supposed figurehead of Washington state has the grandstanding audacity to continuously promote his public image throughout the virus crises, and democratic supporters conveniently forget a pathetic run as a presidential candidate, where tax payers were responsible for funding a special forces security team on the high altitude jetways of the campaign trail.
With absolutely no apologies to Inslee, or the bureaucrats responsible for the functionality and integrity of the unemployment infrastructure, the mysterious financial bandit posse from Africa which actually has origins within the classifieds of Craigslist, chose the optimal time for a coordinated robbery, as the distraction provided by Covid-19 an a general environment of malaise and chaos provided a natural diversion. This was not their first or last rodeo involving staggering monetary sums.
Competing the complete cluster derogatory adjective for lustful animalistic fornication, Washington state spent $44 million dollars on software upgrades and the retooling of alleged security protocols to prevent such attacks. While residents in need continue the cumbersome task of applying for financial assistance, the reshuffling of the computer systems and servers is actually making it nearly impossible for verified citizens to become eligible to receive benefits.
At least Inslee had the ideological sense by not engaging in the costly waltz of listing gun retailers as non-essential businesses during the initial lockdown phase of the state, which could have resulted in complete societal discombobulation. Even though his administration is responsible for past legislation heightening gun control, and the truly ugly process of allowing sloppy and incomprehensible initiatives to proceed to the ballot, a fact that pales in comparison to the latest fiasco. However, the prevalence of a warm and fuzzy directive of enabling criminals over law-abiding citizens is evidence of the basic tenets of progressive dogma, and explains the thriving homeless industrial complex that afflicts the coastal regions of the entire nation. This is a wake up call for those who hold governments at a high standard for providing reliable personal protection.
In daily appearances beamed to the masses through television and streaming methods, Inslee pontificates and spews numbers from statisticians through insufferable metaphors in justifying an iron clad rule over mobility and free trade. He readily refers to the directive of “flattening the curve”, yet has no answer for the 15 out 100 residents out of work because of the continued stay at home order, an alarming figure that does not require complex analytical functions to determine that the economic damage to the state and the individual correlates directly to pathologically cautious approach and unreasonable response to Covid-19.
Spending $44 million to lose hundreds of millions of dollars should be included in the battle cry for replacing the entire elected leadership in November, as the Scattered Canary consortium leisurely convert their winnings to untraceable cryptocurrencies, while plotting their next assault on the vulnerable public coffers somewhere within the republic. While the June monsoon season culminates a half world away in Lagos, Inslee and colleagues will always have their precious Coronavirus data, infrastructure that international cyber crooks will not touch with a 64 character hash.
The only flood on the horizon is faced by the governor, and stems from the backlash faced by a kneejerk reaction in failing to manage a public health crises, and placing personal prestige above individual rights. He created this nightmare, and is now on the clock to clean up the mess, and alleviate the destruction, a fantasy of a dream that nobody should be expected to hold their breath over in timing a glacier run a 100 meter dash until a solution is actually reached.
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Read the Seattle Times story here.
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