Town – OfdmFORUM

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Augusta’s mayor denies the city’s pc program is staying held hostage in a $50 ransom plan.

An investigation proceeds into a laptop outage which is influencing metropolis of Augusta departments from utilities to courts, bringing some functions to a near standstill all 7 days.

Because Johnson mentioned previously this week that it was triggered by “unauthorized accessibility,” there has been speculation it is the outcome of a ransomware attack.

Johnson on Thursday particularly denied a report from yet another media outlet that the metropolis government is “being held hostage for $50 million in a ransomware attack.”

We talked to a neighborhood cyber-protection specialist to try and get rid of light on this predicament.

In a ransomware attack, hackers attain access to pc programs and then scramble the facts. They typically desire massive sums of cash to unscramble it. Even huge and well known corporations have been acknowledged to spend the ransom to get their devices back.

We talked to a regional cyber-security pro to attempt and shed light-weight on this predicament.

“It could suggest that someone from the outside the house of your community has uncovered a way to get into your community, whether via hacking in or by, likely utilizing anyone else’s credentials,” said Dr. Michael Nowatkowski, professor at Faculty of Pc and Cyber Sciences at Augusta College. “There’s other activities that they could do if they get into your community. They could just sit there and eavesdrop and carry on to acquire facts devoid of your awareness.”

Dr. Michael Nowatkowski, professor at School of Computer and Cyber Sciences at Augusta University(wrdw)

In addition to Johnson, many other large-amount metropolis officials denied the outage was a ransomware assault.

A spokesman for the FBI – which is investigating the subject – told Information 12: “We are deferring to the city of Augusta on how they would like to explain it. We are aiding them.”

Unsure how lengthy the crisis will past, several city places of work are improvising and developing workarounds.

“Augusta’s Info Engineering Office continues to perform diligently to investigate the incident, to confirm its impact on our devices, and to restore entire features to our methods as before long as doable,” Johnson mentioned in a assertion late Thursday afternoon. “We carry on to look into what, if any, sensitive information may perhaps have been impacted or accessed.”

The Augusta Fee will be holding a distinctive assembly at 2 p.m., Friday on the outage. Johnson strategies a information convention, as properly.

Town Theatre in Pittsburgh is bringing back a participate in that initial appeared on its stage 25 decades in the past.

“The Medium,” a postmodern deconstruction of the musings of author/thinker Marshall McLuhan, will operate from Jan. 22 as a result of Feb. 13 on the City Theatre Principal Stage on Pittsburgh’s South Aspect.

The 3rd present of the 2021-22 membership season is presented by New York Town-dependent SITI Business.

“The production was initially produced in 1993 and conceived to discover the then-burgeoning discipline of technologies by means of the lens of Marshall McLuhan,” mentioned Anne Bogart, SITI Organization co-creative director, who conceived the engage in. “We observe the renowned Canadian philosopher of media scientific studies on an Alice in Wonderland-like journey as a result of the landscape of his profound insights about the outcomes of media upon the human working experience.

“Now, just about 30 many years later on, the enjoy seems even more pertinent to the world that we inhabit right now than it did when we first created it,” she claimed.

Initial noticed at Town Theatre in 1996, “ ‘The Medium’ explores the impact of media and emerging technologies on our perceptions, our psyches, and our private life,” according to a release.

“ ‘The Medium’ is structured on the perfectly-known narrative structure of ‘the hero’s journey,’ which can be identified in tales and fairy tales from all-around the entire world and all over heritage,” Bogart explained. “Our hero is based mostly on the fantastic Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan who, in the 1960s, was able to predict what would transpire to us when the media, digital technological innovation and the online would dominate our life.”

By the tv screen

In a bewildered point out right after struggling a stroke, the character of McLuhan finds himself transported, like “Alice By way of the Looking Glass,” into the earth of tv.

Not able to speak, McLuhan “moves from channel to channel, dealing with firsthand the success of his worst and most insightful dreams,” Bogart reported.

“The scenes in ‘The Medium’ are offered in the form of television genres, like vintage kinds like a Western, a hospital drama, a recreation exhibit, a loved ones exhibit, a chat show and so on,” she extra. “Each genre variety features as a container for different insights and themes from Marshall McLuhan’s writings. McLuhan himself, our principal character, travels as a result of this Tv set landscape.”

Courtesy of SITI Firm

Will Bond will seem in the SITI Company production of “The Medium,” Jan. 22-Feb. 13 at City Theatre in Pittsburgh.

Directed by Bogart, “The Medium” features performers William Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Ellen Lauren, Barney O’Hanlon, Violeta Picayo and Stephen Duff Webber.

“One can see the irony in the simple fact that this prescient thinker, who spoke and wrote so eloquently and playfully on the media and culture, need to go through the lack of ability to converse,” Bond stated. “In this way, just one may possibly call him a present day-day Cassandra

Tag: Town

Mayor denies $50M ransom desire amid town pc outage

Pittsburgh’s Town Theatre revisits 25-yr-outdated enjoy exploring media, technology