Happy New Year!!! 2021 has gotten off to a wild start! I’m glad to be back on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week, US intelligence agencies say the Russians hacked US agencies and companies, SONY announces new movie grade displays for digital sets, and TicketMaster pays a fine for hacking. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
US INTELLIGENCE SAYS CHRISTMAS HACK PERPETUATED BY RUSSIANS
In late December, computer networks hosted at US government agencies and many high profile corporations were exploited and hacked into by the Russians according to US intelligence agencies. The hack targeted a specific firmware release for a SolarWinds product called Orion. Orion is a network monitoring tool used by organizations to ironically determine if their networks are compromised and enforce security compliance. SolarWinds has advised its customers to stop using the product until patches can be validated. Microsoft has said hackers have accessed their source code as part of the hack.
EXPECT MORE MANDALORIAN LIKE VISUALS THANKS TO SONY
SONY has announced plans to sell its super bright modular displays to create digital movie sets. The displays are similar to the modular display technology built by Industrial Light and Magic and EPIC Games for The Mandalorian series. The displays are bright enough to simulate bright sunlight for many scenes and make the Mandalorian’s baskar armor shine true. The displays are designed for movie production so it’ll be a while before you install one in your living room.
TICKETMASTER ADMITS TO HACKING COMPETITOR BEFORE CLOSING ACT
It’s not enough to have a near monopoly, but you must have it all and charge consumers a 100% uncharge. TicketMaster has been ordered to pay a $10 million dollar criminal fine to defer federal prosecution for using stolen usernames and passwords to hack into competing Bay Area ticket seller, Song Kick, before they went out of business. In 2017, Song Kick filed a lawsuit alleging TicketMaster hacked their databases and months later Song Kick went out of business.