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MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

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Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#101
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International doesn't mean unipolar. Effective international institutions are multilateral in nature.

If you have in mind the kind of international courts that already exist, e.g. the ICC,... well they already exist. I took your emphasis on "effective" to imply that you would like international courts to have substantially more power than presently exists. With enough power to truly be effective, that court would become the unipolar power. It would attract the power hungry like moths to a lightbulb.

Washington threatened the ICC with serious consequences if it carried out its mandate.

Powerful also does not mean unipolar/dominant. Checks and balances can exist. That's how the US government was initially designed.

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#102
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of us foresaw this (and much worse) when we first heard about Bitcoin in 2009-2011. Yes, Bitcoin has its anonymity issues, but cryptocurrencies in general is what typically enables this kind of crime. Example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-13/caesars-e... https://archive.ph/8BCDb Caesars Entertainment Inc. paid tens of millions of dollars to hackers who broke into the company’s systems in recen…

> I don't want to live in a world with 100% anonymous and untraceable payments. Cash is equally as capable of this, though. The hackers in this situation could demand cash and practically nothing would change about the technical aspects of their attack.

Nah. Maybe $1000 bucks here or there, but you're not moving 8.1 million in paper money easily. And that money has to be laundered. Plus bills are traceable by number, and will often have markers on them. And they have to move, by hand, truck, package, etc., which means they can be found, often with little technical skill -- rando customs guy decides to open a box using the cutting edge tech of a letter opener.

BTC makes dealing with all of that a (potentially automated) bash one-liner.

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does that have to do with it? We should expect more of international institutions in a multipolar world. The whole reason why the world went from unipolar to multipolar is because the existing international organizations failed. What you're missing is these international organizations are political instruments used to obstruct and hinder Russia and China's development. The people in those countries don't share…

> The whole reason why the world went from unipolar to multipolar is because the existing international organizations failed. They "failed" because they were gutted by a covert, powerful and violent "right-wing" alliance (imperialists, capitalists, white supremacists, all who felt tremendously victimized by recent global events incl. rise of communism). They were not about to throw away centuries of dominance to shar…

> They "failed" because they were gutted by a covert, powerful and violent "right-wing" alliance (imperialists, capitalists, white supremacists, all who felt tremendously victimized by recent global events incl. rise of communism). They were not about to throw away centuries of dominance to share international power with "inferior" classes of human.

It seems no answer can satisfy you.

You're saying we need more international organizations (or more powerful ones) to prevent the problems described. But when we do form these international organizations, and they don't do exactly like you hoped it's because of intangible reasons that cannot be falsified.

> The UN was rather effective in its initial decades.

The League of Nations, which precedes the UN, was rather effective in the 1920s and didn't include the USA. It also completely dropped the ball by 1930. Historians partially blame the League of Nations for the outbreak of second World War.

> Do you really think Hammarskjold, Kennedies, African(-American) leaders getting assassinated en masse in the 1960s was a spate of random coincidence? They were all united in opposing this covert alliance.

You're vacillating between wanting more powerful international organizations, but at the same time don't want international organizations wielding their power in ways you personally don't approve of.

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole reason why the world went from unipolar to multipolar is because the existing international organizations failed. They "failed" because they were gutted by a covert, powerful and violent "right-wing" alliance (imperialists, capitalists, white supremacists, all who felt tremendously victimized by recent global events incl. rise of communism). They were not about to throw away centuries of dominance to shar…

> They "failed" because they were gutted by a covert, powerful and violent "right-wing" alliance (imperialists, capitalists, white supremacists, all who felt tremendously victimized by recent global events incl. rise of communism). They were not about to throw away centuries of dominance to share international power with "inferior" classes of human. It seems no answer can satisfy you. You're saying we need more inter…

> It seems no answer can satisfy you.

What does this add?

> intangible reasons that cannot be falsified.

I assure you there is nothing intangible about a clear pattern of high-profile assassinations, to say nothing of other related global events.

> You're vacillating between wanting more powerful international organizations, but at the same time don't want international organizations wielding their power in ways you personally don't approve of

You really can't see the difference between overt, ratified international institutions, and shadowy, nameless, violent special-interest groups? Come now.

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They "failed" because they were gutted by a covert, powerful and violent "right-wing" alliance (imperialists, capitalists, white supremacists, all who felt tremendously victimized by recent global events incl. rise of communism). They were not about to throw away centuries of dominance to share international power with "inferior" classes of human. It seems no answer can satisfy you. You're saying we need more inter…

> It seems no answer can satisfy you. What does this add? > intangible reasons that cannot be falsified. I assure you there is nothing intangible about a clear pattern of high-profile assassinations, to say nothing of other related global events. > You're vacillating between wanting more powerful international organizations, but at the same time don't want international organizations wielding their power in ways you…

I acknowledge there's pattern of high-profile assassinations in history that raise questions and seem interconnected. However, attributing them to a small covert group is a logical leap.

What would convince you they're not conspiring together?

As for international organizations, my point is that even ratified and official organizations are not immune to political pressures and special interests. How do we ensure transparency, efficacy, and fairness when the existing entities can't do that sufficiently well to maintain unipolarity?

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage you to walk through some casinos and take stock of what you see. The scales of enrichment and addiction are nowhere near the balance of candy and soda.

The most harmful things inside of a casino are the bar, the buffet, and the cigarettes. > I encourage you to walk through some casinos and take stock of what you see. I have spent a lot of time at casinos with family members who love eating, drinking, smoking, and gambling. Know what I've seen? I've seen that gambling is the only one of the four that hasn't killed at least one of my family members.

Lots and lots of gambling addicts die through suicide. Is there some reason this is less attributable to gambling as a cause than lung cancer is to smoking or drunk driving accidents are to alcohol?

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#108
post #63

This is a good example of the kind of case study I will point to when someone starts to get cranky with my unyielding principle of putting the entire business inside a single SQL database. When you have geo replicas and point-in-time restoration capabilities which can synchronously bring 100% of the business back from the dead in a matter of seconds/minutes... How many $8.4m days before a complete rewrite of all syst…

The hackers have taken down slots, cash registers and EPOS handhelds, controllers for doors and elevators, ATMs, kitchen ordering systems, display screens, etc.

Even if all their business data was 100% retrievable, they are losing money every day that customers are wandering around a casino full of darkened screens, and playing a working slot or getting a drink involves waiting 20 minutes for an employee with a pencil, notebook and a handful of cash.

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#109
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most harmful things inside of a casino are the bar, the buffet, and the cigarettes. > I encourage you to walk through some casinos and take stock of what you see. I have spent a lot of time at casinos with family members who love eating, drinking, smoking, and gambling. Know what I've seen? I've seen that gambling is the only one of the four that hasn't killed at least one of my family members.

Lots and lots of gambling addicts die through suicide. Is there some reason this is less attributable to gambling as a cause than lung cancer is to smoking or drunk driving accidents are to alcohol?

Smoking related disease, obesity related disease, and alcohol related disease and deaths are much more common.

Re: MGM losing up to $8.4M a day due to cyberattack, analyist says

#110
post #63

This is a good example of the kind of case study I will point to when someone starts to get cranky with my unyielding principle of putting the entire business inside a single SQL database. When you have geo replicas and point-in-time restoration capabilities which can synchronously bring 100% of the business back from the dead in a matter of seconds/minutes... How many $8.4m days before a complete rewrite of all syst…

>putting the entire business inside a single SQL database. I too have a theory that you could get away with this and come out ahead of the industry. The problem is no CEO has the balls to try it in FinTech or any other heavily regulated industry.

The business logic has to live somewhere, and triggers and stored procedures are just not the right place to do it.

Plus these guys apparently got majorly pwned. I don't think any particular blend of stack was to blame, more likely they have a lord-of-the-flies driven technology "architecture" and simply hoped nothing bad ever happened.

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