Human Depravity Is the Reason Why
We
Can't Have Nice Things
The Internet is becoming something right thinking people would not think
about engaging in. Unfortunately, that is now not
possible.
A simple doctor's appointment can't be made without the use of the
Internet one way or another. So why has something with such
potential to be wonderful has become a thing of plain disgust?
Human depravity is why the Internet has become such a disgusting medium.
Crooks and cranks alike have turned this wonderful technology into
something that is increasingly revolting.
I suppose a certain percentage of the human population has always been depraved. Furthermore, it is a mathematical certainty, that as the human population gets larger and larger, the sheer number of depraved individuals also grows. Before the Internet, depraved individuals were limited in the means and scope available to put their depravity on display. Now human depravity is on display for the entire world to see, almost on a daily basis. In many cases, abetted by the inability of Internet platforms to police themselves.
It's not just that some infantile moron with no common sense can make fake pornographic images of the biggest rock star on the planet. It is that the unthinkable has become commonplace. And the revolting behavior profits — in either fortune or fame — those perpetuating and facilitating what most people would consider crimes.
Depraved Situation 1:
Since 2022, The Lockbit ransomware group has been the most prolific of this class of cybercrooks. As CISA stated the case in its advisory, Understanding Ransomware Threat Actors: LockBit, June 14, 2023:
In 2022, LockBit was the most deployed ransomware variant across the world and continues to be prolific in 2023. Since January 2020, affiliates using LockBit have attacked organizations of varying sizes across an array of critical infrastructure sectors, including financial services, food and agriculture, education, energy, government and emergency services, healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation.
As of the date of its advisory noted above, the Lockbit group has been responsible for "About 1,700 attacks according to the FBI." Furthermore, it is estimated that: "Approximately $91M since LockBit activity was first observed in the U.S. on January 5, 2020."
The year of 2024 was not one month old, and the month of February 2024 was barely two days old, when reports of two separate attacks on Children's hospitals by the Lockbit group were reported.
February 1, 2024, Saint Anthony's Children Hospital in Chicago fell victim to Lockbit. As reported by The Register, February 1, 2024, "LockBit's intrusion began on December 18 but the hospital's internal investigation didn't conclude patient data was compromised until January 7." In its published statement on the attack, [pdf will open] the hospital contends that, although "patient information had been copied from the network by an unknown actor on December 18, 2023," Saint Anthony's contends that its "prompt response to this event allowed us to continue providing patient care without disruption."
Lurie Children's Hospital, also in the Chicago area, was not so sanguine in its assessment of the impact on its patient care due to a cyberattack that hospital suffered, beginning January 31, 2024. As reported by the Chicago Sun Times, February 2, 2024, several procedures had to be canceled as the hospital dealt with the aftermath of the attack. Quoting from the report, "Jason Castillo’s 7-month-old daughter was supposed to have heart surgery on Wednesday, he said. She was waiting for anesthesia when the surgery was called off."
Further reporting done by the local ABC News affiliate, and published February 3, 2024, on the Lurie cyberattack revealed that this cyberattack had the potential to significantly harm patient care. "The incident has impacted phones, emails, internet service, some elective surgeries and procedures even had to be canceled."
Cyber security experts lay the blame for the origins on this attack on a malicious email the hospital received. As Pete Nicoletti, of security vendor Check Point Software, was quoted in the above cited article, "Email is a sewage pipe and unfortunately, people click on things and unless you have quite a sophisticated email protection scheme people are going to click on links."
January 8, 2024, BleepingComputer reported on a cyberattack on the Capital Health hospital network, which is "a primary healthcare service provider in New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania, operating two major hospitals and several satellite and specialty clinics," the Lockbit group claimed that it had "purposely avoided encrypting the organization's files and instead only stole data." This claim is of little comfort, however. As the BleepingComputer reported noted:
Encryption-less ransomware attacks can still lead to system outages as part of the victim's response action, catastrophic data breaches for many people who received care in the targeted hospitals, and significant financial losses for already underfunded or economically stressed institutions.
When a criminal prevents children and other patients from receiving needed medical care, then that criminal is indeed depraved. Moreover, this now common iteration of human depravity has only been made possible by the universality of the Internet. And there is no end in site.
Depraved Situation 2:
The question here is if there were no YouTube for the 32 year-old to
show off the severed head, would the events of January 30, 2024, have
even have happened?
As the local NBC News affiliate in Philadelphia reported on January 31, 2024, "A Bucks County, Pennsylvania, man is accused of killing his father and then posting a YouTube video of him holding his decapitated head." This begs the question for whom was this macabre performance intended? The news report states that, "The 14-minute, 35-second video titled “Mohn’s Militia – Call to Arms for American Patriots” showed Justin Mohn wearing the same type of rubber gloves that were found at the crime scene, investigators said."
Where were the content filters YouTube's owner, Google, spouts about when promoting its AI, Bard? Moreover, as the local ABC News affiliate asked about in its headline about the gruesome video, January 31, 2024, "Why was a gruesome YouTube video of a decapitated head left online for hours?" The answer to that question might lie in more fact from the NBC report. "It was viewed more than 5,000 times before it was taken down."
The answer lies, I think, in the business model that is the foundation of websites like YouTube. Those 5,000 views were 5,000 sets of eyeballs also viewing whatever advertising that was displayed on the YouTube page, along with this depraved individual's admission of his crime.
In its reporting, ABC quoted the statement YouTube had made about the incident and it being up for so long.
"YouTube has strict policies prohibiting graphic violence and violent extremism. The video was removed for violating our graphic violence policy and Justin Mohn's channel was terminated in line with our violent extremism policies. Our teams are closely tracking to remove any re-uploads of the video."
Yes, but not until the video had 5,000 views. I am sure whatever hatred the young man had for his father would have manifested itself somehow. But there is to large a segment of Internet users who will cheer on this madness. And if that audience did not exist to view the crime and applaud the perpetrator, would the crime had unfolded the way it did?
The words of William John Locke resonate more loudly in our time than they did when he wrote them.
To read of human depravity in the police
reports is one thing,
to see it fall like a black shadow across
one's life is another.
— William John Locke, Septimus (1909)
Gerald Reiff
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