Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: May 28, 2017

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NEWSDROIDS STRUCK BY RANSOMWARE

by Hazed

The newsdroids returned from their break in a very sorry state. They were moving slowly and erratically, and were not at all responsive when I asked them what was going on. Their speech was halting and mechanical; they were certainly not their usual chatty selves.

What could have happened to them while they were away? I had no idea where they had been – you will recall from the last issue of the Star that they had been uncharacteristically secretive about their plans: [LINK]. But whatever they had been up to, it was clear that they were now unfit to get to work on the news.

I was about to call for some technical assistance when one of the droids (I don’t know which one – I can never tell them apart) began to play a recorded message. I was so startled that I missed what it said at first, but then the other one repeated the message. After that they chanted it in unison, over and over, giving me a real headache. I had to press their off switches to deactivate them.

The message said:

What happened to My Droid?
Your droid has been encrypted. Its functions are no longer accessible because they have been encrypted. Maybe you are busy looking for a way to recover your droid, but do not waste your time. Nobody can recover your files without our decryption services.

Can I Recover My Droid?
Sure. We guarantee that you can recover your droid safely and easily. But you have not so enough time.
You need to pay 300,000 groats. You have 3 days to submit the payment. After that the price will be doubled. Also, if you don’t pay in 7 days, you won’t be able to recover your droids forever.

Then the message went on to explain how I should make the payment.

Well, since I had to get to work on this issue of the Star, I had no choice. I paid up, with gritted teeth – 300,000 groats for each of them. Not a huge amount for someone of my status, but it’s the principle of the thing. On payment I was given a code that unlocked the droids so I could reactivate them and put them to work on this issue of the news.

I am not going to take this lying down. I intend to engage the services of an expert, to find out who infected my droids and extorted groats out of me. I’ll tell you next week what I discover.

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