The Oracle Healthcare hack and implications for Cybersecurity in America

It seems like not a single day goes by without someone hacking into another system in the country. Oracle, one of America’s most important information technology companies has had a huge hacking incident occur early in this year. Even though North Korea’s skilled hackers have already stolen hundreds of millions of crypto, there are hackers who already saying: hold my beer.

According to an article written on TechRadar, Oracle is now admitting the servers of a company that they acquired in 2022 had been hacked and medical records were copied to an external location. The company has been undergoing many attacks recently, however, this one is causing ripples across the health IT sphere in America.

Cybersecurity is generally speaking seen as a boring sphere in the news. The only time that it gets any attention is when there Crypto in the title. The chaos involving Crypto is why the industry has the reputation that has now. The media loves having chaos in the industry in order to scare people, but the crypto people are still attempting to get their money in there, confident that it will change the culture of banking in the West.

However, cybersecurity is increasingly becoming more of an issue in Healthcare. The push for electronic medical records was sold as a way of making healthcare more efficient. However, it is clear that there is a cost to it. While people may not want to go through papers of medical records like in the past, these systems have to be maintained and protected against threats.

In spite of the usage of the internet since the early 1990s, many companies are still seemingly incompetent at preventing lone hackers or teams of hackers from stealing information or even attacking healthcare systems. While this race seems like a whack and mole game, hackers seem to have the edge more and more.

The issue that Oracle faces right now is that they were not honest about the hacking attacks on the healthcare clients. They basically stated they were not hacked and now there is information they are attempting to help those same clients with this issue. Oracle should have been honest but instead they decided to chose secrecy. In the case of a major hack as this, transparency is a virtue. While some companies may not want to reveal such incompetency, it is important the IT sector be able to relate to the average person.

The hack and its effects will continue to ripple through the industry and America. We shall see what it means for cybersecurity.

However, one thing is clear here.

The black hat hackers have an advantage here. Considering their lack of morality and inclination towards breaking rules, they are in some ways embracing the internet’s chaos.

Unlike on the regular television or even the printed pages of magazines, newspapers or books, the internet is a liminal space filled with information, videos and images. To the hacker, he is like the descendant of the pirates of the Golden Age in those years in the 1710s and 1720s. This time however, he is in a society which is unable to comprehend his actions.

The hacker to some is a romantic rogue. Chaos for chaos sake, tussling with the sellout white hats who get government paychecks is a high ideal to the black hat hackers.

This constant battle between the black hats and white hats isn’t as binary as it seems but in the realm of big companies, it is an arms race of people tapping away at their computers.

Oracle needs to understand that people are only going to be questioning the cyber landscape even more. What was once an interesting place to buy things and look at images has become a space of war between multiple factions all with their own beliefs and biases. Being honest about the hack is important and can motivate other companies to not hide behind spokespersons but be reliable and amicable to the public.

InZoi: The South Korean answer to the Sims

South Korea in this age is a country which is becoming a software powerhouse. In the realm of video games, this is becoming more apparent and is clearly showing some ability in challenging America in these genres. This is one of the most interesting countries when it comes to the making video games and computers. Inzoi is just one of the examples of how South Korea is punching above its weight.

inZoi is a game that seeks to replicate the magic of the Sims.

Maxis and Electronic Arts have been milking the series for all its worth but is clear that they have run out of energy to continue it. They have basically been milking it and releasing expansions that are basically taking people’s money at this point. Instead of having expansions that are worth the money, they are just extending the game’s presence on the market while not allowing innovation. It is because of this stagnation that many fans in the Sims community are starting to take a look at inZoi.

InZoi in many ways represents the Korean ethics that dominates the peninsula, regardless of whether it be North or South. The North is generally speaking in its own island of ethics, but the traditionalism is still strong in both countries. The game has a karma system which represents the ethical choices that the Inzois make in the game.

This game repersents a natural evolution of the Sims. Unlike the Sims, it is less about being a dollhouse simulation and more akin to a simulation aiming to be realistic.

It is only in early access, but it will interesting to see how it changes the genre and makes it interesting to gamers.

Why Video Games still do not have respect in our Western culture

The Video Game industry is at a crossroads, especially in the West. China’s video game industry after about a decade and a half of hibernating under government regulations, is now spreading its wings. However, the video game industry in America and the rest of the West is very weak and stuck mostly on franchises instead of new ideas. Is it really a sign of healthy industry when we have video games that are on multiple installments? We need to have a healthy mix but anything new tends to lack any media coverage which causes them to be under the radar and have little influence on the people who are making the games.

Video games began quite successfully under the leadership of Atari in California, but the bubble would burst under the weight of too many mediocre games. Nintendo would save it and then competition would blossom between them and Sega. Other companies would join but it would take until the release of the Xbox for an American company to come back into the console market in a significant way which would actually have some presence.

However, the video game industry probably peaked in 2007 and the increasing popularity of mobile games on smartphones has made the video game industry a more brittle industry which is causing issues.

The video game industry has a lack of quality control in this age.

Many games are coming out which are not meeting expectations.

Increasingly, video game journalists seem to be trying to prop up mediocre or horrible games just to make political points. Such attitudes can only come from a culture of entitlement that comes in such circles. Video game reviewers should be focused on advancing the medium through careful analysis of games. They are simply becoming mouthpieces of ancient newspapers and television shows. Video Games have become a medium which become attached in a sense to the establishment, which makes them tools of government power. Instead of emphasizing the uniqueness of video games that make them stand out, they are being made into symbols of the degenerate nature of the youth. It is within the realm of video games where creativity is still allowed to flourish in some ways.

Video Games are not seen as art but as something that has to be manipulated in order to gain political power.

Video Games need to return to the realm of being pure art not just Panem, or bread and circuses. Only then, will video games be given the respect which the medium needs in order to change and grow.