Among many other things my home network has two network access storage devices (NAS) made by QNAP ( Taiwanese company).  These boxes run the QTS operating system (a linux variant).

They are inexpensive and hugely multi-functional with leading edge storage and media management functions together with virtual machine capability among many other things (like Kodi capable)

 Danger Will Robinson

One of my favourite and most endearing characters is Robbie the robot from the mid-sixties TV series lost in space.  Whenever his young charge behaved without fear, as 12 year olds will do, Robbie would pipe-up “Danger, danger Will Robinson.

I am not 12 but my enthusiasm for exploring technology without fear can lead me into dangerous situations as it did young Will Robinson. For me, Robbie’s warning are best ignored just as Will did.

Spoilsport

While I enjoy exploring emerging technology as a hobby, for me it is not about economic gain or even permanency, basically in the moment I may develop something just because I can.  I enjoy the challenge in the moment.

Hackers are the bane of my existence as they can spoil everything by   interrupting my complacency and shocking me back to the real world.

Leave me Be

Over the years I have met with many different attacks from machine takeover to attempting data theft.   On April 23rd I was subject to encrypted archiving of the data stored on my NAS devices.

Not sure how it occurred because I don’t download to these devices and I am running pretty sophisticated malware detector which did flag and remove the malware, just too late I guess.

Of course the hacker made a kind offer to let me purchase the encryption key for bitcoin (not sure how much).

I suspect the malware was embedded in a QNAP media application with an auto update, I think they fixed it but unfortunately too late for me.

Ah well, those annoying thieves won’t be getting any bitcoin from me.