{"id":6318,"date":"2017-05-23T07:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T12:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/?p=6318"},"modified":"2017-05-18T10:50:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T15:50:16","slug":"6318-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/6318-2\/","title":{"rendered":"May 28, 2017–Don\u2019t WannaCry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Dodson, Fort Walton Beach, FL
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Warm-up Question<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have you ever found out something that you felt morally obligated to share with someone else, even though sharing would be awkward or perhaps a breach of trust and confidentiality.\u00a0 How did you decide what was right in that circumstance?<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t WannaCry<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I hope that the name \u201cWannaCry\u201d is unfamiliar to you.\u00a0 That\u2019s the name of a wicked computer virus currently ransacking computers across the globe.\u00a0 WannaCry is ransomware.\u00a0 That means that when it infects your computer, it locks up files that you\u2019ve saved.\u00a0 In order to get those files back, you\u2019re forced to pay hundreds of dollars to the authors of the virus.\u00a0 This money has to be paid in an untraceable digital currency called BitCoin, so catching the criminal coders of the virus is very hard.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry too much.\u00a0 If your computer is running an up to date version of Windows, then you\u2019re safe from WannaCry.\u00a0 However, it almost wasn\u2019t that way.\u00a0 The National Security Agency (NSA) discovered the flaw that made WannaCry possible earlier this year.\u00a0 In April the data about that flaw was stolen from the NSA.\u00a0 The hackers who created WannaCry got their hands on this data and were able to craft a virus that manipulated a problem with Windows.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a discussion\u00a0 about whether or not the NSA had a responsibility to tell Microsoft about the vulnerability it discovered.\u00a0 It appears that when the NSA found out about the flaw, it didn\u2019t say anything to Microsoft.\u00a0 Instead, it chose to hold onto that data, hoping it could use it to write programs that would break into computers used by terrorist organizations and the like.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that the NSA could have told Microsoft earlier about the problem, allowing it to fix the vulnerability earlier.\u00a0 But did it have a moral obligation to do so? Or is the NSA\u2019s mission to fight terrorism and American enemies more important?<\/p>\n

Discussion Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n