On Saturday, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Boston office declined to comment. The breach, he said, was reported to state and federal authorities and he told councilors the city has spoken to FBI representatives in Boston, San Antonio, and San Francisco. The city has said its emergency 911 service was never affected. On Tuesday, Mirán Fernandez, Lowell’s chief information officer, appeared before the City Council and provided some details about efforts to recover from the attack.ĭuring his remarks, Fernandez said the city experienced a “cyber-related event,” but declined to provide details, citing ongoing investigations. “These criminals can’t be trusted to do what they say they’ll do,” he said.

Play hasn’t publicly disclosed how much money it is seeking from the City of Lowell, Liska said.Ĭallow said he advises against paying ransoms. Mayor Sokhary Chau, who has been traveling in Cambodia, also didn’t respond to an e-mail. He didn’t respond Saturday to messages from the Globe. told the Lowell Sun that the city was working with state and federal law enforcement officials. He said he was “waiting to see if the data was real.” The City of Lowell has said little publicly about the claims from Play.Ĭity Councilor Wayne Jenness, who works in information technology by trade, said Saturday that the city was trying to determine whether the data published by Play is authentic. “It’s unlikely that it’s faked,” Liska said Saturday. The unusual name Ebenezer evokes the namesake character Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and that is reinforced by the polite but calculating missives from him “written with a pen in a crabbed hand.” He evokes little sympathy in the reader, perhaps because he is the only one who profits from this sad episode.The perpetrators, he said, are likely Russian speakers who don’t have the English fluency to fabricate the data, which was published on the “dark web,” a part of the Internet that’s inaccessible to standard browsers and search services.

When Sam and Bill kidnap Johnny and hold him for ransom, Ebenezer displays both his humorous and his calculating sides by refusing to worry about his son’s safety and pay the ransom, but instead cleverly negotiating with Johnny’s captors so that they would pay him money to return his troublesome son. Sam describes him as a rich but stingy person who takes advantage of people in distress: “Respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.” Ebenezer’s coldness and cruelty are also evident in the seeming hunger his son Johnny has for fatherly attention and affection. Ebenezer Dorset is Johnny's father, a wealthy businessman in the town of Summit.

The ransom and the red chief