Tracing the malware path

What began as a revenge action by Harvard educated evolutionary biologist Joseph Popp - who was not considered for a permanent position at the World Health Organization - turned out to be the malicious step towards institutionalizing the dark economy of hacking. With computer connectivity and data sharing gaining new interest during late 1980s, Popp conveniently used the computer software for promoting AIDS education in 1989. It was so designed that the malware shocked the user but without any data being lost. The victim’s computer hard drive was restored after the originator was paid to unlock it. Popp used a payment mechanism system that was easily accessible to the victim but not the police.

Anja Shortland, a professor at the King’s College, traces the malware path that was paved in 1989, and which has now fully grown into a ransom industry worth $1 billion each year. The cost to global business in 2025 has been a whopping $74 billion. “It is like trashing a car to steal a pair of sunglasses,” quips Shortland. But Popp had to prove his worth to two adversaries: the organization that didn’t acknowledge his credentials for a permanent position, and the arrogant ‘masters of the universe’ of the business world. Popp’s plot to extract payment for data hostage didn’t last long but before falling into obscurity he could bequeath a blueprint for ransomware for later generation of hackers.

Since its first appearance in the late 80s, ransomware has gone through many astonishing changes. No sooner the criminals’ payments problem was resolved, ransomware quickly advanced from a low-level nuisance to a problem touching all facets of society. A ransomware attack is a cybercrime in which hackers use malware to encrypt data and charge a fee to receive a decryption key. In financial terms it might seem an inefficient form of crime, but is still growing all across in the internet connected world because it’s much cheaper to cough up incentive then minimize its devastating disruptions.

Shortland, a leading expert in cybercrime peels many layers of digital underworld that is reshaping our online existence in her latest book We Know You Can Pay a Million, which seeks to explore the large corporate set-ups that have grown up around the ransomware industry. The most amazing aspect of this industry is that the havoc wreaked by ransomware is many times over the amount collected by cybergangs. Such has been the psychological cost of the recent attack that the production of the Jaguar Land Rover has been set back by weeks. The British Library has yet to fully recover from the hacking it suffered in 2023.

The astonishing aspect of ransomware attacks is that every attack inspires further attacks. Despite the effort and creativity that goes into taking every attack down, the threat of ransomware to companies and individuals gets greater than ever. The number of arrests and takedowns lead to proliferation and splintering of ransomware brands. For instance, security experts could spot as many as seventy-five ransomware strains, with an average of forty-five groups active each month in the recent past. Leading group LockBitSupp asserts: “This business works…and will always work…takedown isn’t an indication of a systematic problem with ransomware.” 

Shortland says that ransomware became a real problem from 2013 onwards when internet became widespread. The challenge is transboundary and indeed global. Between 2021 and 2024, the US alone counted some 4,900 attacks leading to at least US$ 3.1 billion in ransomware payments. For anyone tracking the daily stream of global ransomware attacks, the extreme vulnerability of global and local supply chains, public services, transport and critical infrastructure is abundantly clear. With ports, trains and airports been subject to temporary shutdowns, the vulnerability of cyber connected infrastructure is glaring.

Need it be said that artificial intelligence will ease ransomware gangs to target a country. It will have serious repercussions to national security and peoples’ lives. Costa Rica was attacked in 2022 and has valid reasons for promotion of higher standards of cyber-hygiene. Shortland has proposed the counter-ransomware dashboard with four interconnected features including penalties and resilience. She further suggests that the ransomware be brought into the sphere of broad political debate. Politicians must be pressed to formulate clear cybersecurity strategies. This book may not be interest to the average reader but must get the attention of the right people to avoid unimaginable catastrophe.

We Know You Can Pay a Million
by Anja Shortland
Hachette, New Delhi
Extent: 293, Price: Rs, 699.

First published in Hindu BusinessLine on June 15, 2026.

Unearthing forgotten queer pasts

Our society may forbid transgressive desires, but it has non-hesitatingly preserved such expressions in murals, paintings and artifacts since time immemorial. While Shiva’s Ardhanareswara captures the synthesis of masculinity and femineity, the stone carvings in Khajuraho temple reflect proto-feminist past that is quintessentially queer. The fascinating thing about queerness is that it permeates time. Whether it is suppressed by societal norms or expressed as myriad human desires, an ounce of femineity or masculinity is present in each one of us. Curiously, queerness is as normal as breathing because human bodies and minds do not fit into prescribed templates. 

Due to rapid social, economic and political change the world is going through, many of the traditional gender binaries have been rendered increasingly dysfunctional and obsolete. Even in ancient, medieval, and early modern times, polyamory, polygamy, and polyandry were well recognized. Draupadi may seem the only polyandrous woman in mythology, however, the polyandrous practice has been real across many communities in the subcontinent. Polyandry, the keeping of multiple husbands, was permitted in the remote mountain regions as late as the 19th century. Anthropologists have come up with socio-economic reasons for such arrangements, but ‘human desire’ has been the pivot that sustained these relations.

Ancient mythology is full of gender fluidity. Gods have been included; divinities transcend their gender. Shiva is often depicted as hyper masculine whereas Vishnu is quite feminine to start with. 

These are predominant examples but social practices relating to gender identities had a subculture that persisted through ages. Indian society was pretty cool about it but to the prudish Victorian eyes this was scandalous. As a consequence, the colonial rulers erased south-Asian queer sub-cultures. Colonial authorities passed a posy of laws to criminalize them, and we were indoctrinated to think of the past as necessarily regressive.  

A doctorate from the University of Strathclyde, Sindhu Rajasekhran considers herself ambiguous and acknowledges the decriminalization of Section 377 which spared the headache of justifying her being what she claims to be – sapphic, fluid, ambiguous, bisexual. Digging deeper into the subject of gender identity she found that gender fluidity is not a foreign fad and the fact that it doesn’t easily fit into the Victorian idea of gender binary led to its decolonization. Forbidden Desire places the categories of gender identity in cultural perspective. It further argues that queerness has the potential to dismantle patriarchal patrons and perhaps the reason for the new gender identities (LGBTQ+) yet to gain social acceptance. 

It goes without saying that patriarchy is petrified of gender fluidity, because it alone has the potential to dismantle hierarchical pyramids. The patriarchy is built on a solid foundation of masculine thinking, which fetishizes the feminine. As androgenic expressions are gaining currency, there is a reason to believe Rajasekaran’s assertion that future is turning femme. In this context, mxn is a gender fluid expression that is neither man nor woman. With this being the new perspective, everyone is free to express in a manner that reflects their true selves.

Queerness isn’t out of the ordinary. It doesn’t confirm to prespecified choices and neither confine to established customs. It is a period of destabilization in traditional gender roles and relationships. Forbidden Desire is a new way of approaching big questions about existence and the societies we create(d), then and now.

Forbidden Desire 
by Sindhu Rajasekaran 
Simon&Schuster, New Delhi. 
Extent: 238, Price: Rs. 799.

First published in Deccan Herald on June 14, 2026. 

Life, lived beyond life

Spine chilling stories about ghosts are tales of the supernatural, which exist in only our imagination but are no less intriguing and compelling. These stories are reflections of our history and reflect our unending connection to those who came before us. Every haunted place follows a human story of the bygone era - a tragic love affair, an unsolved murder, or a miserable life. Ghosts may not be seen but are echoes of human emotions and have unwritten history of not just about dates and events but about people. Digging into these stories uncovers lives that are not to be forgotten. 

Eric Chopra, the founder of Itihāsology, journeys through the capital’s most beguiling sites Jamali-Kamali, Firoz Shah Kotla, Khooni Darwaza, and Malcha Mahal to unearth the stories and legends that seem wrapped around these heritage structures. Between the living and the lived, there is an in-between world of paranormal (in)activities which are either inhabited or haunted - ‘jinn's are noble souls who inhabit eerie places whereas ghosts haunt the dilapidated structures.’ 

Ghosted emerges from these never-ending curiosities, which wanders through unending conversations sustained by horror aficionados. And it’s this enduring appetite for the other world that sustains the enigmatic inhabitation of jinn's and ghosts. Human fascination with the other world is old and persistent. Chopra showcases the layered, multi-hued history of our unwritten past. And whether one believes on the paranormal, Ghosted makes for so compelling a read that one is nudged to visit the sites to see for oneself.

It is part history and part hearsay that has been weaved together into an absorbing narrative. It isn’t the academic history but popular history, that is mystical no less. It blends archival research with myths without any attempt to settle what, when, and why of a past that persists till the present. Instead, it acknowledges how ordinary people relate to them without questioning and how handwritten pleas and petitions are filed by numerous believers. Far from judging these beliefs, the claims of getting the pleas fulfilled are frequent. Rarely are such claims authenticated but help in reinforcing the beliefs.

Chopra is one of his kind of researcher, holding the tradition of enriching popular history that has been kept alive since antiquity. Ancient societies are known to have written letters to their dead relatives, have been filing written petitions for seeking requiem from their earthly troubles, and have kept alive rituals and practices. The haunted refuse to leave the cultural imagination, which are revered in tombs and dargahs. The city remains the palimpsest history of sages, sultans, poets, and lovers who linger in human memory. 

Ghosted talks about how humans relate to the haunted but not the other way round. Who knows that the haunted may harbor a story? The case of Kate Morgan, who haunts the Hotel del Coronado since 1892, reflects the challenges women faced in her era: social stigma for unwed pregnancies, limited resources for independence, and little tolerance for scandal. Many believe her ghost lingers in a hotel room, a haunting reminder of the struggle's women endured, and the quiet tragedies often lost to history. There are stories on what’s lost and what endures, to understand the many ways the haunted may tell their stories.

Chopra is a natural storyteller, combining his passion for public history with archival research. This makes him a compelling writer of narrative non-fiction which connects with the current generation. Such writings bring the joy of discovering the past to new and old readers and may help explore new facets to the haunted stories. With the city landscape littered with fabled apparitions, there is much to choose from. 

Delhi is rich in haunted geography, and people engage with history through heritage walks. Only tourists help in maintaining the haunted structures. Even menswear collection, Jamali Kamali, has contributed to enhancing interest in haunted structures. Ghosted is an engaging read, weaving a relationship with these historical sites. Each site has an engaging public history.

Ghosted: Delhi’s Haunted Monuments 
by Eric Chopra 
Speaking Tiger, New Delhi. 
Extent: 280, Price: Rs. 480.

First published in Hindustan Times on June 5, 2026.