Ransomware Attack!

One afternoon I was out for a walk when I got an email from my Synology NAS. It informed me that user Admin had tried to log in unsuccessfully multiple times from an IP address in Taiwan. An hour later it happened again, from a different IP address in a different part of the world. Maybe some bored kid was trying to break into my server looking for warez and pr0n. 

When I got home and checked the NAS logs, they showed that I'd been under some kind of automated hack attack all day, it continued as I watched the failed logins in real time. In the NAS logs the failed Admin logins went on for page after page, they'd been methodically at this for hours. Something was trying to log in as user Admin and guess the PW, around 7-10 attempts per a minute, each time from a different IP address supposedly in different parts of the world. I guess that the only reason that I got alerted at all was that their IP address randomizer wasn't random enough and my NAS spilled the beans when it noticed multiple failed logins from the same IP address. I shut the server down for an hour, when I fired it back up the attack began again immediately. Somebody, or more likely something on behalf of somebody, was trying to guess the password of the server administrator. 

This was a brute force ransom attack, after they guessed the Admin password and got in they'd encrypt all of my data on the NAS, present me with a login screen explaining what they'd done and demanding payment in Bitcoin to unencrypt my data. But what these crooks didn't know was that on the advice of the Synology I had disabled the Admin account and given admin rights to a different account 3 years ago. In order to get in and hold my data for ransom they'd have to guess that username and PW.  I know that I'm going to find it a pain in the ass but I also put that login on 2 step authentication. 

 I was still enraged, it was like watching a burglar try to jimmy open my front door and being unable to do or say anything. I eventually shut them down by denying all external requests at the firewall. The next morning when I opened the firewall to the outside world again he, they, it was gone.  But I expect that they, or someone else, will be back.

Our New Home Takes Shape

Little by little our new home is taking shape.  It looks big.  But much of that bigness is the extra deep 3 car garage on the right.  We had an extra 4' of depth added to the 2 car garage at our present house and found it super useful so we added 4' here too.  So, why a 3 car garage for 2 people?  Simple, while we'll be free of a suffocating HOA the CC&R for the property doesn't dictate much but they do say that a 3 car garage is the minimum for this property.  The new house going up just above us is more like a small multi structure compound, it will have a 5 car garage.

So, how about the views?  This will be the view from what will be large windows looking to the west from the living room (imagine no dumpster).

Here's the view from the kitchen window.  There will be a post there but not the support beams that you see here.  And again, no dumpster (it moves with each pickup).

Here's the view from the deck.  One of the City's lakes will be visible from the deck.

Pour & MOAR POUR!

 After 2 months of downtime a digger appeared and dug out the channel for our home's foundation.

That was followed soon after by a giant pump which filled the channels with concrete.

Notice the woman with baby on the jobsite seemingly directing operations.

Perhaps there was a rumor in the neighborhood of a case of hard to come by baby formula buried on the property.

That pour was followed by the installation of forms and even more concrete.

And to top it all off a final pour for the slab.

And now, bring on the lumber!

Dig We Must. Maybe

In the 6 months of loan and permit prep nothing changed on the property.  I was getting antsy, we had already parted with what to me was a tremendous amount of money and time and had nothing physical to show for it.  I avoided walking or driving past the property, I didn't want to be reminded.  The builder had placed a sign on the property proclaiming that they were going to build that gave the wrong street name, followed by another long pause.  And then one day this appeared.

To me that was a sure fire sign that some kind of positive activity involving people was to follow.  Woo-hoo!  Here we go.  And then for a few more weeks nothing happened.

But one day...

The ground was prepped and we were ready to build, right?  Not so fast.

Nothing further happened on our land for 2 months. The builder again said that he couldn't get materials or labor, not contrary to what I had been reading.  Trucks and building equipment run on diesel which had doubled in price.  Inflation was taking off and scarce in demand workers wanted more money.  We had signed our fixed price contract with the builder 9 months prior, in other words in this new inflationary world we were going to pay last year's prices for this year's house.  That's great if anything gets built.

Hurry up and Wait, Planning a Custom Home

What did we want in a home?  The CC&R's for the property said that it had to be a minimum of 2500 square feet and had to have at least a 3 car garage.  After that it was completely up to us.

We called some local architects, they wanted around $15,000 to design a new custom home.  What did we want above and beyond what we already had?  She wanted a craft room, I wanted the house to have a whole house fan.  My Father built one into our house when I was a kid and I knew that a whole house fan was a great way to bring the temperature of a house down with the cool evenings around here.  And of course I wanted a big deck for a meal, a snack or just a snooze in the hammock.

In the end we picked a local builder and modified plans that they already had on their website.  Plans in place and a down payment made to the builder we were ready to build, right?  Not so fast, first it was off to the bank for a construction loan.

A construction loan is sort of like a mortgage, but for new construction.  As the builder completes a stage of the build and needs more money to proceed he makes a draw on the loan.  The bank sends an inspector to make sure that progress claimed has actually been made and if everything passes inspection the bank releases money to the builder.  At the end of the build the construction loan turns into a 30 year mortgage.  

How does one get a construction loan?  Simple, you just have to go to a bank and submit to a 3 month long financial colonoscopy.  Most every day the bank would send me an email detailing what financial information or documentation they required and each day I'd retrieve whatever personal financial information they requested, package it as a PDF and send it back and await the next request.  After 3 months of this our construction loan was approved, yay!

Now we're ready to break ground and build, right?  Not so fast, now the City's Building Department has to get involved and approve the plans because no construction can take place without a building permit.  We were told that between Covid and a crush of new construction the City's Building Department was seriously backed up.  Eventually the City wanted some minor changes and they also has a bizarre proposal from the Fire Department that we kill the view and build our home close to the street and build a road with a traffic circle on the hillside view part of the property big enough so that they could turn around a fire engine.  That's kind of  above and beyond our civic duty.  We said no. 

After 3 months stuck in building permit purgatory the City gave us our permits and we were ready to break ground and build, right?  Not so fast, the builder said that due to inflation and supply chain snafus he was unable to get construction supplies or labor.  Concrete was being rationed and he couldn't get any, he said.  Could we pick our garage door now?  That's because it could take a year to obtain one.  He also suggested that we start shopping for appliances immediately as they were nearly un-obtainable.  I started to get the feeling that we were building a dacha in the Soviet Union.

Scroll down for earlier chapter.

We Had A Nice House

We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood.  But some of our neighbors got homesick and sold their homes and went back where they came from.    

The neighborhood changed further when Covid arrived.  This was when people started to disinfect their groceries and Amazon deliveries.  People were afraid.  I was afraid.  Interaction among neighbors on the street was reduced to awkward conversations at the mail kiosk when people stood 20' apart and loudly asked how each other were coping with the threat of the virus and the isolation of the defacto lockdowns (there were no official government mandated lockdowns here).  More than once I concluded these conversations with, "OK, see you next year!"  I was only half joking.  We had a nice house but eventually whatever cohesiveness this neighborhood had succumbed to Covid.

Meanwhile, Covid was no joke.  Several people in this neighborhood got it and had long hospital stays and longer recoveries.  One of my wife's friends died.

I began to think that I was getting a preview of our later years, when we will further bow to Father Time and have slowed down even more.  What if Covid never stopped and we had to spend much of time self confined?  Wouldn't it be nice to live in a house to prepare for that time?  We looked at a few homes about 20 miles away, many had sewer grinder pumps (meaning no connection to city sewer), no natural gas connection or no cell signal.  

And then this piece of land became available.

Standing on the land we had just purchased.  Click here for larger picture

• It was 3 blocks from where we were living
• It had a view.  The homes across the street are restricted from building up by their HOA.
• Nearly an acre so we'll have plenty of lebensraum from neighbors and street traffic.
• Had municipal water and sewer, high speed Internet access and natural gas hookups.

But that was only the beginning.  In early 2021 the economy was still wobbly.  To sell or to build?  We spent a few months waiting to see what would happen and finally decided to build a new home on the land.  First we had to figure out what kind of home we wanted.  And then we had to find someone to build it.

I knew that whatever we build we'd need to have a deck and big windows in order to capitalize on views like this.  If I'm going to spend a great deal of time as a homebody because of age or infirmity I want something better to look at than Netflix or Prime video. 

Click here for larger picture and to see the snow capped peaks