Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read that as "extraterrestrial enforcement" which sounded way more exciting.
I mean its armageddon either way
I read and heard that as a Def Leppard ballad.
U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
101–110 of 591 posts
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that's what happened with drugs. The price of drugs actually dropped to zero and it's now impossible to get LSD.
I mean, does Bitcoin give people the sort of high that they'd risk going to prison for? I'm not sure nearly-random numbers has the staying power compared to addictive substances.
Bitcoin is just math. The US isn't going to be able make holding bitcoin illegal, and I very much doubt it will ever be able to make the buying and selling of it illegal -- there are even free speech issues here. But what it can do is tax the hell out of it, regulate the exchanges as investment platforms, but they will have a hard time trying to make it illegal to pay someone to sign a cryptographic hash.
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we're going to Patriot Act the crud out of ransomware, Bitcoin is gonna be illegal Terrorist financing is illegal. Cash is not.
Try taking $10,001 in cash into the US and tell me that again
or take that and deposit $5000 of it today and $5001 in a week ;)
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#104They fucked up by targeting infrastructure. If they stuck with small companies they could keep doing it till the cows came home. But now they have governments against them so now they will be hunted down.
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#105What about the other side of this? Instead of seeking backdoors and using them to spy on Americans, the NSA should be stepping up their game and securing vital infrastructure and domestic businesses against these attacks.
I'd rather not see taxpayers have to foot the bill for the profit of megacorps neglecting proper cybersecurity while sitting on mountains of tax-evaded offshore cash, thank you. The industry should be magnitudes larger than it is currently, and we shouldn't encourage corporate recklessness by socializing the costs.
The costs are already socialized - it's our data that gets stolen in hacks. The problem is, the megacorps who lose it must only pay a negligible reputational penalty.
If you could claim compensation for data lost, if businesses had to foot the bill for everybody who's security and privacy is impacted by data breaches, then it would quickly become something they would have to insure against, then the insurers would demand they take reasonable precautions. A system of fines would work well, for instance - an aggressive enforcement of the GDPR or similar, for instance, could create this kind of virtuous circle.
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#106What about the other side of this? Instead of seeking backdoors and using them to spy on Americans, the NSA should be stepping up their game and securing vital infrastructure and domestic businesses against these attacks.
Let's say you're a CEO at Big Pipeline Co. One day your phone rings. It's the NSA.
They say your systems are vulnerable as hell. That you're very likely going to be breached in a quite expensive way very soon. It could shut down all the pipes on which Big Pipeline Co depends!
They offer to patch your systems for you. Do you accept, knowing that your staff will have to hand over hundreds to thousands of credentials? Knowing that the employees of the NSA care more about patching than if your systems work afterwards, and you have no real recourse if they screw up?
If you don't accept, what would you prefer the NSA do to secure your company's systems?
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Difference is if corporations and funds can't hold bitcoin/crypto - you're back to $1/BTC. The whole value proposition of BTC hype bubble bursts if it's illegal in a major market like USA. Don't doubt some cyberpunk nuts will keep playing with it.
We have plenty of historical and current examples of governments imposing capital controls to restrict access to foreign currency. Very rarely does it result in the market price of the foreign currency going down. Usually quite the opposite. Heck, even in American history we once tried to ban private ownership of gold bullion. The black market price of gold rose substantially.
> We have plenty of historical and current examples of governments imposing capital controls to restrict access to foreign currency. Very rarely does it result in the market price of the foreign currency going down. Usually quite the opposite.
That's a nonsense comparison. When governments impose capital controls it means their currency is already sinking and it's a last ditch attempt to prevent this inevitable scenario.
BTC valuation is entirely based on narratives about how it's going to replace standard currency in whatever story is popular, and from what I can see right now it's being pumped up by funds who can't find other good investments in this markets and are willing to play with crypto. If it's illegal for US funds/citizens to hold it/be involved with it - the selloff alone would kill the market instantaneously.
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read that as "extraterrestrial enforcement" which sounded way more exciting.
They still need research on Elerium-115
How are we going to have enough turns to intercept all of these flying white TicTacs? No really, if we don't even have anything fast enough to keep-up with whatever the heck these are (if they're real).
(Just don't equip your army with only nuke missiles because they destroy all of the good stuff and psy attacks would cross the streams.)
Re: U.S. to give ransomware hacks similar priority as terrorism, official says
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much success, historically, has the US government had at regulating math? I can't think of any, but it's not really my specialty so I'm curious if anyone's encountered a successful example.
They don't have to regulate math, they just have to regulate where cryptocurrency touches the "real" financial system which they're actually really good at.
I would assume most diehard bitcoin holders are just fine with no financial system entity touching them. After all, that's what many of them are trying to route around. They want peer-to-peer transactions independent of state actors, and have very little desire to hold BTC in their Fidelity-managed 401K portfolio.
Rather it's been the banks that have been clamoring to get a piece of the bitcoin action, not the other way around.