81–90 of 94 posts
I hope this is a sign of things to come. Train robberies and privateering were common because the culprits were rarely caught. I feel ransomware has been so successful because it operated in an environment where you never get caught. The solution is always the same, step up the enforcement.
Stepping up enforcement fails all the time. If you want ransomware to stop being effective, make it illegal to pay the ransom.
I hope this is a sign of things to come. Train robberies and privateering were common because the culprits were rarely caught. I feel ransomware has been so successful because it operated in an environment where you never get caught. The solution is always the same, step up the enforcement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…
Then a bunch of employees will have to find new jobs and some people have their retirement savings drained because it was illegal to pay the ransom and the business shut down. Society will move on. No long-term loss.
The total value of the stock markets didn't seem to suffer from Covid-19. But people have.
Maybe your point is that unrestricted ransomware shouldn't affect GDP? I'm honestly not sure. Doesn't there have to be a limit? Civilization depends on trust. Sometimes there are critical points.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No those are not similar cases. Yours is urgent, violent, tiny scale, and individual level. The individual doesn't have any agency in this situation. The alternative is get shot and robbed. If a corporation is unable to pay a ransom then the incentive to do the ransomware attack immediately drops. Cracking down on perps would be nice, but is not feasible.
No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…
This sounds reasonable at first, but I think it might be leaning on anthropomorphizing a corporation a little much.
I think of them more as a machine, or a biological cell or microbe.
While it may be a machine optimized for survival, I'm not sure that they all are or that they must be.
An organism can self-destruct if that's what it's programmed to do.
And an organization in theory should be able to maintain processes that result in orderly self-destruction in certain circumstances, where it's appropriate in the wider society.
After all, companies typically go bankrupt rather than devolving into gang warfare, right?
A "humans first" society should not be prioritizing the survival of human created organizations above all else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I can’t believe this needs to be explained, but the two situations are remarkably alike. If all of a corporations data is being held to ransom, there is no choice in the matter, they must pay. You’re talking like losing all their customers or IP or shutting down the corporation wouldn’t hurt anyone but it would hurt all their employees at the least. What such an idiotic, short sighted policy would do is to encour…
Then a bunch of employees will have to find new jobs and some people have their retirement savings drained because it was illegal to pay the ransom and the business shut down. Society will move on. No long-term loss.
But hey… our society moved on, so you’re right about that: you can definitely live with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main argument against making ransom payments illegal is that it simply drives ransom payments underground. Legislating something, similar to vices like drugs, alcohol or gambling, doesn't make it go away.
If you make it a felony to pay ransoms (which I strongly support), there will be far fewer ransom demands. Yes, some of it will go underground, but in my view it’s the only way to actually decrease the demand side of the equation.
It’s like prostitution, if it’s illegal you find that most sex workers are the most vulnerable in society. When it’s not, sex workers can be anyone who doesn’t want to drive 6 hours for Uber on the weekend for extra cash.
Is hacking the hackers even legal? Wouldn't it still be a crime.
but killing killers is legal under law.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/06/us-milita...
Any real, as in flesh and blood, person(s) arrested? Otherwise this is only a small delay.
Exactly. Until people are arrested, the government just basically shutdown a REvil billboard. They'll just pop up with a new one. No one has actually stopped REvil hacking operations. There's been a lot of drama with their affiliate programs that are probably not government related. This Reuters article is giving the government a tiny little more credit than it deserves. Here is an article with some more information:…
"The server was compromised, and they were looking for me," 0_neday wrote on a cybercrime forum last weekend and first spotted by security firm Recorded Future. "Good luck, everyone; I'm off." [1]
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-governments-tur...
TLDR: "We failed to arrest, or even identify anybody, Team US OPSEC FUCK YEAH!!!" FBI, Cyber Command, Secret Service, Russian run Group-IB, DoD and spokesperson for the White House National Security Council seen in the background doing high fives and congratulating themselves on "Mission Accomplished".
Did they fail to arrest anyone? Or are you just making up stuff to be snarky?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-governments-tur...
[2] https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2021/Ransom...