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GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

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Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#111
post #90
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't any legitimate charity return money that was donated through coercion? If someone stole something and gave it to me, and the rightful owner asked for it back, I would give it back. I guess it would just look bad asking for them to return it but most people would understand.

The malware group is not asking for donations to organizations, but to individuals at the hospital. They are requiring that someone at the infected business records videos of themselves going to a hospital or health clinic, looking for people who seem like they need financial help and offering to help them pay for their medical care. 1) Good luck suing poor individuals to get your money back 2) It's hard to fathom wh…

That just sounds like campaign season.

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#112
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of treatments? How regularly?

Universal healthcare is well overrated in the US. From a country that had it, it usually means: ugly hospitals, sad faces, long queues for treatments (I mean wait time for "free" treatment can be well over a year). There is no free lunch. On the other hand, I usually can get my kid to doctor same day, while using private healthcare provider (paid by my employer) it is almost impossible, 2-3 days wait. On yet another…

I live in east Europe in a country with public healthcare (our system even considered to be in bad state). However if I have to choose between spending the saving of my family and spending a week or a month in an ugly hospital, I choose the latter without thinking. The doctors doing the healing are the same, the quality is the same, only aesthetics differ.

There are problems with puclic healthcare that needs solving, but I would much rather focus on thoose problems than pumping insurace companies with money so private hospitals can charge 10x-100x the price of a treatmant (compared to Europe for example).

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#113
Tangentially, I dislike strongly when people record videos of themselves doing "goodwill" for others—especially for social media; it always reeks [to me] of insincerity. Not to mention the often unwanted spotlight it casts onto the receiver of said goodwill. If one cares, one does acts of goodwill privately, without thinking about how others will react—including and especially—on the internet.

"The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching." ― John Wooden

edit: taming em-dashes

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#114
post #104

If only there was universal healthcare, than we wouldn't need private entities coercing individuals to forfeit parts of their paychecks to pay for strangers lifestyles, the government would have rendered that service obsolete! Another win for the free market?

Taxation is coercion. Higher taxation is higher coercion. With that being said, the US already spends more on public healthcare than Canada does, so the problem is a lot more complex than where should the money come from.

> With that being said, the US already spends more on public healthcare than Canada does

That's because it's mostly all going to predatory insurance and drug companies rather than to doctors and other medical professionals. Universal healthcare cuts out all the needless middlemen and and incentivizes governments to put reasonable caps on the profits of drug companies.

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#115
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of treatments? How regularly? In the UK there is a department called NICE which uses health economics to understand how to best utilize the funding for the national health service to best improve health outcomes (generally measured by increasing QALY or Quality-Adjusted Life Years, but there are multiple measures in reality). This means that if there is a £500k treatment that could save the lives of a 70…

As an American, that's just disgusting. The government shouldn't decide if your parents die. The free market should decide. If you created enough shareholder value then you'll have enough to pay for their treatment like God intended.

I know this is tongue in cheek, but all these countries also have private health options, so it’s not really a genuine argument against it anyways. If you were too poor to afford good coverage in the US, you wouldn’t be able to afford the private coverage in other countries either, but for rich people, private insurance is easily obtainable, for relatively cheap too, since they compete with “free”.

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#116
post #32
post #6

I was expecting them to want you to make a donation and send the receipt, but they want you to actually round up less fortunate kids and take them out for pizza. Bizarre.

Its definitely a cultural thing. The task would be extremely easy in any Indian city, but they probably don’t realize it would be near impossible in the West. Same with task 3, it would bankrupt Americans to pay for somebody else’s medical bills.

I've never been bankrupted by paying for millions of senior citizens to have Medicare, but I have been bankrupted by my own health care expenses.

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#117
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the USA if you don’t have insurance and are dying you’ll be treated. They act like dead poor people are piled up outside of hospitals. They’ll even discount you to 0 if they see you’re really poor.

I wanted to mention something like this, but I felt like my experience is too limited to be sure. My impression is that in the US, the cost of care will lead to people avoiding seeking treatment for things that don't appear urgent. Sometimes, those things are actually urgent and they'll be worse off for waiting. But in cases where there's a clear, urgent need for care, they'll rarely be denied treatment outright. Ins…

Which is better in most cases than the rationed care of government healthcare, where people die waiting for "free" healthcare.

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#118

Tangentially, I dislike strongly when people record videos of themselves doing "goodwill" for others—especially for social media; it always reeks [to me] of insincerity. Not to mention the often unwanted spotlight it casts onto the receiver of said goodwill. If one cares, one does acts of goodwill privately, without thinking about how others will react—including and especially—on the internet. "The true test of a man…

100%. Amen to that.

I've read somewhere that all donations that Paul McCartney makes come with a rider that if his name is leaked, the donation is withdrawn.

Regardless of whether this is true, I think that's the way to donate if it comes from your heart.

Re: GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

They don't state you shouldn't ask the parents (and also invite them) to complete task 2.

"okay...but why are you doing this for us?"

"m'am, it's a long story...they have my files. Also, I am recording you. Who wants breadsticks?!"

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