Alliance of 40 countries to vow not to pay ransom to cybercriminals, US says

It often isn't. The criminals know that the game theory is such that the criminals know that if they don't actually provide the files when paid, none of them will get paid in the future as people will just assume the files are destroyed unrecoverably and move on. The scam critical depends on you being able to be confident that the files actually are recoverable and thus that paying the ransom is a viable option.

Encryption viruses are probably some of the best QA'ed code in the world.

I've heard of enough cases where the ransomware gang have not followed through after payment of the ransom, that I think that time ("if they don't actually provide the files when paid") has already passed.

Letters of marque aren't transferable, so making them NFTs is kinda silly. Their entire purpose is that the state has entrusted you, captain of the ship, to abide by certain rules (don't plunder our ships, take prisoners when possible).

That said, cyber-privateering is actually a good idea. Cyberwarfare is in the same space as naval warfare was in the 17th century: it's not really an overt act of war, it's mostly committed by criminal organizations with the occasional big news state actor action, and there's a lot of money to be made.

First, you misunderstood the point: the hammer is a poor metaphor because it's something which _hasn't_ changed massively over time – for the 14th century, if you took the ancient Roman who was used to working with these to Home Depot, they'd they'd immediately know what to use work with their modern counterparts:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1982-0103-... https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1956-0403-...

Now, back on topic. Monero's claims have been lightly tested but never against a nation-state level adversary, so I'd be hesitant putting anything onto a blockchain which would be problematic if a flaw is discovered since there is, of course, no way to remove it. That said, let's assume that everything works exactly as planned and they've perfectly nailed the implementation. Do you ever wonder why cryptocurrency people call what they're building cash? That's because while a 14th century treasury officer wouldn't known a thing about hash functions, they were already very familiar with the problems caused by a truly anonymous means of exchanging value: actual cash.

If you've ever read old novels where people had to show explain their source of wealth, maintain accounts at specific banks with good reputations, visiting traders were required to store funds at state sanctioned banks, etc. that's because while it's impossible to tell where someone's coins came from you can make crime, especially tax evasion, considerably harder by requiring people to show positive proof of income and adding points where other people would have to collaborate with you. That certainly doesn't prevent fraud but it can reduce it considerably by increasing the cost and likelihood of being caught.

Obviously we have a big shift in the technology, but that same basic approach works well now: you don't need to control every blockchain transaction if the gateways into the real financial system are required to follow money laundering laws like everyone else. That's one of the reasons why almost no businesses used Tornado Cash, Monero, etc. because they didn't have a need to and when your accountants ask “how will we avoid the drug cartels using us to launder money?” and you say “we can't, that's a feature!”, they're going to start asking questions like who's going to go to prison.

Two thoughts:

1) There's no way to enforce this to private companies in the US without passing some sort of Federal law. I'm pretty certain no states have passed anything like this either.

2) So, we can assume the alliance is government agencies not paying ransomware. For the US, it's only the Federal government agreeing to this. If the County Court of Middle of Nowhere Nebraska gets ransomwared. The Feds can put all the pressure they want on them not to pay, but at the end of the day, they can't stop them from paying.