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Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

grubstreet.com

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Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#21

Post by PhasmaFelis »

ccozan wrote: post #2

"What the heck is a BitCoin??" I bet there is no actual extortion going on, but kind of a "let's educate the business owners into the new digital economy, and, if necessary, by force". The pranksters probably estimate, once the business owners find out what is the idea of Bitcoin, they will say, hey, let's offer this to our customers.

So your theory is that, having been introduced to a new idea by gut-churning fear and anger, business owners will immediately think "Hey, this is pretty cool! We should use it!"

Have you met many humans?

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#22

Post by fleitz »

VLM wrote: post #10

Obviously the victim isn't the local pizzera its Coinbase. Someone just spent "not very much money" to make them look incredibly bad. Should be fairly easy to track them down, just analyze the pattern of yellow dots on the color laser print to figure out the make, model, and serial number of the printer making the extortion letters, then contact whichever of coinbase's competitors made those letters and ... Now if I…

Will be super easy as long as they had the foresight to buy the printer on a credit card and the pizzeria's police force is actually CSI.

Seriously, the police are not going to analyze dots on laser printer to track down an extortion for $500, just like they don't swab for prints / DNA on a B&E. Real life is not CSI.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#24

Post by dobbsbob »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17
Nakatomi_Plaza wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely coinbase was chosen simply because it's the easiest way for their victims to buy coins. There is a vulnerability with Pizza businesses in that they trust the caller is making a legit order, and don't ask for pre-payment before delivery thus leaving them open to fraud. Whoever is doing this is clearly bluffing and hoping just a handful of businesses pay the extortion and likely flooded the mail system with…

Read your username as "Nakatomi Pizza".

This extortion attempt could create a new startup: Nakatomi Pizza that processes calls to check for fingerprints of fraud, and to verify orders. "Now I have a machine learning caller-ID with advanced heuristics ho, ho ho"

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#26

Post by robert_tweed »

ccozan wrote: post #2

"What the heck is a BitCoin??" I bet there is no actual extortion going on, but kind of a "let's educate the business owners into the new digital economy, and, if necessary, by force". The pranksters probably estimate, once the business owners find out what is the idea of Bitcoin, they will say, hey, let's offer this to our customers.

Replying because I don't think your post deserves all the downvotes, even though I think your argument is stupid.

TBH, my first thought when I saw the "notice of extortion" letter was that it was a joke. Not a particularly funny one for the restaurateurs, but perhaps someone's lame idea of a prank that got a bit out of hand.

However, as others have pointed out already, it is most definitely a clear-cut case of extortion whether or not they have any intent of following through on the threats. Just as robbery with an unloaded gun is still robbery and threatening with a deadly weapon: nobody knows whether it's loaded, so they have to assume it is. In that case the induce fear and panic is quite real. People have been known to have heart attacks in such situations. In that case the the perpetrator has committed a homicide, regardless of intent.

It's also not a very good way of winning hearts and minds if education is the goal.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#27

Post by snorkel »

coreymgilmore wrote: post #13

Some quick digging around: not much to be found on the wallet addresses on the extortion letters. One wallet was tied to a 0.001 transaction on 6/27. wallet: 17gt1BancvtnnJwy4BA41VBUH3pfbUvzE block: 308079

Can't coinbase just ban whatever id was presented in the letter?

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#28

Post by DanBC »

snorkel wrote: post #27
coreymgilmore wrote: post #13

Some quick digging around: not much to be found on the wallet addresses on the extortion letters. One wallet was tied to a 0.001 transaction on 6/27. wallet: 17gt1BancvtnnJwy4BA41VBUH3pfbUvzE block: 308079

Can't coinbase just ban whatever id was presented in the letter?

See also "joe job", "reputation attack", and "denial of service".

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#29

Post by lightblade »

ngoel36 wrote: post #5

My girlfriend's father had a hacker break into their network drive, encrypt all their files, and extort the company for $500 of Bitcoin in exchange for the password...

I wonder if my disk is already encrypted (full disk encryption), can they put another encryption on top of that?

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#30

Post by benjohnson »

lightblade wrote: post #29
ngoel36 wrote: post #5

My girlfriend's father had a hacker break into their network drive, encrypt all their files, and extort the company for $500 of Bitcoin in exchange for the password...

I wonder if my disk is already encrypted (full disk encryption), can they put another encryption on top of that?

Yes... the malware replaces each file with an encrypted version. It works on an individual file level.
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