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Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

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31–40 of 55 posts

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#32
post #8
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...

Your girlfriend's father opened an email attachment he shouldn't have, you mean? edit: C'mon, folks. Cryptolocker isn't a bunch of hackers targeting individual network drives. It's spread via email. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker

Sure, and stupid people deserve to be taken advantage of, right?

Cos' that's what I see you saying.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#33

It's cheaper for the Pizza company to eat some of the fraudulent orders than pay the $600 extortion fee.

That's if the extortionists even bother carrying through with their threat. It's pretty cheap to print up a thousand letters and mail them to pizzerias all over the country; if even a couple cough up the money, that's probably money and effort spent well enough. The deadline is far enough in the future that it's not really worth it to prove that punitive measures will be taken.

I guess I assumed these were coming from out of the country. Do we know that they are being mailed in the US? If that is the case the postal service almost certainly knows which post office these were mailed out of.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#34
post #27

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?

[deleted]

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#35
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your girlfriend's father opened an email attachment he shouldn't have, you mean? edit: C'mon, folks. Cryptolocker isn't a bunch of hackers targeting individual network drives. It's spread via email. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker

Sure, and stupid people deserve to be taken advantage of, right? Cos' that's what I see you saying.

No, I'm saying awareness of the actual causes of computer issues like Cryptolocker can be very helpful in preventing such infections.

No one in the general public is going to know how to protect against "hackers". "Don't open attachments if you aren't expecting them from someone" is actionable advice.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#36
post #22
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.

If the extortionist is making threats across state lines, it stops being a $500 matter for the local LEOs and starts being a matter for the FBI.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#37
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your girlfriend's father opened an email attachment he shouldn't have, you mean? edit: C'mon, folks. Cryptolocker isn't a bunch of hackers targeting individual network drives. It's spread via email. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker

Sure, and stupid people deserve to be taken advantage of, right? Cos' that's what I see you saying.

[deleted]

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#38
Apparently they've never worked in pizza. I could just see them sending it to my dad.

First off, What's a bitcoin?

Negative Online review...what's an Online review.

Harrassing telephone calls...you mean a friday night?

Farudulant delivery orders...10 all the way pizzas with anchovies...sure we'll make those right up and deliver them...ya right...

Illegal drug sales...don't be primising illegal drugs to the delivery drivers unless your going to follow through.

Health department -- they visit every six months anyway.

BBB...I once watched a customer complain and get an attitute about his pizza ...he took his pizza and threw it in the trash handed him his money back and said dominos is down around the corner.

I used to try to talk him into advertising too get more customers and he'd always tell me he didn't want anymore customers.

He used to keep a saw'd shotgun behind the counter because the gangs that live in the apartment complex behind us were talking about robbing us. There's still a hole on the floor from where one the employees got shot 'cause they just wanted to shoot someone.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#39
post #22
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.

Even if they bought the printer with a check and wrote "FOR CRIMINAL EXTORTION" in the memo field, the fact that the letter was created with an HP printer probably still does not remove enough bits of anonymity to find them.

Re: Pizzerias Receiving Extortion Letters Demanding Bitcoin

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and stupid people deserve to be taken advantage of, right? Cos' that's what I see you saying.

No, I'm saying awareness of the actual causes of computer issues like Cryptolocker can be very helpful in preventing such infections. No one in the general public is going to know how to protect against "hackers". "Don't open attachments if you aren't expecting them from someone" is actionable advice.

The problem is, before your edit, you just made a sarcastic response whose sole function, as far as I can tell, is to belittle the person you were responding to for their lack of awareness of issues like Cryptolocker without attempting to inform them.

This may not be a correct interpretation of your post but it is how it reads to me, above the edit.

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