US travel firm $4.5M ransom negotiation open chat

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 2:00 AM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #81

teruakohatu wrote: post #64

What are the chances this is a $4.5m transfer to North Korea?

Low. The hackers are likely European, since there are telltales like European number formatting ("10.000.000$") and awkward phrases like "make a step forward" (perhaps Italian fare un passo avanti ?).

Post by karlkatzke » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #101

drdaeman wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not kind of a context I'd like to be associated with a cryptocurrency, though. Privacy is great, but I'd rather prefer people of thinking of that property associated with buying online porn (or whatever legal) than paying online ransoms.

For better or worse, you can look at the current price of Bitcoin as an options contract on future criminal activity.

Post by jdxcode » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #96

momokoko wrote: post #92

Let this be a lesson to those that say bitcoin and other cryptocurrency has no real value outside of speculation. This kind of attack would be almost impossible in the pre-bitcoin era. The difficulty of receiving that volume of money in that short of a period of time in a difficult to trace manner is a new thing. We are entering a new era where crime can pay in very large sums with orders of magnitude less complexity…

> n a difficult to trace manner is a new thing I still don’t understand - how is Bitcoin difficult to trace when there is a global immutable public record of all transactions?

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

yzmtf2008 wrote: post #93

nradov wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general paying off kidnappers is also a bad policy. However I see a huge difference between protecting human lives versus protecting corporate assets.

> "However I see a huge difference between protecting human lives versus protecting corporate assets." The idea that there are fundamental differences between human lives and corporate assets is flawed. There's a very specific value of human life: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/835571843

Post by runawaybottle » Mon, Aug 03, 2020, 2:07 AM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #105

chrisseaton wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> n a difficult to trace manner is a new thing I still don’t understand - how is Bitcoin difficult to trace when there is a global immutable public record of all transactions?

1) You need to be able to tie a BTC address to a human 2) Mixers