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ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

arstechnica.com

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Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#221

Post by akamaka »

zo1 wrote: post #173
akamaka wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment may be factual, but you could have skipped the "you should be thankful" bit. It's quite a rude thing to say to someone you don't know.

That's not the context the OP used... It was: "you should thank", not "you should be thankful". A very subtle difference, but in this case (to you), it's the difference between offending and not.

I think both wordings are rude, particularly because of the word "you". OP doesn't know anything about his family's history. It's different from making a general argument that talks about the benefit to the whole country.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#222

Post by fsloth »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #158
jacquesm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: The life of Brian, 'What have the Romans ever done for us'. As for Britain giving up its ownership: To this date formally England lays claim to a whole bunch of places that they have colonized and in some cases it has gone to war to keep that situation as it is. That the UK gave up India is a pretty complex affair but you can bet that the 'let's fight' option was only taken off the table when someone did so…

But the grandparent was talking about systematic extortion. Which is a specific allegation that i understand to mean bleeding the colony dry under threat of force. The parent states that this specific allegation is not true and that many countries were better off than before or counterfactual without colony rule.

Colonialism typically siphons profits generated by capital from the colony to the colonial masters. This is an economic fact. It's not extortion but it does leech capital from the colony and is systematic.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#223

Post by fsloth »

brianwawok wrote: post #166
skybrian wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes this is good advice. For some rather vivid counterexamples, read up on Genghis Khan. Computer security is of course a whole different thing.

The wrath of the Khans was amazing. Seemed like your odds of dying were pretty high either way. Give him all your stuff and starve. Or say no and get beheaded..

"Give him all your stuff and starve. Or say no and get beheaded.."

I'm not sure about the starving part, would you have any references? If a city surrendered he did not sack it. If it did not - yeah, bad.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#224

Post by fsloth »

SeanDav wrote: post #137
Estragon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Kipling's knowledge of this had a practical basis, since he was one of the chief apologists for the systematic extortion the British Empire used to enrich itself.

(Note - I am from one of the countries invaded and occupied by Britain) I must come to Britain's defence here - it's behaviour was normal in those times but it did eventually give up most of its "ownership" without actually being defeated in wars. That was pretty amazing. By modern standards, British behaviour was despicable, but a lot of the invaded countries got enormous benefits - rule of law, economic infrastruct…

I'm not sure what you are saying here. That by past standards they were not totally horrible, or that becoming colonized was a fair trade due to all of the "benefits"?

As an example, Japan nor China was never colonized, they were totally ass-backwardian to late 19th century and appear at least to foreign eyes quite modern nowadays.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#225

Post by awqrre »

vabmit wrote: post #214
awqrre wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an email server doesn't need to be accessible 100% of the time to guarantee deliverability

Protonmail's e-mail servers were off line for multiple days. With an outage of that length mail will start to bounce. It depends on the local configuration. But, 3 days/72 hours is pretty standard.

That length of down-time is unacceptable for any type of connection.... even for residential. But at least I guess that the senders will know that the emails bounced.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#226

Post by billmalarky »

SolarNet wrote: post #80
billmalarky wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, profiting in any way off blackmailers looks really bad... Reminds me of when Uber had that surge pricing scandal during the Sydney hostage crisis.

I think the OP meant it as a discount. (E.g. if cloudflare blocking the attack would cost 10k (for 5 sites) for a month, offer a discount at half the ransom (3k) for however long the attack lasts days).

Still too risky from a PR standpoint. It's the kind of corporate activity that means well (truly) but can be interpreted negatively too easily.

Unfortunately the only safe play is to give away the service for free (for duration of the attack). Which could be a solid marketing strategy, cloudflare's price point is reasonable enough that many would stick with their service even after the attack was over.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#227

Post by geofft »

SHIT_TALKER wrote: post #220
geofft wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, pithy and powerful quotes! I should be thankful for colonialism for providing pithy and powerful quotes. Take up the white man's burden of speechwriting. Seriously, there are much better arguments for the position you're espousing. I can come up with half a dozen without trying. If you're really interested in contributing to discourse, try making them.

The topic was the banning of Sati. It was just one example of the benefits of British rule. That it is such a salutary example is why I mentioned it. You are welcome to keep crying on Twitter that people said things you don't like but I have nothing further to say to you.

It's not even close to salutary. You can't defend your point, that's why you have nothing further to say to me. You are wrong on the facts, and you don't even know how to lose an argument graciously.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#228

Post by jacquesm »

jessriedel wrote: post #212
greyboy wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can we even know the answer to that question? Additionally: How many of the people who do not pay these ransoms do you really think are hit again?

> How can we even know the answer to that question? Huh? People report extortion and muggings to the authorities routinely. Combining that with surveys to estimate non-reports should allow us to get a very good estimate. > How many of the people who do not pay these ransoms do you really think are hit again? About the same number as people who do pay: Few.

Companies are very quiet (usually, the company linked in the article is an exception to that rule) about being extorted.

Re: ProtonMail pays $6k ransom, gets taken out by DDoS anyway

#230

Post by SHIT_TALKER »

geofft wrote: post #227
SHIT_TALKER wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The topic was the banning of Sati. It was just one example of the benefits of British rule. That it is such a salutary example is why I mentioned it. You are welcome to keep crying on Twitter that people said things you don't like but I have nothing further to say to you.

It's not even close to salutary. You can't defend your point, that's why you have nothing further to say to me. You are wrong on the facts, and you don't even know how to lose an argument graciously.

What argument is there to be had with someone who will not even admit the elimination of the ritual immolation of widows as a salutary benefit of colonial rule? There's clearly no reason involved in such a stance but simply reflexive chauvinism.
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