So I have a different perspective on what you just wrote. To me a world where you have to pay a bribe is very different to one where it is possible to do busine

So I have a different perspective on what you just wrote. To me a world where you have to pay a bribe is very different to one where it is possible to do business without one. If anyone is doing business in a country without paying a bribe, then everyone can. It's like the difference between being able to run a restaurant without paying the mob and basically ignoring them, and not being to run that restaurant because they will come and beat you up until you do. That is a huge difference. The mob might still sell heroin or do other stuff the city doesn't want them to do but they are not beating up business people who refuse to pay them. That is a huge difference. When it is illegal for you to pay a bribe you can always say that you are not able to, because it's illegal and you're law-abiding. It's that simple. Regarding your example: to me "that's fine, you can do that. When you speak to him, tell my father that I said hello" sounds like a scared bluff. After all the father in this situation has even more to lose than the son does! (Because of the father's higher rank.) So the conversation is totally shifted. It might not even be his father in this case. It is always easy to be on the side of lawfulness. When there's a law behind you. Without that law, it is just you and the ransom seeker, making a private arrangement. No, that's not the way the world should work. I think making paying bribes illegal is fantastic, and the same thing should be done for paying any ransom. People respond to incentives. The government has to destroy that business model. Let me paint you a picture: imagine if you were scared to go on the Internet right now, from any of your devices, because it is similar to going to a gang-infested part of the city where you will get beaten up. That's the world you think is okay: one in which you are being cyber attacked and forced to pay a ransom for "protection". No. Actually that's not the world we live in: when I connect a device to the Internet, I don't feel like I'm about to get beaten up, and neither do you. This works. When someone pays $1 million to change that world, they're doing something very wrong, and it must be strongly illegal.