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I don't get how they're purported work in the first place. You pay by sending money to bitcoin wallet. How do you communicate? How do they communicate with yo

by soneil 6y ago

I don't get how they're purported work in the first place. You pay by sending money to bitcoin wallet. How do you communicate? How do they communicate with you? Say I get a popup right now that says I have to send n BTC to wallet x. And say I do. What then? How do they find me to deliver a key? It all seems rather nonsensical. They may as well fill your files with noise for all the difference it makes.

saagarjha 6y ago
They could have a C&C server that hands out unique addresses to each person, and when that wallet gets money it sends out a signal to the malware to decrypt the files…
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Presumably you'd say which wallet the money is coming from? How do legal Bitcoin payments handle this question?
- jackson1442 6y ago
  It's trivial to generate more Bitcoin wallets, so you'll generally have a wallet assigned directly to your transaction (i.e. you will be assigned to send money to 1D1xUHdeiUewhDiuedoiuheOIUEH28udOUHD, and no one else will until the payment is closed). Upon receiving confirmations, the locking software would decrypt your files automatically. Fun fact–according to a local security firm I stopped by, Ransomware developers actually have to have good customer service because once it becomes known that files don't get decrypted, no one will pay for Ransomware. I've even seen screenshots (posted on the internet, so take it with a grain of salt) where Ransomware teams unlocked computers for free because the subject couldn't afford to pay the ransom.
  - jbverschoor 6y ago
    Using the right incentives creates great work. This is essentially what policy and politics are... should be
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  You don't actually "send money to a wallet/address" in Bitcoin. You broadcast a transaction that includes a public key puzzle (the address) that someone can spend if they have the corresponding private key. So you can generate a unique private key for each person, give them the pubkey (the address), and watch the network for 1:1 reconciliation.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  You don't actually "send money to a wallet/address" in Bitcoin. You broadcast a transaction that includes a public key puzzle (the address) that someone can spend if they have the corresponding private key. So you can generate N private keys, give the pubkeys (the address) to N people, and watch the network for 1:1 reconciliation.

by soneil 6y ago

saagarjha 6y ago

They could have a C&C server that hands out unique addresses to each person, and when that wallet gets money it sends out a signal to the malware to decrypt the files…

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

Presumably you'd say which wallet the money is coming from? How do legal Bitcoin payments handle this question?

jackson1442 6y ago
It's trivial to generate more Bitcoin wallets, so you'll generally have a wallet assigned directly to your transaction (i.e. you will be assigned to send money to 1D1xUHdeiUewhDiuedoiuheOIUEH28udOUHD, and no one else will until the payment is closed). Upon receiving confirmations, the locking software would decrypt your files automatically. Fun fact–according to a local security firm I stopped by, Ransomware developers actually have to have good customer service because once it becomes known that files don't get decrypted, no one will pay for Ransomware. I've even seen screenshots (posted on the internet, so take it with a grain of salt) where Ransomware teams unlocked computers for free because the subject couldn't afford to pay the ransom.
- jbverschoor 6y ago
  Using the right incentives creates great work. This is essentially what policy and politics are... should be
hombre_fatal 6y ago
You don't actually "send money to a wallet/address" in Bitcoin. You broadcast a transaction that includes a public key puzzle (the address) that someone can spend if they have the corresponding private key. So you can generate a unique private key for each person, give them the pubkey (the address), and watch the network for 1:1 reconciliation.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
You don't actually "send money to a wallet/address" in Bitcoin. You broadcast a transaction that includes a public key puzzle (the address) that someone can spend if they have the corresponding private key. So you can generate N private keys, give the pubkeys (the address) to N people, and watch the network for 1:1 reconciliation.