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We can easily reconcile the two by recognizing that profit doesn't have to be money and that terrorists definitely profit from fear (otherwise they wouldn't do

by ebg13 6y ago

We can easily reconcile the two by recognizing that profit doesn't have to be money and that terrorists definitely profit from fear (otherwise they wouldn't do it). Everything we do is for profit, even if that profit isn't measured exclusively in dollars. We can further reconcile them by saying that the entire mechanism for extracting money from the ransom victim is by making them afraid. In this case, afraid of losing their computer systems.

Thorrez 6y ago
I'm not following. Are they asking for ransom or not? If yes, then they are getting actual monetary profit, we don't need to think about "profit [that] isn't measured exclusively in dollars". If no, then it's not ransomware. >We can further reconcile them by saying that the entire mechanism for extracting money from the ransom victim is by making them afraid. In this case, afraid of losing their computer systems. You might be partially right. But I see it more of them trying to convince you to take a deal. They're trying to sell you something: your data. They want you to have as little fear as possible that you can get your data back. They want you to be 100% confident in the payment process. Yes there's fear of what would happen if you don't pay. But that's a path they want you to avoid. You could almost categorize any negotiation this way. The person you're negotiating with will try to convince you how good it is to take the deal and how bad it is to not take the deal. The other difference between this and regular terrorism is that regular terrorism wants the general population to be scared. In ransomware, they have no goal at all of making the general population scared. In fact making the general population scared would be counterproductive, because it could lead to people patching their computers making future profits harder.
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by ebg13 6y ago

Thorrez 6y ago

I'm not following. Are they asking for ransom or not? If yes, then they are getting actual monetary profit, we don't need to think about "profit [that] isn't measured exclusively in dollars". If no, then it's not ransomware. >We can further reconcile them by saying that the entire mechanism for extracting money from the ransom victim is by making them afraid. In this case, afraid of losing their computer systems. You might be partially right. But I see it more of them trying to convince you to take a deal. They're trying to sell you something: your data. They want you to have as little fear as possible that you can get your data back. They want you to be 100% confident in the payment process. Yes there's fear of what would happen if you don't pay. But that's a path they want you to avoid. You could almost categorize any negotiation this way. The person you're negotiating with will try to convince you how good it is to take the deal and how bad it is to not take the deal. The other difference between this and regular terrorism is that regular terrorism wants the general population to be scared. In ransomware, they have no goal at all of making the general population scared. In fact making the general population scared would be counterproductive, because it could lead to people patching their computers making future profits harder.

deleted 6y ago
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