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Go after the financial links. If the only way the ransom can be paid is traveling to Russia with gold bars you’ll see a lot fewer ransoms paid. And before you s

Go after the financial links. If the only way the ransom can be paid is traveling to Russia with gold bars you’ll see a lot fewer ransoms paid. And before you say cryptocurrency there’s lots of ways Western governments could intervene if they got serious.

meowface 5y ago
>Go after the financial links. If the only way the ransom can be paid is traveling to Russia with gold bars you’ll see a lot fewer ransoms paid. >And before you say cryptocurrency there’s lots of ways Western governments could intervene if they got serious. I was definitely gonna say "cryptocurrency". I see absolutely no feasible way that any government could enforce things such that the only way a ransom could be paid would be traveling to Russia and paying the ransomers with gold bars. I severely doubt any Western government is going to try to ban any cryptocurrency - even Monero. And if they try, enforcement will be extremely difficult. No matter how hard they make it for a victim to pay a ransom or obtain the assets needed to pay a ransom, a sufficiently desperate victim and a sufficiently greedy ransomer will find a way to make it work. Perhaps it could realistically help a bit if they threatened victims with prison time for paying ransoms, but in my opinion this would be pretty draconian and wrong - like threatening to imprison someone whose child is kidnapped by a cartel if they pay a ransom to prevent the child from being killed. Sometimes the victims can be blamed for major negligence, but not always. And even when they are negligent, I don't think they should be punished or prevented from recovering their business in such an extreme way.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  I agree that directly threatening victims, even corporate victims, is a bad look. But you need financial intermediaries—-brokers, platforms, exchanges, and these institutions upstream banks, brokers, clearinghouses, and so on. These are exactly the type of institutions that governments can exert a lot of pressure on but so far have mostly declined to do so.

meowface 5y ago

>Go after the financial links. If the only way the ransom can be paid is traveling to Russia with gold bars you’ll see a lot fewer ransoms paid. >And before you say cryptocurrency there’s lots of ways Western governments could intervene if they got serious. I was definitely gonna say "cryptocurrency". I see absolutely no feasible way that any government could enforce things such that the only way a ransom could be paid would be traveling to Russia and paying the ransomers with gold bars. I severely doubt any Western government is going to try to ban any cryptocurrency - even Monero. And if they try, enforcement will be extremely difficult. No matter how hard they make it for a victim to pay a ransom or obtain the assets needed to pay a ransom, a sufficiently desperate victim and a sufficiently greedy ransomer will find a way to make it work. Perhaps it could realistically help a bit if they threatened victims with prison time for paying ransoms, but in my opinion this would be pretty draconian and wrong - like threatening to imprison someone whose child is kidnapped by a cartel if they pay a ransom to prevent the child from being killed. Sometimes the victims can be blamed for major negligence, but not always. And even when they are negligent, I don't think they should be punished or prevented from recovering their business in such an extreme way.

bradleyjg 5y ago
I agree that directly threatening victims, even corporate victims, is a bad look. But you need financial intermediaries—-brokers, platforms, exchanges, and these institutions upstream banks, brokers, clearinghouses, and so on. These are exactly the type of institutions that governments can exert a lot of pressure on but so far have mostly declined to do so.