I'm kind of reminded of the mafia and their protection rackets. Obviously, you never could trust criminal organizations. At the same time, if you're a medium-si

I'm kind of reminded of the mafia and their protection rackets. Obviously, you never could trust criminal organizations. At the same time, if you're a medium-sized corporation or small business and they have your important data, and you know you could pay to get it back, what do you do? I can imagine they really have some people by the balls, metaphorically speaking. They could drive you bankrupt. I hope the authorities find a way to go after these people, but it's obviously got to be difficult, because they might well be in China or Russia. It would take some international cooperation that's probably impossible right now. In the meantime... Switch to Linux, have a competent offsite backup strategy...?