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It should be pretty obvious that as long as ransomware is this profitable, we are absolutely fucked when it comes to computer security. The economical incentive

It should be pretty obvious that as long as ransomware is this profitable, we are absolutely fucked when it comes to computer security. The economical incentives are so completely and utterly skewed, there is no way for society to function. This is all because of cryptocurrencies. They are the one single factor that enables this economical fiasco. They need to be banned, now, or this will just get worse from here on out.

xwdv 5y ago
Banning isn’t enough. They must somehow be destroyed or rendered useless, perhaps through a mass 51% attack or something.
- anoraca 5y ago
  Couldn't someone DDoS the major mining pools?
dogman144 5y ago
This is aggressively myopic. Banning a cryptocurrency is akin to banning HTTP to prevent the attacker's connection for their shell. All ccs are just a protocol which can send verifiably discrete packet w/o a central server verifying the discreteness, and with some fancy branding on the packet type. It's as if people felt very tribal about POP3 vs. IMAP, and the IMAP foundation put out branding and POP3 was a FOSS project. Protocols in that sense can't really be ever banned. It's like banning a math proof. CCs play a role, but they are not the single factor that enables rware, by any means. For instance, it's a lot harder to pop a meat processing plant or coastal pipeline if they didn't hook up IoT to anything and everything OT-related, and ICS was awful at integrating vis b/t IT and OT networks in their plants. Or, for instance, if cyber insurance companies are forbidden from paying ransom, then the economic pot is suddenly dry. And so on...
- user-the-name 5y ago
  You don't need to ban a protocol. You're free to play around with protocols all day, nobody cares. What is absolutely crucial is to cut the link between that protocol and the financial system. And that is very, very simple. There are a few very centralised points where that happens, and those have to follow laws. They are starting to get cut off already, and these kinds of catastrophes are going to drive the effort to make that happen even quicker.
  - dogman144 5y ago
    Are you familiar with DeFi/Dexs. Short of banning and tracking networking and compute at a fairly unheard of scale short of child exploitation, it’s significantly more complex than banning Coinbase. Your suggestion, going back to the HTTP simile, is like saying banning Google bans HTTP, banning Pirate Bay will ban torrenting.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Very. Absolutely all of it is built on top of a few financial gateways, that are going to be closed.
mullingitover 5y ago
> It should be pretty obvious that as long as ransomware is this profitable, we are absolutely fucked when it comes to computer security. Maybe we should turn the tables on the ransomware orgs. I'm sure they're getting big enough that they can't keep tabs on everyone in the org. So why not start offering million dollar prizes for people inside the org to sell out their co-conspirators? I have to imagine that if you're unscrupulous enough to be in the operation, you'd have no problems doing some entrepreneurial activity on the side.

xwdv 5y ago

Banning isn’t enough. They must somehow be destroyed or rendered useless, perhaps through a mass 51% attack or something.

anoraca 5y ago
Couldn't someone DDoS the major mining pools?

dogman144 5y ago

This is aggressively myopic. Banning a cryptocurrency is akin to banning HTTP to prevent the attacker's connection for their shell. All ccs are just a protocol which can send verifiably discrete packet w/o a central server verifying the discreteness, and with some fancy branding on the packet type. It's as if people felt very tribal about POP3 vs. IMAP, and the IMAP foundation put out branding and POP3 was a FOSS project. Protocols in that sense can't really be ever banned. It's like banning a math proof. CCs play a role, but they are not the single factor that enables rware, by any means. For instance, it's a lot harder to pop a meat processing plant or coastal pipeline if they didn't hook up IoT to anything and everything OT-related, and ICS was awful at integrating vis b/t IT and OT networks in their plants. Or, for instance, if cyber insurance companies are forbidden from paying ransom, then the economic pot is suddenly dry. And so on...

user-the-name 5y ago
You don't need to ban a protocol. You're free to play around with protocols all day, nobody cares. What is absolutely crucial is to cut the link between that protocol and the financial system. And that is very, very simple. There are a few very centralised points where that happens, and those have to follow laws. They are starting to get cut off already, and these kinds of catastrophes are going to drive the effort to make that happen even quicker.
- dogman144 5y ago
  Are you familiar with DeFi/Dexs. Short of banning and tracking networking and compute at a fairly unheard of scale short of child exploitation, it’s significantly more complex than banning Coinbase. Your suggestion, going back to the HTTP simile, is like saying banning Google bans HTTP, banning Pirate Bay will ban torrenting.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Very. Absolutely all of it is built on top of a few financial gateways, that are going to be closed.

mullingitover 5y ago

> It should be pretty obvious that as long as ransomware is this profitable, we are absolutely fucked when it comes to computer security. Maybe we should turn the tables on the ransomware orgs. I'm sure they're getting big enough that they can't keep tabs on everyone in the org. So why not start offering million dollar prizes for people inside the org to sell out their co-conspirators? I have to imagine that if you're unscrupulous enough to be in the operation, you'd have no problems doing some entrepreneurial activity on the side.