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GoodWill ransomware forces victims to donate to the poor
- netsharc 4y agoHah, Black Mirror-esque. But well, hopefully it has a IP filter to not hit countries with universal healthcare. /s And asking stranger kids "Hey kids, want some KFC?"... that should go well. "The hacker 4chan made me do it!"
- sacrosancty 4y agoEven in countries with universal healthcare, people regularly can't afford treatment because expensive treatments aren't included.
- spicybright 4y agoWhat kind of treatments? How regularly?
- sgjohnson 4y agoAll kinds, very often. They aren't outright denied, just backlogged for years. Need a hip replacement in the UK, and you're a smoker? Good luck trying to get it within a year. Because it turns out that healthcare is a service, and just making it "free" doesn't magically make it immune to scarcity.
- amcoastal 4y ago
- ulzeraj 4y agoWhile in Brazil a person very close to me suffered a very destructive paranoid psychotic crisis. We've tried help from the public healthcare but their earliest waiting time was 1 month. I've slept for days at the door because she was convinced there were Russian cameras and radioactive emitters planted at our house and wanted to run away. That person stopped to eat and bath and wasn't thinking rationally. We couldn't wait a month. It was the worst time of my life. I had to pay a private psychiatrist to treat her. A very good one - we plotted together a plan to partake on her fantasy and administer a risperidone injection which was super effective. She is fine now and visits said doctor once in a year only. Sure you can go to a general clinic but the doctor will forward you to the proper specialist queue which might take months or even years.
- FooBarWidget 4y agoIn the Netherlands I once sought an eye treatment for my wife. The local hospital only had a waiting time of 2 months. So I called my insurance company who then found another clinic ~45 minutes away by public transport in some small village, which had a waiting time of 2 days. Everything (besides the bus ride) was still covered by the public insurance system.
- Closi 4y ago> What kind of treatments? How regularly? In the UK there is a department called NICE which uses health economics to understand how to best utilize the funding for the national health service to best improve health outcomes (generally measured by increasing QALY or Quality-Adjusted Life Years, but there are multiple measures in reality). This means that if there is a £500k treatment that could save the lives of a 70 year old, but there is a £1m treatment that could save the life of a 20 year old, and there is only budget for one, it would go to the £1m treatment because it has the biggest impact on QALY. So the treatments that don't get approval are usually those that have a poor return. Note that it's usually the whole treatment that gets approved / denied rather than particular patient (or it is approved for a particular subset of people). The other issue is capacity - so for instance, if there is only a limited capacity to perform MRI scans, then triage is required.
- diordiderot 4y agoAs an American, that's just disgusting. The government shouldn't decide if your parents die. The free market should decide. If you created enough shareholder value then you'll have enough to pay for their treatment like God intended.
- spicybright 4y agoI'm hoping this is sarcasm.
- diordiderot 4y agoIt is indeed
- LadyCailin 4y agoI know this is tongue in cheek, but all these countries also have private health options, so it’s not really a genuine argument against it anyways. If you were too poor to afford good coverage in the US, you wouldn’t be able to afford the private coverage in other countries either, but for rich people, private insurance is easily obtainable, for relatively cheap too, since they compete with “free”.
- krzyk 4y agoUniversal healthcare is well overrated in the US. From a country that had it, it usually means: ugly hospitals, sad faces, long queues for treatments (I mean wait time for "free" treatment can be well over a year). There is no free lunch. On the other hand, I usually can get my kid to doctor same day, while using private healthcare provider (paid by my employer) it is almost impossible, 2-3 days wait. On yet another hand, to get registered to my local doctor I need to use phone and start calling when they open up (8am) - sometimes I can't get to registration. The private healthcare has a normal website where I can look up registrations - so it is less time consuming (and automateable to some degree). Private hospitals are rare here, and most of real work is done by public ones. Because the hospitals don't have enough money, they e.g. don't provide separate meals for people that need them (e.g. you had a digestive tract operation), so it is up for the family. Good thing recently is that if your kid needs to go to hospital, there might beds for parent to stay with the kid (I'm not sure if that is that common in all hospitals)
- Deritiod 4y agoGood for you that your employer pays for it. I think universal healthcare is a social must and we need to fix it instead of talking it down.
- reacharavindh 4y agoI think the right solution is the middle - private primary care and public chronic & advanced care. India does this but loses out on effectiveness because of capacity problems and simply the huge scale it needs to work at. Primary care is provided by private doctors and hospitals, so it is almost like a business. Doctors offices have websites, and get reviews from general public. You choose where you go to. All health insurances cover almost all of them. The doctor's offices are "competing" to provide a good service - being clean, solving problems correctly, not charging too much etc. The government spends what ever money it allocates for healthcare on Public hospitals that focus on expensive medical equipment(labs, diagnostic machines etc), and treating chronically ill patients. In an ideal world, you go to private doctors to figure out what is wrong, and then use the public facility if you can wait, and get the surgery/medicine/treatment for free. Often times, the private doctor refers you to a public doctor with a specific note that says this person needs this particular surgery using this particular medical device. However, this systems leaves a big hole in catering to the poor who cannot afford to go to a private doctor for primary care owing to costs. No system is perfect. I think this model has the most potential for better healthcare.
- Deritiod 4y agoIn Germany my aunt gets expensive cancer treatment without extra pay. Any specific you think about?
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoMeanwhile people have to pay thousands of Euros to maintain their teeth if they need root canals or prosthetic dentures and such. Maybe you're just not old enough to know? Btw the "free" tier system is a joke in Germany. Waiting months for an appointment is the norm for anything more serious than a cough, unless you're privately insured which all the rich people and interestingly civil servants are. Tells you a lot when those working for the government don't use the public insurance themselves. People may be surprised to hear that someone with a medium income (by EU standards) can get better healthcare in Africa than in a place like Germany. Or at least for now, the ANC is working hard on destroying the private healthcare sector in SA.
- Deritiod 4y agoI have to visit a few low key specialists: Neuro etc. And while waiting is true sometimes calling around helps. The teeth problem I'm aware of and find it quite unfair indeed. Nonetheless cancer doesn't make you poor in comparison to the USA. Still something which has to be fixed in Germany. But you still have the option to go private if you want.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoDo you have personal experience with fully private heathcare systems in other countries? I ask because reacting to criticism of your system with whataboutism concerning the US is not rational, that's a fallacious argument. As for the US I'm not an expert but my gut feeling is that people compare apples to oranges just like with most of these international comparisons. Cost of living is much higher in the US first of all. Things are simply more expensive in general and American salaries are a lot higher for anyone moderately educated. No one I know who's moved to the US has any problems with insurance, they can simply afford it. Now if you compare a government sponsored system in Germany with private insurance in the US, of course the former will be cheaper (be careful though, some of the real cost is hidden). But like mentioned you also get completely different treatment. Cost in the US could likely be cut by making the service worse. If you want to pay even less, have you looked at the Chinese system? Germans are massively overpaying in comparison to the PRC and it's ruining the middle class. /s Gotta sinophy your healthcare with 10 Yuan TCM pills for cancer treatments. Because cheap is apparently the goal when it comes to healthcare. Btw, here's the kicker if you want to discuss price: With the top notch treatment you get in private South African clinics, people still pay less for their private insurance over there than the government mandated low quality one in Germany. I know because I've used both.
- FrenchDevRemote 4y agoMy grandma got a million dollar cancer treatment over a few years, multiple surgeries, chemos, meds, dozens of appointments. We paid for TV and parking(and we could have gotten free taxis to the hospital/doctors appointments but she didn't want to ride with a stranger...) Are you talking about 3rd world countries?
- sacrosancty 4y agoI'm thinking of New Zealand. We frequently hear of people who can't get some expensive treatment because it's not funded by the government. Can you say for sure that every medical treatment available in the US is funded by your government? Will they even fly patients to the US for specialist care if it's not available locally?
- NoGravitas 4y agoLike in the UK, teeth are considered luxury bones.
- GaylordTuring 4y agoI've never understood this. Not attending to an infected tooth can, for example, spread to other parts of the body, ending up with you having a heart attack or something.
- hulitu 4y ago> And asking stranger kids "Hey kids, want some KFC?"... This is not donating to the poor.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- closewith 4y agoFrom the article: > Activity 2: Take five less fortunate children to Dominos, Pizza Hut or KFC for a treat, take pictures and videos, and post them on social media. It's one of the required activities to allegedly get the decryption key.
- willcipriano 4y agoJudging by the English it probably is where the authors of the malware are from. It's probably a cultural disconnect issue but there are places in South America, Asia and Africa where you could do this and it would be a big deal to those kids. Often people bring boxes of chocolate in their luggage to hand out to children when they vist these sort of places. In the US places like that exist as well but under 13s aren't just hanging around to invite out and feed.
- can16358p 4y agoWhile the action may look creepy and KFCs definitely not the healthiest choice, it is donating. You are donating food to someone hungry.
- nwatson 4y agoU.N. World Food Programme is a better choice. You won't be accused of Comet Pizza atrocities, though to QAnon anything U.N. is a problem.
- nemo44x 4y agoYou’re probably just helping poor people acquire diabetes faster. In the USA poor people are more likely to be fat suggesting food access is not a problem.
- can16358p 4y agoBlack Mirror meets Mr. Robot. An interesting reality nevertheless.
- psyc 4y agoWith a dash of fight club. It reminds me of the scene where Tyler puts a gun to Raymond's head and makes him go back to college.
- larodi 4y agoor script kiddie meets open-source? or the dark side of open-source perhaps? Mr.Robot is incredible show, Sam Esmail, Rami Malek and Christian Slater potentially created the top series of the decade, but this is not the reality.
- can16358p 4y agoAgreed with Mr. Robot part 100%. About whoever is behind this ransomware, of course this is nothing "fsociety-level" though the general intentions (hacking powerful ones and changing of powers) gave me a similar vibe.
- chungy 4y agoI spent perhaps too long figuring out how the thrift stores launched a ransomware attack.
- loa_in_ 4y ago"I found that, ironically, common sense isn't all that common around here"
- WaxedChewbacca 4y ago
- boomboomsubban 4y agoHas anyone actually completed the three demands and gotten their data back? As the requests are so bizarre and I'm so cynical it seems more likely they just want you to do silly things after destroying your data.
- hoppyhoppy2 4y ago>Since there are no known victims/ targets for the ransomware group, their Tactics, Techniques and Procedures remain unknown.
- kleene_op 4y agoIf word gets out that fullfilling those requests does not get your data back, no one would do it after the first attempt. For a no profit hack, honoring the promises would lead to funnier/more interesting situations.
- daniel-cussen 4y agoWouldn't an anti-ransomware group then hack some people, take their money, but not return the data, thereby undermining their real enemy, the ransomware groups?
- alfiedotwtf 4y ago"I want peace on earth and Good Will toward man" -- Whistler
- notum 4y agoWould helping them with their grammar count as an activity point?
- paulgb 4y agoI was expecting them to want you to make a donation and send the receipt, but they want you to actually round up less fortunate kids and take them out for pizza. Bizarre.
- tremon 4y agoI'm what is known as a white devil these days: white, male, single, rich. If I were to gather any number of kids I have no affiliation with and take them to dinner, I would probably get arrested.
- t67576567567 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nvr219 4y agoNobody gets arrested for buying pizza for a bunch of kids.
- theodric 4y agoOK, show us how it's done
- nvr219 4y agook
- Hamuko 4y agoSomeone apparently got arrested for offering candy to kids though, so I wouldn't count on it. https://www.shawlocal.com/2020/10/26/man-charged-with-disorderly-conduct-after-offering-candy-to-children-police/aqv3rr/ https://www.shawlocal.com/2020/10/26/man-charged-with-disord...
- Majestic121 4y agoI assumed the "goodwill" would be a donation to an association that would be a front for the hackers to get the money somehow, but it seems that it's really acts of goodwill with no real money flowing, so maybe the hackers actually believe they're doing good ?
- RektBoy 4y agoMaybe, but it sounds too difficult, why not just force people to pay in XMR and byebye.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI mean charities could open up crypto accounts; since it's a public ledger, the ransomware operators would be able to see the transaction.
- boredpudding 4y agoBeing forced to donate would just result in refunds. The current way they're doing it, there's no way to refund.
- seanhunter 4y agoThere are charities who accept donations in crypto. We donated future royalties on secondary sales for some of the things we did at SXSW to Action against hunger for one example.
- moron4hire 4y ago> We donated future royalties on secondary sales So you donated nothing?
- giraffe_lady 4y agoCharities will "accept" nearly anything because turning down donations is bad publicity and people barely need a reason at all to turn on a charity. They don't want it though and will offload it as cheaply as possible. Often this is a minor cost center for some charities lol.
- Hamuko 4y agoCan I assume that the author of this ransomware is American or at least is very immersed in American culture? Because the activities listed sound very America-centric. I've never seen someone actually sleeping roadside in the cold, and since we have universal healthcare, I've also not heard of someone dying in the hospital because their loved ones couldn't gather up enough money. I guess I might as well just smash my hard drive with a hammer if I get this.
- BrianOnHN 4y ago> I've also not heard of someone dying in the hospital because their loved ones couldn't gather up enough money. It's more like "having to postpone treatment so long that it doesn't work." The same also applies if you have to fight with scheming insurance companies. The government, all of us, have most to gain from a healthy society. And a dead person couldn't care less about their health. It's about time our systems reflect that!
- Hamuko 4y agoWell, the way that "activity" here is phrased, they kinda expect you to lurk in the nearest hospital for some kind of a medical emergency that can be solved with a bank transfer. The people postponing treatment probably aren't loitering in the hospital.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoIt seems to come from India, though the only identifiers seem rather weak. I'll admit I know little about poverty in India, but all three seem possible there.
- Hamuko 4y agoDoesn't India still have universal healthcare?
- boomboomsubban 4y agoAgain, I'll admit I know little, but the answer seems like "sort of." Wikipedia says 23% of people can't afford treatment, and hospitalization forces many of people into poverty or lifelong debt.
- RektBoy 4y agoWhat is next? Be healthy ransomware? Forcing people to exercise on camera, for keys?
- JTbane 4y agoUpload videos of you eating vegetables 3 times a day for a week. I'd also like to see a walk-through of your pantry to make sure there is no sugary soda there.
- k_sze 4y agoNow you're giving them ideas.
- fodi 4y agoSounds like a Black Mirror episode.
- SemanticStrengh 4y agoI think there is an untapped market for people willingly paying some people to watch/monitor them achieve their desired goals consistently. It's similar to beeminder and bodydoubling or r/GetMotivatedBuddies except it would be much more effective because of professionalism. On beeminder there's not check if you being honest/accountable. On GetMotivatedBuddies you generally find unreliable people AND you must coach them too. On bodydoubling websites, people are watching each other but there's generally not interactions, just eyes. And no professionalism. The one that will build this will enable a disruptive market where people can finally become much closer to their ideal self, by the effective means of social pressure, real-time e-coaching and monetary incentive. Does this actually exists?
- upupandup 4y agoWouldn't you just create a Twitch account for this?
- oefrha 4y agoMy new startup: on demand deepfake exercise footage of yourself.
- jzellis 4y agoAh, the comments here never cease to provide amusement.
- mlindner 4y agoThis thing was written by someone who doesn't live in a developed country... There's no way to do those actions in a developed country. Does this person think that just random children are available to be given food to?
- nemo44x 4y agoSeriously. If I went up to a group of kids and offered to take them to pizza hut I think I’d probably be arrested.
- Aleksdev 4y agoYeah, that’s going to be a hard one to explain…
- cuteboy19 4y agoThe English is non idiomatic. Mistakes make it seem middle eastern/central asian
- iepathos 4y agoPeople generally accept free stuff. Kids aren't some exception to this. You can accomplish this in any developed country with minor effort imo. Have any kids even distantly in your family? Kids know other kids so ask them to invite friends. "less fortunate" is a very broad descriptor for the children you need to feed, especially if you're fortunate.
- nemo44x 4y agoWhat happens when a poor person gets this virus?
- SemanticStrengh 4y agoIs there a way to prove that you own an old bank account with X money in it? Or better, to be able to exhaustively list your bank accounts and their respective amounts? Well a salary bill pay document should be enough though if not falsifiable.
- blep_ 4y agoI expect not. Actual government agencies have trouble with that kind of thing (for taxation/fines/judgment enforcement); random hackers have no chance.
- kirykl 4y agoLikely in the world context of the ransomware creators, 'poor person' wouldn't own a computer
- rutierut 4y agoThis is probably obvious to anyone but there isn't anything "good" about this, I expected this to be something along the lines of a crypto donation to GiveDirectly but this is just a sick wannabe Blackmirror power play.
- kordlessagain 4y agoIt's the specifics that give it away. "Take 5 poor children from your neighborhood to Pizza Hut." Screaming kids at Pizza Hut aside, we can't make other people have empathy. They have to find it and explore it themselves, perhaps by seeing others do the same. It's especially ironic that someone with lowered empathy would be demanding someone else show fake empathy publicly before giving them back control of their own computer.
- iepathos 4y agoCan't make people have empathy, but you can make them carry out empathetic acts over and over again through blackmail with this ransomware.
- oliv__ 4y agoIs it empathetic if you don't mean it?
- iepathos 4y agoYes, an act can be empathetic even if the person doing it doesn't feel empathy. For example, smiling at another person is an empathetic act. Sociopaths do this all the time without feeling actual empathy for people. It makes it easier for them to blend in if they seem to have empathy via empathetic acts however disingenuous they may be.
- pigtailgirl 4y ago-- to nitpick -- empathy is the ability to put yourself in someones position & truly feel what their reality must be like -- compassion is acting on that empathy --
- cryptica 4y agoI've been predicting the rise of 'good clans' and 'good mafias' for some time. IMO, as governments become more corrupt, good people will be forced to join clans which adhere to their principles for survival. Power will shift towards clans, mafias and hacker groups.
- larodi 4y agovery typically it is clans/mafia that corrupt the governments. such claims that mafia/clans are better than governments are very short-sighted and childish by nature.
- cryptica 4y agoWhat happened is that all the bad clans which produced no economic value have corrupted governments and are now using it to extract value from the good, value-creating citizens. Most of the bad people are already rich. Good, value-creating citizens never had to consider joining a clan before because they were able to easily capture profits from their own labor without much extra effort on the value-capture/extraction side (they could focus purely on value creation)... But as this is becoming increasingly difficult to do, they will be forced to join their own clans to ensure that they can capture more of the proceeds of the value which they created. Since it cannot happen naturally as it did before, it needs to happen via explicit political means. You can think of workers' unions as a kind of clan... This is happening everywhere in the economy now and IMO, it will only get worse as governments become more extractive and corrupt and as it becomes more profitable for people to spend their time and energy engaging in extractive activities rather than productive activities. The degree of corruption and aggression within clans will have to keep rising to match the corruption and aggression of governments.
- larodi 4y agoWhile I agree on most points made here, It still struggles for me to understand this boundary of us-them when it comes to government. I AM the government when it comes to policies I create/support/empower at university, municipality, my circle. There is no straight line between society and government really.
- Aleksdev 4y agoForcing me to help people at ransom isn’t really going to make me feel good about doing it.
- shikoba 4y ago> make me feel good about doing it I don't think it's the goal.
- jeroenhd 4y agoI can see a younger version of myself making something like this and intentionally letting it slip to the media for attention. I th8nk this line is telling: "Since there are no known victims/ targets for the ransomware group, their Tactics, Techniques and Procedures remain unknown." I don't think there's a risk if any great outbreak here. A bunch of scriptkiddies took some open source project and modified it with some silly instructions. Alternatively, I could see this used in one of those scam calls. They set up remote accesslike normally and then months laltrr the6 infrct their victims and the "trusted Microsoft technician" gives them a call to steal even more off their money. This time there's an actual piece of malware that gets removed, solidifying trust in the scammers even though they were the ones to infect the victims in the first place.
- dontbenebby 4y agoDon't be dismissive of script kiddies, they can cause a lot of chaos, and often do it because they feel like no amount of self education or self improvement will improve their chances of stable full time employment. (Hence many of them operating out of the former USSR.)
- goshx 4y agoI’ve met tons of script kiddies over the years and none of them were concerned about employment. They do what they do just to show that they can.
- kjeetgill 4y agoI was thinking the exact same thing, as former (and reformed) lightweight teen hacker. My motivations? Employment? More like for the sheer joy of discovery and fascination with working through ideas. And maybe the slightly sketchier teen hackers: lulz.
- iratewizard 4y agoIt's not enough to notice that something's possible. You have to do it for a good laugh and show your friends. Sorry, Valve.
- black_13 4y ago
- dontbenebby 4y agoThat's an interesting name. >The group’s multiple-paged ransom note suggests that victims perform three socially driven activities to be able to download the decryption key. Wow, just that sentence alone makes a flood of memories come back. (Purposefully doing my morning... executive time... in a place I never went when I was younger to get a fresh look at things.) Just so everyone is on the same page, The Goodwill company is not good at all. They used to be, maybe, but they do this thing where they pay people less than minimum wage who often do their job better than folks with a "normal" IQ. It was also widely known in my hometown if you donate to them, the employees pick off the good stuff so it rarely meets the shelves -- anyone who was a serious computer hobbyist would do deals on Craigslist, since unlike eBay, if someone just starts walking away with your device without paying you can physically stop them or call the cops. I'm an enviornmentalist, I don't believe in getting the newest anything if the old works, so often I'd sell a previous device after doing my best to wipe the hard drive. Only once did I have an issue on Craigslist, and it was after I had moved to a new state. I had someone I sold a cracked iPhone threatening to sue me and a bunch of other nonsense. I told them the ad said as is, and I had assumed they were buying it for the parts, which they paid a more than fair price for, and that it was unsurprising that an iPhone with a cracked screen would fail, and they can meet me at kroger for their money back minus a restocking fee, like you'd expect at Best Buy, if they promise to never contact me again. I picked Kroger because they had an armed security guard, and apparently literally doing the sale inside the lobby of a college town police station wasn't enough to send a message: I am operating in the open, I am giving you a fair deal, we are not friends, and I get very angry when I have to put a bunch of thought into how to convince someone to never make me feel unsafe again. (I'd love to find an analyst role, but I don't know how you land those, my email is in my bio if anyone is having staffing issues and wants to make an offer.)
- daniel-cussen 4y agoWhat if their victims are already poor?
- irrational 4y agoTake a video and post it to your social media account. So… what would someone like me who doesn’t have any social media accounts do?
- londons_explore 4y agoThis is a government backed outfit which is demo-ing it's abilities.
- boredumb 4y agoIf only there was universal healthcare, than we wouldn't need private entities coercing individuals to forfeit parts of their paychecks to pay for strangers lifestyles, the government would have rendered that service obsolete! Another win for the free market?
- rafale 4y agoTaxation is coercion. Higher taxation is higher coercion. With that being said, the US already spends more on public healthcare than Canada does, so the problem is a lot more complex than where should the money come from.
- Psillisp 4y agoPatching bullet holes is expensive.
- maxerickson 4y agoYou can just as well say that property is coercion. Like I get that you won't agree, but you are asserting a value system when you do that.
- surement 4y agotaking something with the threat of force is not the same as owning something that you traded for in a mutually agreed upon transaction
- NoGravitas 4y agoSickos: Yes, ha ha ha, YES!
- cuttysnark 4y agoTangentially, I dislike strongly when people record videos of themselves doing "goodwill" for others—especially for social media; it always reeks [to me] of insincerity. Not to mention the often unwanted spotlight it casts onto the receiver of said goodwill. If one cares, one does acts of goodwill privately, without thinking about how others will react—including and especially—on the internet. "The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching." ― John Wooden edit: taming em-dashes
- huhtenberg 4y ago100%. Amen to that. I've read somewhere that all donations that Paul McCartney makes come with a rider that if his name is leaked, the donation is withdrawn. Regardless of whether this is true, I think that's the way to donate if it comes from your heart.
- sandworm101 4y agoThere is nothing less charitable than threatening a charity. If that rider is true then he is a jerk. The only reason to do that is because he wants the charity to congratulate him, yet keep quiet. If he wanted to make an actual anonymous donation then he could do so though a shell company. But no, he wants them to see where the money is coming from so they can shake his hand and smile at him for his benevolence. Want to be actually anonymous: cash in an envelope in the donation bin.
- zelos 4y ago"Oh, the best charity is to give and not let other people know. But what if your example encourages others to give?"
- cuttysnark 4y agoI've personally been inspired by seeing these acts in real life. I don't get the same feeling when the person is holding a camera phone in the face of a bewildered recipient. Sorry.
- 4y ago
- exabrial 4y agoRight now, most people in the US work for free 3-4 months out of the year via taxes. This is theft as well, but interestingly enough it has a smaller overhead then taxes, which nearly all of the funds are transferred to the 1%.
- seoaeu 4y agoIt is wild how many folks on HN think they shouldn’t have to pay taxes
- exabrial 4y agoIt's not wild to think I shouldn't be forced to work for free 3-4 months out of the year, especially when nearly all of the money is being transferred to the 1%. If it were actually contributing to something I may have a different opinion, but that is not the case.
- seoaeu 4y agoThat’s just another restatement of your belief that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes. But I’ll add that claiming you have to work for free for part of the year is a silly way of looking at at. You’re never forced to work for free for even a single hour! You just have to pay a fixed percentage of your hourly wage in taxes, an arrangement which has been in place across every developed country for many decades.
- barneygale 4y ago"Taxation is theft" is the rallying cry of the overprivileged who want to feel like victims for once.
- exabrial 4y agoCompletely false, and an attempt at character defamation while sidestepping the facts. A primary human right is you own the fruits of your labor. Period.
- dqpb 4y agoIsn’t this more-or-less how Chinas social credit score works?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- longtimegoogler 4y agoRobin hood.
- FredPret 4y agoVery Black Mirror
- possiblydrunk 4y agoThe ends justify the means - does this ever really work out?
- mikotodomo 4y agorobin hood.exe
- browningstreet 4y agoI've wanted to do a micropayment/paywall system where all the money went to select non-profit options.. paywalls, but not for the host. Paywalls for the world (hunger, climate, etc). Could possibly even have a crypto funnel.
- kosyblysk666 4y agoeveryone so fucking noble these days...even a hacker is mr.right lololol
- danans 4y agoRansomware GoFundMe. Cute, but still criminal and laughable completely unscalable as a way to address social issues.
- racl101 4y agoWhat if you're poor yourself? :(
- wellthisisgreat 4y agoI was thinking it's somehow related to Goodwill Stores, the brand
- TameAntelope 4y agoIs the use of ngrok here a common pattern? First I've seen ngrok used this way, but I don't super follow methodologies/tactics.
- digital_butt 4y agoHonestly, I'd rather just pay the money directly than do all of this BS.
- leovander 4y agoWe similarly did this at a hackathon. > Droplock is a tool to help you when your laptop is stolen... The thief is prompted with an option to donate to charity (through JustGiving, another BattleHack sponsor) or pay the laptop owner directly via Braintree. If they fail to take one of these options, the laptop gets locked down until payment is made. https://dropbox.tech/developers/droplock-a-dropbox-hack-wins-battlehack-la https://dropbox.tech/developers/droplock-a-dropbox-hack-wins...
- steve76 4y ago
- LightG 4y agoTaxation as a service?
- dikaio 4y ago1000% approve