4 ms·

I 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 act

I 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 ago
Maybe, but it sounds too difficult, why not just force people to pay in XMR and byebye.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I 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 ago
  Being forced to donate would just result in refunds. The current way they're doing it, there's no way to refund.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  There 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 ago
    Charities 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.
    - moron4hire 4y ago
      My mother does consulting for non-profit fundraising departments, and I've helped her with her business on several occasions. Charities regularly turn down or ignore weird donations if they are not concretely 6+ figures. Most of the places my mother has helped have gift processing employees (the folks who take in the findings and figure out the tax credit to the donor and figure out where in their ledgers it fits) who are not able to keep up with their work load. Which, to be completely honest, most of the time is because the gift processors aren't really that good at their job, but it is what it is (entry level job, low pay, high turnover, etc). It's basically a closet-space problem, though. If the gift processors are more competent, the whole operation is usually more competent, and there's more work per person, so it comes out in the wash. So weird gifts like "residual royalties on secondary sales" are likely to get ignored. The harder it is to put a rock-solid, today-dollars value on a gift, the more likely it is to get rejected or just ignored and never actually processed, sitting in limbo where the donor thinks they've gave but there are no actionable funds for the org to spend, because it's a huge tax fraud liability waiting to happen.
    - seanhunter 4y ago
      If you say so. That certainly didn't seem the case for the charities we spoke with when we did our research. Quite a few were not set up to do this, but the ones we chose did seem to want the donations. That said, that's orthogonal to the point. The GP said charities could set up crypto wallets to accept donations and as I pointed out, some already have.
dontbenebby 4y ago
Maybe someone should trace the flows and look for conflicts of interest.
bko 4y ago
Wouldn't any legitimate charity return money that was donated through coercion? If someone stole something and gave it to me, and the rightful owner asked for it back, I would give it back. I guess it would just look bad asking for them to return it but most people would understand.
- pwdisswordfish0 4y ago
  I guess “it’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message”.
- chadash 4y ago
  The malware group is not asking for donations to organizations, but to individuals at the hospital. They are requiring that someone at the infected business records videos of themselves going to a hospital or health clinic, looking for people who seem like they need financial help and offering to help them pay for their medical care. 1) Good luck suing poor individuals to get your money back 2) It's hard to fathom what kind of asshole you'd have to be to walk into an ER, record a video of you offering people money to help pay their hospital bill and then demand that money back off-camera.
  - surement 4y ago
    > It's hard to fathom what kind of asshole you'd have to be I don't think you picked up on who this asshole is in this situation
  - mushbino 4y ago
    That just sounds like campaign season.
  - sfg 4y ago
    I imagine you'd explain before recording what is going on (assuming you don't just fake the entire thing with some friends), rather than doing anything as silly as suing anybody. It wouldn't take more than a token amount to get people to participate. A lot of people wouldn't even want money. They'd get that this kind of blackmail is horrible and help you out.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

RektBoy 4y ago

Maybe, but it sounds too difficult, why not just force people to pay in XMR and byebye.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I 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 ago
Being forced to donate would just result in refunds. The current way they're doing it, there's no way to refund.
seanhunter 4y ago
There 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 ago
  Charities 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.
  - moron4hire 4y ago
    My mother does consulting for non-profit fundraising departments, and I've helped her with her business on several occasions. Charities regularly turn down or ignore weird donations if they are not concretely 6+ figures. Most of the places my mother has helped have gift processing employees (the folks who take in the findings and figure out the tax credit to the donor and figure out where in their ledgers it fits) who are not able to keep up with their work load. Which, to be completely honest, most of the time is because the gift processors aren't really that good at their job, but it is what it is (entry level job, low pay, high turnover, etc). It's basically a closet-space problem, though. If the gift processors are more competent, the whole operation is usually more competent, and there's more work per person, so it comes out in the wash. So weird gifts like "residual royalties on secondary sales" are likely to get ignored. The harder it is to put a rock-solid, today-dollars value on a gift, the more likely it is to get rejected or just ignored and never actually processed, sitting in limbo where the donor thinks they've gave but there are no actionable funds for the org to spend, because it's a huge tax fraud liability waiting to happen.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    If you say so. That certainly didn't seem the case for the charities we spoke with when we did our research. Quite a few were not set up to do this, but the ones we chose did seem to want the donations. That said, that's orthogonal to the point. The GP said charities could set up crypto wallets to accept donations and as I pointed out, some already have.

dontbenebby 4y ago

Maybe someone should trace the flows and look for conflicts of interest.

bko 4y ago

Wouldn't any legitimate charity return money that was donated through coercion? If someone stole something and gave it to me, and the rightful owner asked for it back, I would give it back. I guess it would just look bad asking for them to return it but most people would understand.

pwdisswordfish0 4y ago
I guess “it’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message”.
chadash 4y ago
The malware group is not asking for donations to organizations, but to individuals at the hospital. They are requiring that someone at the infected business records videos of themselves going to a hospital or health clinic, looking for people who seem like they need financial help and offering to help them pay for their medical care. 1) Good luck suing poor individuals to get your money back 2) It's hard to fathom what kind of asshole you'd have to be to walk into an ER, record a video of you offering people money to help pay their hospital bill and then demand that money back off-camera.
- surement 4y ago
  > It's hard to fathom what kind of asshole you'd have to be I don't think you picked up on who this asshole is in this situation
- mushbino 4y ago
  That just sounds like campaign season.
- sfg 4y ago
  I imagine you'd explain before recording what is going on (assuming you don't just fake the entire thing with some friends), rather than doing anything as silly as suing anybody. It wouldn't take more than a token amount to get people to participate. A lot of people wouldn't even want money. They'd get that this kind of blackmail is horrible and help you out.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]