4 ms·

Time to treat ransomware originators as the terrorists they are?

InCityDreams 4y ago
Isn't everyone a terrorist these days?
delecti 4y ago
Terrorism requires a political objective. This is some combination of theft, ransom, extortion, or sabotage, unless there's reason to think Dallas in particular was targeted for political reasons.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  True. But the actual meaning of "terrorist" doesn't count for much these days. Like "heathen", "witch", "Jew", "Nazi", etc. in earlier eras, "terrorist" is mostly a "maximal pejorative" - used to label people who don't get "until proven guilty" legal rights, nor human rights, and who it is socially sanctioned for ~anyone to hate, torture, murder, etc.
  - mr_00ff00 4y ago
    generally this is correct, but this kinda misses the point as to why terrorists are treated as they are. Not saying it is correct, but usually when they are overseas they are treated as enemy combatants (not to mention, if they aren’t US citizens then US rights don’t technically apply). You wouldn’t hold your fire in a battle because you need to have a judge determine whether an enemy army is guilty. That’s sort of the idea with foreign terrorist organizations.
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      > ...hold your fire in a battle... Admitting that the modern Laws of War are too-often broken, or twisted far beyond their intent...but shooting at a uniformed enemy soldier, during an actual battle, while making reasonable efforts to avoid hitting civilians, Medics, etc. - that is a very narrow set of criteria. 99.999% of humanity is neither on nor near that battlefield, to plausibly be targeted, nor be victims of errors and shell fragments. Vs. "use live ammo" against ransomware crooks? That sounds like a recipe for yet more "a week after our missiles obliterated his house, we realized that the real ransomware crooks had been using his hacked old cablemodem as an extra relay" lethal screw-ups.
      - mr_00ff00 4y ago
        I wasn’t advocating for using this against ransomware hackers. Just that the idea that it’s not so black and white about terrorists and rights like innocent until proven guilty.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Government institutions were targeted. Isn't that enough? Does the perpetrator's purpose have to be intuited to make it a heinous crime? It's hard to distinguish between this act and a 'legitimate' terrorist act. Same result for you and me.
  - delecti 4y ago
    You're moving the goalpost to include severity or terribleness. It doesn't make it more or less heinous, but part of the definition of terrorism includes motive. It's just like how a world leader's jilted ex-lover killing them for personal reasons doesn't make it an assassination just because they're a world leader.
bell-cot 4y ago
Beyond the PR exercise, what would that actually change? I'd guess that ransomware operators generally don't use their real names. Nor physical addresses. Nor operate out of countries willing to extradite to $Victims_Country. Nor ...
- polski-g 4y ago
  You send in a covert team to the country and assassinate them. Not extradite. This is equivalent to blowing up a court house with a suitcase bomb.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Nor operate out of countries willing to extradite to $Victims_Country. Even from countries with an extradition treaty, the US has simply had people kidnapped to face trial in the US before.
bdcravens 4y ago
Then what? We launch drone strikes against some random city overseas? Honestly, the only hope is to attack the revenue model, and unfortunately, there's too much money tied up in cryptocurrency to do it without substantial collateral damage.
hulitu 4y ago
Why not write better software ?

Isn't everyone a terrorist these days?

Terrorism requires a political objective. This is some combination of theft, ransom, extortion, or sabotage, unless there's reason to think Dallas in particular was targeted for political reasons.

bell-cot 4y ago
True. But the actual meaning of "terrorist" doesn't count for much these days. Like "heathen", "witch", "Jew", "Nazi", etc. in earlier eras, "terrorist" is mostly a "maximal pejorative" - used to label people who don't get "until proven guilty" legal rights, nor human rights, and who it is socially sanctioned for ~anyone to hate, torture, murder, etc.
- mr_00ff00 4y ago
  generally this is correct, but this kinda misses the point as to why terrorists are treated as they are. Not saying it is correct, but usually when they are overseas they are treated as enemy combatants (not to mention, if they aren’t US citizens then US rights don’t technically apply). You wouldn’t hold your fire in a battle because you need to have a judge determine whether an enemy army is guilty. That’s sort of the idea with foreign terrorist organizations.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    > ...hold your fire in a battle... Admitting that the modern Laws of War are too-often broken, or twisted far beyond their intent...but shooting at a uniformed enemy soldier, during an actual battle, while making reasonable efforts to avoid hitting civilians, Medics, etc. - that is a very narrow set of criteria. 99.999% of humanity is neither on nor near that battlefield, to plausibly be targeted, nor be victims of errors and shell fragments. Vs. "use live ammo" against ransomware crooks? That sounds like a recipe for yet more "a week after our missiles obliterated his house, we realized that the real ransomware crooks had been using his hacked old cablemodem as an extra relay" lethal screw-ups.
    - mr_00ff00 4y ago
      I wasn’t advocating for using this against ransomware hackers. Just that the idea that it’s not so black and white about terrorists and rights like innocent until proven guilty.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Government institutions were targeted. Isn't that enough? Does the perpetrator's purpose have to be intuited to make it a heinous crime? It's hard to distinguish between this act and a 'legitimate' terrorist act. Same result for you and me.
- delecti 4y ago
  You're moving the goalpost to include severity or terribleness. It doesn't make it more or less heinous, but part of the definition of terrorism includes motive. It's just like how a world leader's jilted ex-lover killing them for personal reasons doesn't make it an assassination just because they're a world leader.

bell-cot 4y ago

Beyond the PR exercise, what would that actually change? I'd guess that ransomware operators generally don't use their real names. Nor physical addresses. Nor operate out of countries willing to extradite to $Victims_Country. Nor ...

polski-g 4y ago
You send in a covert team to the country and assassinate them. Not extradite. This is equivalent to blowing up a court house with a suitcase bomb.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Nor operate out of countries willing to extradite to $Victims_Country. Even from countries with an extradition treaty, the US has simply had people kidnapped to face trial in the US before.

bdcravens 4y ago

Then what? We launch drone strikes against some random city overseas? Honestly, the only hope is to attack the revenue model, and unfortunately, there's too much money tied up in cryptocurrency to do it without substantial collateral damage.

hulitu 4y ago

Why not write better software ?