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2014: The Year Extortion Went Mainstream

32 points by panarky 12y ago

Scoundreller 12y ago
And let 2014- become the time that baseless anonymous reports lose any and all credibility, whether it be to Yelp or an authority figure.
- nlh 12y ago
  That would be wonderful - but we have a long way to go before Yelp loses credibility (for better or for worse). For some reason, lots of people trust them. They shouldn't, but they do.
  - Centigonal 12y ago
    Well, I don't like how Yelp does business, and I've heard some horror stories about how Yelp reviews have crippled smaller businesses, but I don't know of any good alternatives, and the service has directed me to a passable restaurant every time I've used it. Until Yelp's sort-of-extortionist practices start affecting its users and someone makes an alternative, it's going to be hard to affect their user base.
  - wpietri 12y ago
    People trust it for the same reason they trust most things: it works reasonably well for them.
- gioele 12y ago
  > baseless anonymous reports lose any and all credibility What if people paid by extortioners use their own names, proved by their ID cards, to post negative reviews? Each of these people will post one bad review for Pizza 900 (the target) and dozens of good reviews for others pizza places. If they get the timing right, how will you detect them, even if they use their real name? Anonymity is not the problem here. Trusting information given by somebody else is the problem here.
  - jsilence 12y ago
    There is only a limited amount of credibility you can generate by paying reviewers from one extorted Bitcoin.
  - Scoundreller 12y ago
    At the end of the day, the best system will be some web-of-trust referential system. But for so many things, you can't even trust your friends for advice, because they're also in no position to objectively assess their experience. (ie: they'll think their physician is a good one if they're pleasant, and a bad one if they're unpleasant, even if the latter makes excellent treatment decisions and the former doesn't).
nlh 12y ago
A few thoughts that stand out: 1. If this turns out to be widespread, this could generate a huge amount of negative publicity for Bitcoin. As Krebs pointed out in the article, this type of attack is specifically enabled because of Bitcoin -- you can't (easily) send an extortionist untraceable money through other means. If a politician hears about this, a reliable knee-jerk reaction could be: "Look at the evil this Bitcoin is enabling! Targeting poor hardworking small-business owners. Join me to ban this terrible thing and help protect our small-business owners!" That's a pretty easy sell for a politician and hard for people to object to ("Think of the children!") 2. The notice is so blatantly outrageous that I wonder if this isn't a ploy by some anti-Bitcoin party to acheive 1) above. Even the original protection racketeers had some ever-so-slight veil -- "No, no, see, we're your new partners. We're here to protect your business. You pay us, and we protect you. Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't..." This is just as in-your-face as it can possibly be. Seems odd.
- jamesaguilar 12y ago
  I would say 2) is wishful thinking. Bitcoins have also been used by encryption viruses. Their use in extortion has a precedent -- it's much more likely that this is simply another instance of that, not a conspiracy.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Whatever the reason, this will just raise the proportion of transactions on the Bitcoin network that are related to criminal activity. It won't take much more for governments to start treating any and all BTC exchanges as facilitating money laundering and other crimes, and shut them down. Without the exchanges, Bitcoin in its current state is dead.
- wpietri 12y ago
  Traditional protection rackets have a veil (at least in pop culture; I have no idea what they really do) because it's harder to go to the cops with witnesses quoting oblique statements. But if you have anonymous mail in one direction and anonymous cash in the other, it doesn't really matter what witnesses say. There's really no point in being oblique; it'll just reduce your yield.
verroq 12y ago
This is actually good news for Bitcoin. It's showing strong signs of mainstream adoption.
4445522 12y ago
Is someone able to mirror this post or paste it in the comments? The website is blocked by my ISP (etisalat)

32 points by panarky 12y ago

And let 2014- become the time that baseless anonymous reports lose any and all credibility, whether it be to Yelp or an authority figure.

nlh 12y ago
That would be wonderful - but we have a long way to go before Yelp loses credibility (for better or for worse). For some reason, lots of people trust them. They shouldn't, but they do.
- Centigonal 12y ago
  Well, I don't like how Yelp does business, and I've heard some horror stories about how Yelp reviews have crippled smaller businesses, but I don't know of any good alternatives, and the service has directed me to a passable restaurant every time I've used it. Until Yelp's sort-of-extortionist practices start affecting its users and someone makes an alternative, it's going to be hard to affect their user base.
- wpietri 12y ago
  People trust it for the same reason they trust most things: it works reasonably well for them.
gioele 12y ago
> baseless anonymous reports lose any and all credibility What if people paid by extortioners use their own names, proved by their ID cards, to post negative reviews? Each of these people will post one bad review for Pizza 900 (the target) and dozens of good reviews for others pizza places. If they get the timing right, how will you detect them, even if they use their real name? Anonymity is not the problem here. Trusting information given by somebody else is the problem here.
- jsilence 12y ago
  There is only a limited amount of credibility you can generate by paying reviewers from one extorted Bitcoin.
- Scoundreller 12y ago
  At the end of the day, the best system will be some web-of-trust referential system. But for so many things, you can't even trust your friends for advice, because they're also in no position to objectively assess their experience. (ie: they'll think their physician is a good one if they're pleasant, and a bad one if they're unpleasant, even if the latter makes excellent treatment decisions and the former doesn't).

nlh 12y ago

A few thoughts that stand out: 1. If this turns out to be widespread, this could generate a huge amount of negative publicity for Bitcoin. As Krebs pointed out in the article, this type of attack is specifically enabled because of Bitcoin -- you can't (easily) send an extortionist untraceable money through other means. If a politician hears about this, a reliable knee-jerk reaction could be: "Look at the evil this Bitcoin is enabling! Targeting poor hardworking small-business owners. Join me to ban this terrible thing and help protect our small-business owners!" That's a pretty easy sell for a politician and hard for people to object to ("Think of the children!") 2. The notice is so blatantly outrageous that I wonder if this isn't a ploy by some anti-Bitcoin party to acheive 1) above. Even the original protection racketeers had some ever-so-slight veil -- "No, no, see, we're your new partners. We're here to protect your business. You pay us, and we protect you. Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't..." This is just as in-your-face as it can possibly be. Seems odd.

jamesaguilar 12y ago
I would say 2) is wishful thinking. Bitcoins have also been used by encryption viruses. Their use in extortion has a precedent -- it's much more likely that this is simply another instance of that, not a conspiracy.
dublinben 12y ago
Whatever the reason, this will just raise the proportion of transactions on the Bitcoin network that are related to criminal activity. It won't take much more for governments to start treating any and all BTC exchanges as facilitating money laundering and other crimes, and shut them down. Without the exchanges, Bitcoin in its current state is dead.
wpietri 12y ago
Traditional protection rackets have a veil (at least in pop culture; I have no idea what they really do) because it's harder to go to the cops with witnesses quoting oblique statements. But if you have anonymous mail in one direction and anonymous cash in the other, it doesn't really matter what witnesses say. There's really no point in being oblique; it'll just reduce your yield.

verroq 12y ago

This is actually good news for Bitcoin. It's showing strong signs of mainstream adoption.

4445522 12y ago

Is someone able to mirror this post or paste it in the comments? The website is blocked by my ISP (etisalat)