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Obviously the victim isn't the local pizzera its Coinbase. Someone just spent "not very much money" to make them look incredibly bad. Should be fairly easy to
by VLM 12y ago
Obviously the victim isn't the local pizzera its Coinbase. Someone just spent "not very much money" to make them look incredibly bad.
Should be fairly easy to track them down, just analyze the pattern of yellow dots on the color laser print to figure out the make, model, and serial number of the printer making the extortion letters, then contact whichever of coinbase's competitors made those letters and ...
Now if I was thinking a little more clearly I'd figure out how to track them down myself, and let it be known to coinbase's competitor that I'd keep these facts quiet if I was too busy eating pizza bought by, say, 5000 BTC from whichever coinbase competitor made the letters.
- Nakatomi_Plaza 12y agoIt's likely coinbase was chosen simply because it's the easiest way for their victims to buy coins. There is a vulnerability with Pizza businesses in that they trust the caller is making a legit order, and don't ask for pre-payment before delivery thus leaving them open to fraud. Whoever is doing this is clearly bluffing and hoping just a handful of businesses pay the extortion and likely flooded the mail system with these letters. I bet the payment address is the same for each extortion letter meaning they have no way of knowing if a company pays or not.
- pavel_lishin 12y agoRead your username as "Nakatomi Pizza".
- dobbsbob 12y agoThis extortion attempt could create a new startup: Nakatomi Pizza that processes calls to check for fingerprints of fraud, and to verify orders. "Now I have a machine learning caller-ID with advanced heuristics ho, ho ho"
- VLM 12y agoYeah you guys are probably right, after all. If it demanded cash and suggested visiting your local Citibank Branch or Citibank In Network ATM that clearly would also be an equally random and meaningless data point, totally not trying to make Citibank look bad or anything.
- CocaKoala 12y agoIf "cash" was a random form of currency that the pizza parlor had statistically never heard of and had literally no idea on how to acquire, then providing an address for a specific ATM would be pretty random and meaningless, yes. Would you expect an extortion letter to say "If you don't pay me one bitcoin, I'm gonna screw with your business. I'd tell you where you can find a bitcoin, but I don't want this extortionary attempt to slander the name of legitimate businesses who are trying to increase the adoption rate and accessibility of this exciting new crypto-currency"?
- Steko 12y ago/boggle. The pizzeria is indisputably the victim of extortion here.
- fleitz 12y agoWill be super easy as long as they had the foresight to buy the printer on a credit card and the pizzeria's police force is actually CSI. Seriously, the police are not going to analyze dots on laser printer to track down an extortion for $500, just like they don't swab for prints / DNA on a B&E. Real life is not CSI.
- smacktoward 12y agoIf the extortionist is making threats across state lines, it stops being a $500 matter for the local LEOs and starts being a matter for the FBI.
- chc 12y agoEven if they bought the printer with a check and wrote "FOR CRIMINAL EXTORTION" in the memo field, the fact that the letter was created with an HP printer probably still does not remove enough bits of anonymity to find them.
- cjg 12y agoI had an attempted break-in and the police (UK) did indeed dust for fingerprints - and they caught the guy.
- DanBC 12y agoPrinter tracking dots aren't some super high-tech CSI stuff. https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...