Comment by nkurz
10 years ago
It seems like the largest threat to the "ransom seeking industry" is for the public to come to believe that paying the the ransom will do no good. Sometimes, such as in cases like this, it becomes publicly known that a ransom is sought before it is paid. An interesting aspect of a Bitcoin ransom is that third parties can verify that a ransom was paid.
Would it be in the legitimate interest of the public as a whole for a third party (possibly governmental) to carry through on the threat as soon as the ransom is paid? This would be to the detriment of the victim, but reduce the likelihood that future ransoms would be paid, and thus eventually might reduce the number of future victims.
Might that be what's happened here?
> An interesting aspect of a Bitcoin ransom is that third parties can verify that a ransom was paid.
Huh, interesting. If third parties have attackers' bitcoin address, they can also pay the ransom themselves.
That's an interesting angle, but if traced to the source that source would still be 100% on the hook for any and all fall-out from such an attack and I really wonder if any government entity would be willing to sign off on such a vaccination service.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a government, things like this probably attract more vigilante "Anonymous" type of people anyway.