Topic: Expect ransomware arrests soon, says bitcoin tracking firm Chainalysis (Read 2457 times)

I wasn't talking about acquiring the data, but chasing the physical addresses. Cops go for the bigger fish.

Absolutely. Cars kill more people than guns. Both cars and airplanes pollute the earth like motherfuckers. They have been improved since inception by people who recognize and find solutions to these problems instead of pretending they don't exist.

Banks do not get cleaned out. They do the cleaning out.

Do you seriously believe the "hackers" are winning? The reality of life is that the banks are winning they keep raking in the money "cleaning out" most of the population. If their angle fails and causes another financial crisis, no problem, let the tax payers bail them out again.

Banks have been raped beyond comprehension last couple years by online hackers who cleaned them out.
Russian organized crime is lethal shit !

But that's the point !!
Suppose the disk died.  Not that this doesn't happen, right ?  So that means that you valued what was on that laptop less than the price of a hard disk and the pain of making a backup: less than, say, $100.  Then one could at most ask you 0.2 BTC as ransomware, no ?  You didn't care.  At least, with the ransomware, you can still pay, and get the files back.  If the disk scratches, or if someone by accident does a deep format, its gone forever.

Disks die all the time.  People make errors all the time.  Data is destroyed all the time.  But if it is "ransomware" then suddenly this is drama !   There's only one lesson: BACK UP or consider the data lost at any moment is not going to harm you.

I would even say that ransomware has a very good effect: it is (by paying) reversible in most cases.  Usually, people learn about data loss and the need for back ups the hard way: they don't consider it, until data is gone (computer stolen, disk scratched, human error, ...) for good.   Ransomware gives you a wake-up call with still the possibility to get your data back.

I would say that ransomware has only one extra problem: that is that you now also have to make air gapped backups.  Indeed, ransomware could encrypt everything that is easily network-mounted, like your online backup storage.  But then, human errors can ALSO format the backup disk.  So if your backup storage can be erased from the network, you should consider air-gapped copies of it too.  That's indeed a pain.  The other solution is to have a one-way backup storage, that can only ADD stuff to it.  This, you can leave on your network, as long as you make sure that that system is hardened (you don't use it for anything else).

Damn that's sad. Did you ever get to recover your data?

You are talking about corporate ransomware cases. But I assure you that anyone can be a victim here.
I am basically a nobody with no business and yet my secondary laptop which my mother use was infected with CryptoWall ransom ware..
I didn't backup any that files prior to that attack as it were mostly only family photos and movies.

Indeed, if you are panicked about ransomware, then you should rather thank the guys doing that for doing a wake-up call.  At least, with ransomware, there IS a means to get your data back: pay up.  If your data are so badly protected and so badly backed up that ransomware can put you into (reversible) difficulty, then you have created a situation where you can easily, by material or software failure, be put in the same, but this time irreversible, difficulty.
You should have backups, and you should have air-gapped backups of everything important.

That said, having to restore from backup is a pain, and you will lose recent work.  But it shouldn't be more nuisance than this.  If it is, the ransomware just indicated you've put yourself in deep potential risk.

Ransomware cases are mostly nuisances that disrupt and delay your work. Companies especially banks back up their important data daily or sometimes more than that. If a very massive attack was coordinated well that would affect 5 big banks at the same time then maybe it can cause a financial crisis of some sort.

Your comment is short sighted and is coming from a closed mind. Let me ask you this, was the invention of the car reckless? They had no stop lights and safety measures for cars back then. Or was the invention of the airplane also reckless? Flying is going against our very nature as land based beings, a small mistake will kill you and the other people you crash into.

You speak as if the world does not evolve and change. Change is everywhere and it is happening everyday. Just because you think bitcoin's design is "reckless" does not mean everyone else is thinking the same as you. Many people very much smarter than you think its design is brilliant.

http://www.coindesk.com/fbi-malware-victims-should-pay-bitcoin-ransoms/

and now the arrests are coming 

Azael my faith is not on trial here.
Your delusional assertions about Monero are.
You are the one posting weak analogies.

Clearly you believe in ANON coins and i don't see you being talked out of it.
So how many Monero coins are you bag holding i wonder ?

If you support ANON coins why are you not flogging DASH or other ANON types ?

Look at already working bitcoin and altcoin atm.
They have the same problem.

Imagine you're a ransomware cracker.  You've sent a ransomware malware to Joe, who was so untidy not to have air-gapped backups, and he paid 10 bitcoin to address A (one of yours).  You did the same with Jack, who sent also 10 bitcoin to address B.  These addresses are known, of course, because Jack and Joe mentioned them when they put up a complaint.

As long as you are the happy owner of A and B, the chain will not teach you much.  The problem is, what are you going to do with A and B ?  You can transfer A to C and B to D.   And then C to E and D to F.  Great.  One can follow that on the chain.

Now, are you going to put F on an exchange ?  Exchanges want to know identities, especially if you want to get fiat.  Whenever a successor (a "colored coin") hits an exchange, it is interesting to find out who owns it, because that person has received coins from someone who has received coins from the cracker, and hence one has a real-world trace.
So it is interesting to go and ask some questions to whomever it was that put F on an exchange.  In this case, questions to the cracker himself.  Of course, that doesn't prove, in itself, that the cracker was the cracker, but at least, that he knows the cracker, or knows someone who knows the cracker.  So it is very easy: the first question is: "sir, from whom did you get the coins in address D ?".  It is going to be difficult to indicate just anybody, because that person will not have done any business with the cracker, or will never have owned those coins.  "an anonymous donation for my contributions on bitcointalk" is probably not going to cut it.  So even after having transacted with oneself many times, the coins remain colored, and will trigger a "real world contact" from the moment they hit an exchange. 

The same is true for any official store accepting bitcoins.  If you've sold shoes to the cracker, you will probably have some trace (say, a post address, an e-mail) of where you sent the shoes.  You will easily show that to law enforcement asking you about how you got those coins if ever YOU got them, and then you went to an exchange.

So it is very difficult for the cracker to get rid of his coins and not induce a real-world contact that may lead to him.

On top of that, it gets more difficult.  Suppose the cracker wants to buy something worth 15 bitcoin.  He will have to COMBINE both outputs, (10 + 10) and get 5 bitcoin in a return address G.  As such, the combination of E and F in a same transaction hints that E and F at that point, are still the cracker's possession (we know that A and B are his possession, and it would be strange that these two tracks get separated, just to be spend together again later...).  And we also know that address G is the cracker's.
 

if you create another wallet you can make your transaction more anonymous, and not have all the transaction linked to the only wallet you have, and anyway how can they know WHO was using that address?

But you've said you don't hold any Bitcoin. So your faith isn't that strong? 

Monero ATMs doing cash to e-cash and vice versa might solve the entry problem. What do you think? Seems a step up from cash to e-cash transaction by meeting a person.

The dead horse is Monero..

As Snorek said..
You are not drinking the water no matter how many times we lead you to it.
But hey saddle up and ride into the bright Monero sunset if that is what you want.

These guys have made some very fair and honest criticisms of Monero i think though.
I say that from my own neutral perspective.. i don't have a dog in the race though.

I think some of you ..all the FEBO's out there are blinded by the mystical razzle dazzle of smooth & crew.
They seem to have some of you worked up into a frenzied fever pitch..
Liemz OMGZ Da Moneroz are the Futurez !!!!!111ONE

Well good luck with that..

And yeah that last analogy was pittiful.
Give 'em up ..you are not good at them.

@Azael



And i also take offense to your incessant comparisons to Bitcoin.
This offends my beliefs 

Sure I can be whoever you want me to be. The rest of your post is already adressed so not gonna beat that dead horse.

Give it some time Monero is starting out the same way Bitcoin did. Physical stores usually accept cash so why can't compliant e-commerce accept e-cash?