[HN Gopher] The Ransomware Problem Is a Bitcoin Problem
___________________________________________________________________
The Ransomware Problem Is a Bitcoin Problem
Author : robseed
Score : 81 points
Date : 2021-06-04 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lawfareblog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lawfareblog.com)
| spoonjim wrote:
| Ransomware is a _gift_ -- people are exposing insecure systems
| only for a few million dollars of payout. A more nefarious actor
| would do more nefarious things than just collect what is at the
| nation-state scale a very small amount of money. More ransomware
| will accelerate security improvements and protect systems from
| CCP, Five Eyes, etc.
| px43 wrote:
| Agreed, same for crypto miners IMO. These consequences are
| significantly more benign than if real criminals had gotten
| into the system. It's essentially a decentralized bug bounty
| program that every large company who connects to the internet
| has to opt in to.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This argument is pretty weird: ransomware is bad, but there's a
| potentially worse actor out there, so ransomware is good? I'd
| say that's like someone robbing a bank, but saying "someone
| else could have robbed you for more".
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I'd liken it to giving your immune system a work out to
| better prepare for next year.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Yes, if someone sticks up your bank for $10 then it likely
| benefits you in the long run since you implement security
| measures for when the million dollar stickup man comes by.
| cgb223 wrote:
| Never understood why ransomware didn't use more anonymous crypto
| currencies like Monero or ZCash.
|
| Doesn't that better protect the scammers from law enforcement?
| chelmzy wrote:
| A few crews have started asking for Monero.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| I thought you can easily wash the money by converting it
| through an anonymous cryptocurrency and then out again anyways.
| verdverm wrote:
| The networks don't interoperate, so you need a "trusted"
| party to provide this service.
| lozaning wrote:
| An atomic exchange fulfills this requirement, assuming your
| capable of auditing the code that runs the swap smart
| contract.
| px43 wrote:
| Criminals will keep doing what works until it stops working.
| There are botnets that still do command and control over IRC.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Indeed, it is rather simple, all the founders and idealists of
| btc have been something like technology supremacist and do not
| want any government interventions infringing on their business
| matters. They need to pretend how this is legal and a technology
| achievement to obfuscate the real purpose. These are, founders
| getting rich, money laundering(called anonymous transactions),
| exchange of illegal goods( how many people pay with btc for legal
| things and how many use it to pay for all kinds of illegal things
| on the dark web?) . Someone intelligent enough to create Bitcoin
| is intelligent enough to know this will be used for illicit
| purposes. No way in hell did a borderline anarchist cypherpunk
| believe the general population will trust his system more than
| the banking system. If most governments simply outlaw it, the
| price will have a rapid trajectory towards zero. Bitcoin and the
| ecosystem are the only logic tool for ransomware transactions,
| there is no sugarcoating this.
| easrng wrote:
| Bitcoin is not anonymous and should not be used for illegal
| purchases as it is trivial to trace. Use Monero if you care
| about privacy.
| arberx wrote:
| "This means that cryptocurrencies are the only tool left for
| ransomware purveyors. So, if governments take meaningful action
| against Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, they should be able
| to disrupt this new ransomware plague and then eradicate it, as
| was seen with the spam Viagra industry."
|
| This is the totally incorrect approach. Imagine banning Polaroids
| because they led to an explosive growth in underage pornography.
|
| These exploits are happening not because of crypto but because of
| insecure systems that public, money making companies haven't
| invested in making secure.
| okareaman wrote:
| While I mostly agree with you about cryptocurrencies, the idea
| that companies don't invest in security is a lazy argument.
| It's not that simple. Companies can't secure themselves against
| bugs in software that no one knows about (zero days) no matter
| how much they invest.
| TingPing wrote:
| They can audit the projects they use. It will never be
| perfect but most do nothing.
| matoro wrote:
| While this is true, the overwhelming majority of these
| incidents do not use or require zero-days. The attack vector
| is nearly always basic phishing/social engineering, or wildly
| misconfigured/unpatched systems exposed to the internet.
| Implementing a bare-bones security program, or giving an
| existing security program the tools & authority to enforce
| policies, would cut down on ransomware incidents by a factor
| of 5-10, easily, without touching cryptocurrency in the
| slightest.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| The difference is that polaroids are useful for legitimate
| purposes.
|
| Every conversation I've ever had with a crypto purveyor, even
| as a person who has worked for crypto companies before, always
| comes down to "crypto is a good thing because it helps people
| commit financial crimes". There are no other benefits.
| zlynx wrote:
| I believe the benefits of cryptocurrency outweigh problems.
|
| I _like_ having options that can be anonymous, don 't require
| banks, immune to government influence, and even completely
| outside any law. Because laws are not always moral and _should_
| be ignored and evaded.
|
| That's freedom. Having it is worth the significant amount of
| problems that come along with it.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I'd like to hear how cryptocurrency advocates address this
| without deploying a fallacy. Cryptocurrency makes ransomware
| possible, without the former, the latter cannot thrive. The
| defenses I usually hear come in the form of "current banking
| facilitates bad stuff, too," which is a fact, but doesn't absolve
| cryptocurrencies central role in ransomware. As the article
| states, there is simply no way to pay a ransom without
| cryptocurrency. Maybe they could do b2b or cash, but that would
| be sooooo bold (but not impossible?)
|
| EDIT: See link from user 'px43' below about the history of
| ransomware. Good read. Predates cryptocurrency, but I think
| banking technology would make most payment strategies of the past
| impossible, like the original article argues (e.g., PO Box in
| Panama is quoted as a 1989 payment plan, but GP article explains
| that is harder due to extradition of data and logs).
| Mc_Big_G wrote:
| I'd like to hear how internet advocates address child
| pornography without deploying a fallacy. The internet makes
| child pornography possible, without the former, the latter
| cannot thrive. The defenses I usually hear come in the form of
| "CD ROMs facilitate bad stuff, too," which is a fact, but
| doesn't absolve the internet's central role in child porn. As
| the article states, there is simply no way to attain child porn
| without the internet. Maybe they could do DVD or CD ROM, but
| that would be sooooo slow (but not impossible?)
| px43 wrote:
| Heh, what? Ransomware existed long before cryptocurrencies.
|
| Money laundering via ACH, SWIFT, stolen credit cards, gift
| cards, and all sorts of online payment systems like PayPal are
| still huge, no cryptocurrencies required.
|
| Cryptocurrencies are used today because they're the most
| efficient way to make online payments, which is a net positive
| for everyone. It's just as easy to hunt down criminals using
| cryptocurrencies as it was to hunt online criminals before
| cryptocurrencies got popular.
|
| https://www.knowbe4.com/ransomware
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| This is enlightening. The 1989 ransomware that had a PO Box
| in Panama is hilarious. Really? Panama?
|
| Good point, thanks.
|
| However, opaque ledgers may make it difficult to hunt them
| down (Zcash, monero) in the future.
| px43 wrote:
| Maybe companies will start enabling MFA by then?
|
| Kind of frustrating how easy it still is to break into
| critical infrastructure. I do that sort of thing regularly
| as my day job. Companies who put a slight effort into
| security don't get ransomwared.
|
| The idea that law enforcement needs full visibility into
| everyone's financial history, and that's the only way for
| them to stop crime, is ridiculous.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I think it also makes a convincing argument for bringing
| back on-site backups. If there are weekly/daily backups
| on local disks (tapes?) that are airgapped after backup,
| that would save exposing credentials to the cloud storage
| backups. Tape is dead, long live tape!
| thehappypm wrote:
| I deeply disagree that crypto is the easiest way to make
| online payments. Have you ever used Venmo? Or even Facebook
| pay? Or Zelle? Sure, it might be the easiest way to send
| money cross-border, but that's an edge case, the vast, vast
| majority of transactions are same-country.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Crypto is definitely the easiest way. No accounts (well I
| suppose a wallet could be an account, so perhaps a wash
| here), no bank linking, no credit cards.
|
| Crypto is the closest thing to internet cash payments.
| tedunangst wrote:
| How do companies pay ransoms without bank accounts? Where
| does the Bitcoin come from?
| px43 wrote:
| Those aren't payments, those are custodial services that
| offer users the ability to move around numbers within their
| respective closed ecosystems. There's a reason that every
| one of those services is now moving heavily into the
| cryptocurrency space.
| J5892 wrote:
| The answer is that sometimes progress comes with a cost.
|
| Whether or not you consider cryptocurrencies "progress" is
| irrelevant, because it's an emerging technology that exists
| whether you (or I) like it or not.
|
| The cold, hard, unavoidable truth is this: Ransomware may be a
| Bitcoin problem, and it may not be. Either way, tough shit.
| emodendroket wrote:
| > Whether or not you consider cryptocurrencies "progress" is
| irrelevant
|
| I mean not really. If we were to decide, as a country, that
| it was bad, we could take actions to stop its proliferation.
| The dollar-BTC transition points are chokepoints we could
| easily target to get started.
| Zednivat wrote:
| I just want to be sure we're on the same page. Is the full
| version of that: "If we were to decide, as a country, that
| it was bad, we could assign new orders to our federal,
| state, and local law enforcements officers to target and
| violate the property rights of people who engage with
| cryptocurrencies"?
|
| In order to solve the ransomware problem, we create a new
| problem in the use of violence or the threat of violence in
| order to stop anyone from using crypto at all.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not an anarchist, so I am indeed advocating
| that the state use its power to achieve societal
| benefits, which is ultimately, one might say, backed by
| its monopoly on the use of violence. Property rights are
| not and should not be absolute.
| devonbleak wrote:
| Money laundering is also illegal and it's still prolific.
| Buying weed is also illegal and it's still prolific.
|
| Banning things like this just turns them into another
| laundering opportunity - where there's money to be made
| there's a way.
| emodendroket wrote:
| If I take this claim literally it's never worth having
| any kind of law at all. I don't believe that. I also
| don't think crypto currency looks nearly as attractive if
| there are no legitimate channels to convert or spend it.
| verdverm wrote:
| How does this compare to banning ICE vehicles?
|
| They are widely adopted and useful, yet their secondary harms
| warrant laws to be written.
| toxik wrote:
| Cash enables muggings so we must ban cash?
| Raed667 wrote:
| Ask someone younger than 20 if they have more than 10$ cash
| on them.
| tptacek wrote:
| We don't have a huge mugging problem. We have muggings (I've
| been mugged), but they occur infrequently enough that society
| isn't disrupted. You can't say that about ransomware. Not
| only that, but we _have_ done things to defang muggings; for
| instance, it 's been made less lucrative (and more dangerous
| for the mugger) to steal a modern phone.
| toxik wrote:
| But that's not what decides if cash is viable. If we had a
| huge mugging problem, we would call for better law
| enforcement, not less cash.
| tptacek wrote:
| No, people generally carry much less cash now, and part
| of the reason why is that it's so easily stolen.
| devonbleak wrote:
| I'd argue that's a small part of the reason. Like a
| rounding error vs the inconvenience factor of dealing
| with stuff like coins, having to go to a physical
| location during restrictive hours/days to obtain more
| than a trivial amount of cash, etc.
| endisneigh wrote:
| you say this in jest but in reality plenty of people have
| stopped using cash by themselves for this exact reason.
| toxik wrote:
| People abandoned cash out of convenience, not fear of
| mugging.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Sure, but there are some people who don't carry cash
| because of mugging and other related things (can get
| lost, be stolen, etc)
| devonbleak wrote:
| You're talking a rounding error on the number of people
| that don't carry cash simply because it's not convenient
| to obtain and deal with it.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| You literally did not read my post. I address your exact
| fallacy.
| [deleted]
| Dah00n wrote:
| I'm not a cryptocurrency advocate but as arberx points out in
| another comment this is avoiding the real problem. The problem
| isn't cryptocurrency or ransomware. The root cause is what
| needs to be fixed: Software publishers and software owners are
| to blame for insecure systems. Software development is like the
| wild west with absolutely no accountability. This need to
| change.
| akiselev wrote:
| Ransomware isn't the only illegal activity that's greatly
| enabled by bitcoin. For better or worse, it has enabled
| stable online marketplaces that allowed one to buy
| safer/purer drugs, heavy weaponry, assassins, and false
| passports with less exposure and risk. That used to be the
| stuff of spy movies - now it's available to anyone who
| understands how to navigate the web enough to figure out
| onion addresses or FreeNet. IIUC it has even enabled new
| methods for money laundering with unique advantages and
| allowed nations to evade global sanctions with near impunity
| instead of having to rely on foreign powers to help.
|
| I don't wish to speculate whether the effect on each of those
| niches is net positive or negative, but it's hard to argue
| that _the_ real problem is cybersecurity when
| cryptocurrencies have had such significant effects on other
| fields for the same reasons that it 's useful to ransomware
| operators. Yes, cybersecurity is _a_ real problem, but that
| doesn 't preclude cryptocurrencies from being a real problem
| either, nor does it preclude the former from sparking action
| against the latter - the world operates in parallel and we
| can tackle multiple problems (which means yes,
| cryptocurrencies will almost certainly be used as a
| distraction).
| SigmundA wrote:
| To me this is like saying we shouldn't make it hard to make
| money off stolen goods or even police the streets, the
| problem is my houses security isn't good enough. We should
| just focus on making houses more secure otherwise its open
| game and your fault if someone steals from you.
|
| You know police in many states in the US get uploads of all
| pawn records and metal recycling to help track down and stop
| thieves from making money on stolen goods.
|
| There isn't one root cause, there is an environment made up
| of multiple factors that allows bad behavior, one
| contributing factor is how cryptocurrency has enabled large
| ransom payments to bad actors over seas.
|
| Software should be made more secure, but making it 100%
| secure is impossible. How much time and money should be spent
| on the software security side? My house isn't made like a
| fortress, its security is actually pretty minimal, it doesn't
| need to be better because laws are enforced and its not
| anarchy outside, its a low crime environment due to multiple
| levels of protection I don't even think about or manage
| directly all provided by the government. Part of those
| protections is making it more difficult for criminals to
| profit off crimes, though not impossible, it's just one
| aspect of a defense in depth.
| tptacek wrote:
| There is no evidence at all that computer science and
| information technology actually knows how to solve the
| underlying security problems without forcing untenable
| compromises on the economy. We can produce secure software,
| but only at a level of expense and time that would preclude
| most commercial software development.
| JoeyBananas wrote:
| This is just a terrible argument. Often times, systems are
| compromised through social engineering so it's not even
| remotely possible to solve this issue by software
| engineering alone. But more importantly, think about the
| morality of what you are saying. It is absolutely not
| ethical to rob someone just because they are an easy
| target.
|
| I despise this sort of "technological nihilism." Just
| because something can be done with technology doesn't mean
| that it should be done. The fact that bitcoin exists does
| not mean we should revert back to the stone age. Anarchy is
| obviously a very bad idea, but I guess some people are
| determined to learn this lesson the hard way.
| Dah00n wrote:
| That may be but that doesn't change that fact that the
| underlying problem isn't cryptocurrency. Lashing out at
| other technologies because of lack of accountability in
| software development won't solve anything. At best it will
| move it somewhere else but in the end the problem stil
| haven't been solved.
|
| Besides, software could absolutely be made much safer
| without destroying the economy. We all know that the
| systems that get hit are often a mess a twelve year old
| could "hack" by using specific search engines or kiddy
| scripts. Laws punishing those that run software with known
| vulnerabilities that end up causing society problems like
| these ransomware attacks do should have been made decades
| ago.
| tptacek wrote:
| The whole point of the article is that you could have
| said the same thing about Viagra spam, but financial
| system interventions did shut that down.
|
| There is, again, no evidence that we know how to make
| commercially deployed software meaningfully safer at the
| scale we need to do it at to stop ransomware attacks from
| disrupting society.
| quanticle wrote:
| Then perhaps we shouldn't produce software.
|
| If the costs to mitigate the negative externalities of a
| certain product or service outweigh the net benefits of
| said product or service, the creation of that product or
| service is a net negative on society, and we should cease
| that activity.
|
| It's like arguing that a coal-fired power plant isn't
| profitable if it has to pay for all the carbon that it's
| producing.
| tptacek wrote:
| "We should stop producing software" is a take, and I
| support it! But I also recognize that the societal cost
| of ceasing all software development would be huge, and
| the cost of stopping all cryptocurrency is small and
| would be felt mostly by speculators. As the saying goes:
| first you couldn't use Bitcoin to buy a pizza, then you
| could use Bitcoin to buy a pizza, and now you can't use
| Bitcoin to buy a pizza.
|
| Coal power plants aren't profitable if they have to pay
| for their externalities, and should be shut down.
| madhadron wrote:
| You could just as easily point to Russia as the root cause,
| since they are providing a home for this.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Before cryptocurrency it was iTunes giftcards or money transfer
| services to a 3rd world country. Cryptocurrency is not the only
| way to transfer money that's relatively hard to trace.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Good point. But that's a lot of giftcards to transfer $5
| million, let alone the $100MM claimed-size of the ransomware
| market from the article.
| tptacek wrote:
| As the article points out, it's the only way to reliably
| transfer the 7 figure sums that make large-scale ransomware
| attacks workable.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Sorry but before cryptocurrency there also were hostage
| that were freed on payment of millions. For that kind of
| money life does find a way.
| beaner wrote:
| Maybe the problem is the internet. Without that, critical
| infrastructure would not be susceptible to cyberattack.
| tptacek wrote:
| We successfully attacked critical infrastructure before
| it was connected to the Internet, so perhaps the problem
| is simply telecommunications. I think it's
| cryptocurrency, though.
| quanticle wrote:
| The problem isn't that Bitcoin enables hacking. The problem is,
| pardon my language, that our cybersecurity is absolute, utter
| unremediated _shit_. Every time a corporate PR press release
| uses the word "sophisticated" to refer to hackers, I roll my
| eyes. These hackers aren't using processor-level side channel
| attacks to read secrets out of memory. They're not using
| Rowhammer to alter encryption keys. They're doing basic things
| like, exploiting SQL injection. They're getting people with
| phishing. They're taking advantage of the fact that these giant
| corporations have _willfully_ ignored every cybersecurity best
| practice for the past twenty years because it might cost them a
| few days worth of revenue to implement things like least-
| privilege access and two-factor authentication.
|
| Imagine a world where banks and businesses just kept their cash
| out on the counter, in unlocked boxes. One day, a bunch of
| "sophisticated" thieves come in and start grabbing the boxes
| and driving off. What is the logical response?
|
| 1. Ban cars
|
| 2. Ask banks and businesses to please use lockboxes and safes
|
| Both are solutions to the problem of thieves jumping in and
| grabbing cash. But I would submit that option 2 makes far more
| sense that option 1.
| saurik wrote:
| """ While we're at it, maybe those same people can defend the
| Internet, right? Clearly, this experiment in anyone in the
| world being able to nigh unto anonymously communicate with
| anyone else was a mistake... at best, every packet should be
| tracked back to some regulated endpoint that can be tracked in
| the real world.
|
| The Internet, after all, makes the dark web--and its myriad
| crimes, including ransomware, drug trafficking, and illegal
| porn--possible: without the former, the latter cannot thrive.
| The defenses we usually hear come in the form "prior telephone
| and postal systems facilitated bad stuff, too," which is a
| fact, but one that doesn't absolute the Internet, either. :/
| """
|
| ^ What you sound like to me.
|
| Like, I honestly just don't understand your point: these
| currencies (minus Bitcoin, due to proof of work being a bit
| ridiculous) seem like a very useful tool _that you couldn 't
| really ban anyway_ without taking ridiculously draconian
| measures (a la China and the open Internet, which is only
| barely working for them anyway) as--and this is kind of the
| whole point--there isn't any central actor running or
| maintaining it.
| tptacek wrote:
| You might say you're "banning Bitcoin", but what you're
| really doing is banning Bitcoin's linkages to the existing
| institutional financial system. That's a very tenable
| project.
| quanticle wrote:
| I think it's more difficult than one imagines to ban
| Bitcoin's linkages to the existing institutional financial
| system. After all, it's not as if REvil or DarkSide are
| using Coinbase to trade their Bitcoin. If the United States
| shuts down all Bitcoin exchanges operating on its
| territory, but Russia does not, then does that have a
| meaningful impact on the usage of Bitcoin for cybercrime?
| It seems to me that all such a step would do is make the
| positive usages of Bitcoin more difficult while having only
| a marginal effect on the usage of Bitcoin for cybercrime.
| amluto wrote:
| If FinCEN were to take the position that all exchange of
| Bitcoin to or from other currently were illegal, then
| there would be at least two major impacts:
|
| 1. US people or people in any country that respects
| FinCEN would have a hard time paying ransoms in Bitcoin,
| and
|
| 2. The value of Bitcoin paid for ransom would go down.
| What exactly is the criminal holding Bitcoin that is, by
| the very fact of being Bitcoin, dirty going to do with
| it? No matter how mixed and laundered it got, it would
| still be dirty.
|
| At the end of the day, the result would be a lot like
| trying to extract ransom in the form of Rubles held in a
| Russian bank. I think this would strongly disrupt the
| business model.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes, it does, because it makes it much more difficult for
| victims to confidently interact with the criminal
| financial system.
| quanticle wrote:
| That is a good point, but we might also end up with yet
| another layer of criminal organization: "dark exchanges"
| that allow victims of cybercrime to get cryptocurrency
| without interacting with the legal financial system.
| While I would rather that ransoms not be paid at all, if
| a ransom has to be paid, I'd much rather the company get
| their cash in a legitimate manner, interacting with
| financial entities that cooperate with law enforcement,
| rather than via fences and money launderers.
| tptacek wrote:
| At some point, companies can just arrange for the
| transfer of suitcases full of cash. The point is that
| increasing the friction on these crimes reduces their
| incidence, and that's a point the author provides
| evidence for.
| rini17 wrote:
| Consider there is a war on drugs which has repeatedly
| proven that "increasing the friction" might actually make
| the situation worse. Broadly criminalizing any and all
| exchange of money to unauthorized tokens (any more
| specific definition of a cryptocurrency will be
| subverted) is likely to end up in that territory.
| tptacek wrote:
| Seemed to work well for Viagra spam, and no violent black
| market for Viagra spam revenue clearing services sprung
| up.
| rini17 wrote:
| Interesting, Viagra spam was mitigated by making these
| payments illegal? I have no idea, any source pls?
| emodendroket wrote:
| The obvious difference to me is that the Internet has a lot
| of benefits outweighing the negatives beyond just enabling
| people to do speculation.
| saurik wrote:
| What, pray tell, are those benefits that are so obvious to
| you, and why should they only apply to photos of your lunch
| and not money? Most of the more "banal" uses of the
| Internet would still work fine with a tightly regulated
| system that required you to sign up for services with an ID
| and have every packet signed and tracked. The reality is
| that many in the US believe we had _an insurrection_
| attempt in January due to 8chan of all things. To _me_ ,
| sure: it is certainly "obvious" that the ability to have
| speech that isn't centrally controlled is a good thing...
| but I can't come up with a single argument for it that
| wouldn't also apply to being able to send money between two
| parties (and, notably, in the Western world we tend to
| purposefully conflate "speech" with the ability to transfer
| and lend resources, as without capital nothing can be
| accomplished).
| tptacek wrote:
| The whole article is about why money is a distinctively
| important regulatory target.
| saurik wrote:
| I just re-read the article to see if I was blind, but no
| where does it answer the question "what are the benefits
| of semi-anonymous photo sharing that don't apply to money
| transfer", in no small part as the article doesn't try to
| talk about the benefits of anything, much less an open
| Internet. I feel like you might not have actually read my
| comment to see the question I led with (asked in response
| to the comment above)? ;P
| CincinnatiMan wrote:
| I think the argument would be that the internet, while
| enabling bad things, is a net-positive with its good
| outweighing its bad. Whereas the value provided by
| cryptocurrencies is not as clear.
| hermes19 wrote:
| I live in a region where electronic cigarettes can't be
| purchased through the internet. Local shops can sell them,
| and do at a 100%-150% markup. fasttech.com will sell me
| products at msrp, but recently payment processors stopped
| allowing them to sell to me if my order contained
| electronic cigarette components (heaters, coils, resisters,
| batteries, etc).
|
| I was very pleased to discover they accept BTC and ETH as
| payment options.
| Grim-444 wrote:
| You're comparing the benefits the internet provides to
| society with an example of being able to buy e-cigarettes
| slightly cheaper?
| cinquemb wrote:
| > Whereas the value provided by cryptocurrencies is not as
| clear.
|
| The problem is that there's a large group of people who
| don't rely upon it at all, and there's people on the
| fringes that where using crypto enables non speculative
| economic activity where the banking sector has
| ignored/hands tied for too long; and by design, people in
| the former group can do increasingly very little against
| those in the latter.
|
| The people saying "convince me" don't matter to those
| already using it, whereas in the case of ransom w/ crypto,
| the opposite is becoming more and more true...
|
| People expecting various conflicting laws/jurisdictions
| globally to catch up to this at scale are going to have a
| tough time.
|
| The moral hazards deeply embedded in our centralized nation
| state based monetary systems (and the assumptions built off
| of them) are once again having to compete with private
| money in new forms.
| matthewmarkus wrote:
| The "problem" here is that a market for infrastructure bugs now
| exists. The birth of a market isn't a bad thing, though.
| Furthermore, the market hasn't created the bugs, but exposed
| them! This exposure is a net benefit to society because the
| bugs have value that predates the advent of cryptocurrencies.
| It's just that before cryptocurrencies the value was hidden and
| only unlockable by nation states in times of war. Far better
| for infrastructure to be continuously under attack and
| strengthened via ransomware than to completely collapse in
| battle.
| swiley wrote:
| Ransomware existed before cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency was
| popular to the degree that it was widely abused before
| ransomware became a serious issue. They're related but probably
| not to the degree you think.
| mam3 wrote:
| Independently of how you or I feel about it, crypro enables
| anonymous payment.
|
| This is a feature of anonymous payment not a bug.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I think creating a currency outside the reaches of politicians
| is the point, come what may. That isn't to say ransomware isn't
| bad, there are other obvious ways of stopping ransomware.
|
| The bigger point is that a financial system should not have a
| central authority who can limit access to it. Some
| cryptocurrencies have gone further and built privacy into the
| transactions also.
| lancemurdock wrote:
| car accidents account for 38K deaths a year in the US alone. If
| we ban cars, we'd be saving 38K lives every year. Why do people
| continue driving knowing this statistic?
|
| The conversations around ransomware and climate are both
| slippery slopes. We should be focused on better security to
| prevent attacks as well as facilitating more renewable energy
| instead of stifling innovation.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Is the claim that cryptocurrency is providing a societal
| benefit comparable to the automobile then?
| quanticle wrote:
| Not yet, but it might. Early cars were noisy, slow, finicky
| and far more polluting than cars today. They're only as
| useful as they are today because they were allowed to
| evolve for a hundred and twenty years.
|
| Banning Bitcoin because it's used in cybercrime is
| analogous to banning the Model T because it got used in a
| bank robbery.
| thehappypm wrote:
| It's much more akin to if a competitor to Ford made a car
| with a bank-robbing feature.
| 6foot4_82iq wrote:
| Yes. Ask your average Lebanese or Venezuelan citizen.
| Outside of privileged western states crypto has been a
| massive societal benefit. Crypto will jeopardise the
| monopoly of statists however, which explains the
| coordinated establishment pushback.
|
| https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210331005682/en/Gl
| o...
| lancemurdock wrote:
| some of the biggest plagues on society are rooted in
| central banking policies. If you have ever been upset at
| the amount of money bankers make, markets they've
| manipulated which resulted in tiny fines, or went bankrupt
| and needed bailouts which require printing money which
| devalues all the current dollars you own as well as not
| enforce any reason for them to avoid future bubbles then
| you might be more open to something like Bitcoin and DeFi
| initiatives.
|
| Governments are no better than banks. Both right & left
| admins want bigger government, just in different ways. They
| both print money at obscene rates which is cheapening the
| money you have in your bank account right now.
|
| If cryptocurrency can be a salvation from some of these
| problems then we should 100% be seeing if it can work.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Deflationary currency would be an absolute nightmare for
| everyone except those lucky enough to be holding on to a
| lot of it before it was too valuable.
| lancemurdock wrote:
| Deflationary currency would be a nightmare because some
| cohort would become very wealthy? I am not sure those two
| thoughts are connected.
|
| Deflation is not a bad thing for the end consumer. Our
| purchasing power should be going up over time as
| advancements/efficiencies in technology, shipping,
| healthcare create more for less.
|
| Deflation is "bad" in our current system because we have
| so much debt that isn't backed by much collateral.
| Interest rates rise putting a hold on businesses that
| don't produce much and creates an endless domino effect
| randomopining wrote:
| How is an entity encouraged to take on entrepreneurial
| risk in a deflationary environment?
|
| If you have a lot of capital, it literally gains value by
| just sitting there.
|
| Less incentive to use it.
|
| Only people who benefit are those that have a lot to
| begin with (obtain more value by doing nothing).
| emodendroket wrote:
| That's not what I said, is it? It would be great if you
| happen to have a bunch of Bitcoins. For everyone else it
| would be a nightmare because it would encourage
| disinvestment. Why take a risk when you can literally
| just sit on your money? Loans would also become pretty
| much unfeasible both for business purposes and for
| consumers (hope you can buy a house with cash).
| lancemurdock wrote:
| "Hodling" is certainly part of the culture but it wont be
| as more services get rolled out. Look at the volume on
| exchanges, people move coins around, stake them, or even
| loan them out for APY rates.
|
| Loans would not become unfeasible, but they would be
| extremely reduced to people who can pay them back. That
| encourages healthy financial investment. It also
| encourages business to focus on profitability instead of
| raising the next round.
|
| Whether its Bitcoin/Ethereum/Gold/Silver or something
| else, a thriving financial system must be backed by
| something finite or an extremely controlled and low
| inflation rate. Thats not an opinion, thats a fact. Cash
| or StableCoins could still be issued and backed by
| something like Bitcoin or has its been done in the past
| with Gold.
| emodendroket wrote:
| > Whether its Bitcoin/Ethereum/Gold/Silver or something
| else, a thriving financial system must be backed by
| something finite or an extremely controlled and low
| inflation rate. Thats not an opinion, thats a fact.
|
| I think most people would be surprised to learn that the
| US financial system is "unsuccessful." It certainly
| sounds a lot like your unsubstantiated opinion.
| dnautics wrote:
| > Deflationary currency would be an absolute nightmare
| for everyone except those lucky enough to be holding on
| to a lot of it before it was too valuable.
|
| The era 1870~1910 in the US was deflationary (as was late
| 19th century sweden), hardly characterizable as a
| "nightmare", especially compared to the nightmare that
| immediately preceded it. The world had a brief experiment
| with deflationary currency and it wasn't all terrible, in
| fact one of the two major participants went from "failed
| state" to "global superpower" in that timeframe, even
| while enduring the economic challenges associated with
| freeing its slaves.
| Black101 wrote:
| You are another one of those that want no privacy for anyone...
| Miner49er wrote:
| I don't think you'll ever be able to fully ban cryptocurrency.
|
| Also, I'm not even sure ransomware is a net bad thing in the
| first place. It encourages better security and makes companies
| less likely to store my private information.
| thehappypm wrote:
| If the G7 banned crypto trading, even if ransomware hackers
| wanted to be paid in crypto, companies would be unable to do
| so without breaking the law, which would be untenable. The
| bottom would fall out. Yes, people in other countries could
| do it, but without major economies pumping in value, they're
| more of a curiosity. Which, maybe would be better.
| zarzavat wrote:
| You don't need to ban crypto trading for that, you can just
| criminalize paying ransoms.
| emodendroket wrote:
| You don't have to; it's only valuable because you can legally
| change it for real currency.
| Pmop wrote:
| And the cryptocurrency problem is a central banking problem.
| Therefore, we should eliminate central banks.
| [deleted]
| alecst wrote:
| Is it possible to ban cryptocurrency traffic in general? How
| would that even work?
| Black101 wrote:
| the government could block the whole internet tomorrow if they
| wanted to.... because weapons.
| verdverm wrote:
| You ban it at the point of interaction with the existing
| financial system. You don't have to ban or block the
| technology.
|
| A gov't can (has) made it illegal to mine or hold them as well.
| Most people won't and the value will evaporate if there is no
| market
| coolspot wrote:
| Same way as currently botnet command center IPs are blackholed.
|
| Scan the Internet for any BTC/Ethereum open ports and blackhole
| them.
|
| Also, some ISPs disconnect users upon detection of BitTorrent
| traffic.
| mediaman wrote:
| You can make it illegal to transact crypto. That would
| devastate the price and ruin it as a currency. The network
| would still exist, but it'd be useless as a medium for criminal
| payments due to the low value.
| J5892 wrote:
| Bitcoin was wildly popular on darknet markets even when it
| was worth less than $10. It's still tied to a dollar value,
| so it can be used for payments without issue.
| endisneigh wrote:
| When Bitcoin was worth less than $10 how difficult was it
| to change your bitcoin into cash?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Way back in the early days before exchanges, you
| literally bought and sold them on forums using bootleg
| paypal ripoffs (since paypal didn't recognize virtual
| money = buyers could refund)
|
| I put off my 20,000 BTC purchase because it was so
| sketchy.
| px43 wrote:
| That is exactly as dumb as trying to make the internet
| illegal. It would financially ruin any country who tried it
| and give a significant advantage to everyone else on the
| planet.
| danaris wrote:
| ....That is an extraordinary claim, and thus requires
| extraordinary evidence.
|
| There is no significant legitimate commerce taking place
| using cryptocurrency. By what mechanism would banning
| converting BTC to USD "financially ruin" the US?
| thehappypm wrote:
| It would certainly be bad for ransomware companies, who
| probably make up a substantial portion of GDP in some
| dark corner of the world. Think of their children!
| mediaman wrote:
| What evidence is available that crypto is so essential to
| the national economy that it would cause financial ruin?
|
| Just last month, China banned the use of crypto by any
| financial institution. Are you suggesting this will ruin
| their economy?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Low value won't change its criminal utility. A criminal
| looking for a $50k ransomware payment doesn't care if the
| market cap is $50M or $50B.
|
| Outlawing it will make a difference though since it'll make
| it less likely that victims will pay, meaning the endeavor
| has a lower success rate.
| wetjen wrote:
| Maybe. Let's say you can, for example, purchase a cruise
| missile strike in crypto. Once a few cruise missiles land
| in LA I imagine the world governments will take a more
| aggressive stance on crypto. Drone strikes and military
| intervention will follow.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This misses a big point though. If Corporation A needs to
| pay $1M in crypto to Hacker B, Corporation A needs to
| acquire $1M in crypto (whether that's 20 BTC or 20,000). If
| it's illegal for them to acquire the crypto they can't make
| the payment. The bottom falls out.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Aren't they already "illegally" making the payments via
| some 3rd party loophole?
| fighterpilot wrote:
| That's what I said in my second paragraph. The illegality
| itself is what will work. The market value is irrelevant
| verdverm wrote:
| Indeed, and since attackers are now on notice from the US
| Govt, they might reconsider these types of attacks
| J5892 wrote:
| 1. No.
|
| 2. It wouldn't.
| wetjen wrote:
| The same way any other statue works. "No person shall convert,
| convey or tender in any currency not approved by the Department
| Of Treasury under penalty of ...".
|
| Once violence on main street can be bought with crypto a ban
| will soon follow.
| blhack wrote:
| I think that what you're seeing is HNers, and techies in general
| not really understanding that there is a world that exists well
| outside of their bubble of technology.
|
| Bitcoin did not create the concept of ransom. It didn't even
| create the concept of ransom as a business model for organized
| crime.
|
| See for instance our neighbor to the south:
| https://www.vox.com/2018/5/11/17276638/mexico-kidnappings-cr...
|
| This is such a common thing, that it has been the central plot of
| several hollywood movies.
|
| There are even insurance policies that you can get for it:
| https://www.mexipass.com/mexico-commercial-insurance/special...
|
| This is also common in the shipping industry:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/somalia-piracy/somali-pirate...
|
| And _that_ type of ransoming has had hollywood movies made about
| it.
|
| And again _that_ type of ransoming is common enough to have its
| own insurance: https://www.marineinsight.com/marine-piracy-
| marine/marine-in...
|
| Should we ban shipping? Or ban the internet?
|
| Probably not.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Should we ban shipping?
|
| Shipping is pretty useful, though. What are the other major
| uses for Bitcoin?
| Mc_Big_G wrote:
| Ask someone in a country whose currency has been debased.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Those people end up hoarding stable currencies like USD
| today, how is BTC any better?
| blhack wrote:
| I don't really know how to ask this question without it
| sounding insulting, but: do you agree that currency itself is
| useful?
|
| And then the broader question is: do you agree that financial
| instruments are useful?
|
| It seems odd to me that there are so many people on HN who
| don't seem to understand the importance of finance. You are
| literally posting on the website of a _venture capital firm_.
| mcphage wrote:
| > do you agree that currency itself is useful?
|
| Currency itself is useful, but has existed a lot longer
| than Bitcoin. If we're trying to evaluate the utility of
| some new thing, merely the fact that it's another kind of
| currency really doesn't get you much. Ocean Shipping on the
| other hand gets you a lot of things that other kind of
| shipping don't get you.
| px43 wrote:
| Sending money over the internet.
|
| If you don't understand why that's an critical utility for
| billions of people on this planet, then you're not worth
| arguing with.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Crypto is one tool for sending money over the internet, but
| it's hardly the only one, and it's far from the best. Most
| transaction utilities don't have potential for your
| transfer to lose 30% overnight.
| px43 wrote:
| Have you invented a magical currency that always retains
| its value? If so you should probabally let the world
| know.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I use the wonderfully stable US dollar.
| grumple wrote:
| Sending money over the internet is faster and safer using
| methods that existed before bitcoin (sending via banks /
| paypal / venmo / cashapp / etc). Crypto does not enable
| this.
| px43 wrote:
| None of those services actually let you send money over
| the internet. All of them are custodial. You give them
| your money, they hold onto it, and when they feel like
| it, they might let you interact with other users within
| their closed ecosystems.
| grumple wrote:
| That is a distinction without a difference and a
| nonsensical one at that. I have money in my bank account
| and it goes to someone else's bank account.
|
| The same is true for Bitcoin anyway - you have to use
| exchanges to get money in/out and you are completely
| dependent on strangers to process your transactions, and
| they cost far more. Sure you can have your own wallet but
| it's entirely useless until you interact with an exchange
| and the network.
| mcphage wrote:
| > Sending money over the internet.
|
| > If you don't understand why that's an critical utility
| for billions of people on this planet, then you're not
| worth arguing with.
|
| Are you aware that there are other ways to send money over
| the internet than Bitcoin?
| Dah00n wrote:
| In the long run? Maybe destroying the petro dollar. One can
| dream.
| grumple wrote:
| This doesn't make sense to me. Are you opposed to people
| paying for oil, or the influence of oil? Because that still
| exists whether they are paying with dollars or crypto, and
| will exist no matter what currency is used.
| beloch wrote:
| Ordinary people use shipping and the internet every day. They
| do not use bitcoin.
|
| This article points out that, the last time a similar wave of
| crime occurred, the way it was defeated was by targeting the
| banks where the money changes hands.
|
| It is _because_ cryptocurrencies do not currently function as
| usable currencies that the same trick could work again. If
| governments pass regulations making it illegal for financial
| institutions to process cryptocurrency transactions, companies
| /hackers will have no way to convert real money to and from
| bitcoin ransoms. Companies can't simply gather up bitcoin paid
| to them by their customers, because almost nobody uses bitcoin
| as an actual currency. The ransomers won't be able to spend
| their bitcoin on groceries and vodka because almost nobody uses
| bitcoin as an actual currency. Both parties need financial
| institutions to make the transaction work.
|
| Cryptocurrencies need to achieve real-world, everyday, legal
| usefulness _fast_ or they 're going to be strangled in their
| cradle by this. If the cost is massive amounts of energy use
| and billions of dollars of criminal damage annually, the
| benefit has to be more than providing a shell-game for finance
| gamblers and purely hypothetical future benefits.
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