Dozens of Bomb Threats Reported Across America In Apparent Bitcoin Ransom Scam (gizmodo.com) 63
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: On Wednesday afternoon, a wave of bomb threats were reported at various locations across the United States. On social media, numerous law enforcement departments issued alerts notifying citizens that they're looking into bomb threats targeting businesses, schools, government offices and even private residents. It appears the threats are being sent by email. NBC News said "dozens" of threats had been reported, but the full extent of these threats is not yet clear. A number of news organizations and law enforcement agencies report remarkably similar sounding emails mentioning a bitcoin ransom of $20,000. And some Twitter users have shared emails they've received demanding the cryptocurrency and warning that an explosion would only encourage others to pay up. NBC News quoted the NYPD's Counterterrorism Bureau's brief statement on the investigation: "We are currently monitoring multiple bomb threats that have been sent electronically to various locations throughout the city. These threats are also being reported to other locations nationwide and are not considered credible at this time."
Re: Dipshit Donnie? (Score:1)
NPC typing detected.
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With this type of crime, there's no country in the world that wants to harbor the terrorist. If not extradited, they'll be punished locally.
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While this is a little more dramatic, it is not all that different from common types of scam mails that have been going out for decades.
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You have to be pretty fucking stupid to ask for Bitcoin as ransom, since they can be tracked and traced perfectly, forever.
Quite so. You'd think that the feds would be ready to pounce on any coin redeemed for cash and are right now tracing down all transactions attached to the wallet associated with the ransom demands, if there are any.
The Orange Asshole has been losing his mind on Twitter, trying to distract the planet from the seemingly endless parade of his cohorts going to prison. Is it possible Dipshit Donnie did it? Who else is that stupid and has as much of a motive? At this point, it wouldn't surprise me.
Well, All I can say is why would he bother? There are PLENTY of ways to "wag the dog" if he wanted should the Twitter ranting not be enough distraction for him.
By the way... Having dodgy friends is no crime in and of itself and the US Constitution makes it clear that "guilt by association" isn'
Re:Dipshit Donnie? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Quite so. You'd think that the feds would be ready to pounce on any coin redeemed for cash" - Derp, lol. What's your basis for thinking that?
Also ledgers are fairly fucking simple to distribute, sell, disseminate, sit on indefinitely... so there's that. They could probably spend all of it paying 3rd parties for services and no one would know for years.
Sir, the block chain is not private and ALL transactions in BitCoin are publicly recorded. So, yea, you may sit on an illegally obtained Coin all you want, but it's worthless until you trade it for something of value. Once you attempt to transfer ownership, it pops up in the block chain, bells go off over at the Feds and a host of agents start investigating who the new owner of the coin is so they can ask them who they got the funds from. So, sitting on it is pointless, your best bet is to TRADE it sooner rather than later, get your value out of it before the Feds can set up to spring the trap with your ill gotten gains as the bait.
""It is not a crime to hire a bad lawyer." - However, if you provably enter into a crime with that lawyer, not only is he going to prison (did) but so are you, and without any 5th Amendment protections in that relationship.
Oh you DO understand that you have to really read a lot of stuff between the lines here. I'd like to know what you think the "provable crime" here might have been here. Hiring Cohen to "fix" situations by paying women for their silence isn't illegal in and of itself. This kind of thing happens all the time and apparently this isn't a new thing for Trump either. He paid Karen McDougal and even purchased an unflattering news story about that well in advance of his running for president. It's important that you understand that this is SOP for Trump and has been for years before the election, that this was his standard practice.
The question then becomes not about the legality of the agreements with the women, but the question of if paying the money was a campaign finance violation, and if so, by who? Well, Mueller claims that the Trump organization (his business) actually paid these expenses, in fact he claims they tried to hide these payments, burying it in creative accounting, but that too was their standard practice (i.e. not done for campaign reasons). Then there is the audio recording where Trump "ordered" Cohen to pay Daniels, where he arguably is offering to cut Cohen a check which Cohen seems to refuse. I don't think this is Trump ordering Cohen to violate campaign finance law at all...
Cohen may indeed be guilty of a campaign finance violation depending on how he views the payments, but that's on him, not Trump. If Trump was ordering the payments for other reasons (as in it's how he handles these things as evidenced by his past actions) then it's not a campaign finance issue at all. Further, if Trump ordered and PAYED the money to Cohen (which again he could easily argue given the fees he was paying) it is not a campaign finance violation for any of them including Cohen, despite of his guilty plea otherwise.
I'm telling you that you need to be patient and see what the whole body of evidence shows here. There are fundamental questions which simply must be answered and specific points which must be proven or this is going to end totally different than you assume.
Re: Dipshit Donnie? (Score:1)
Just because something is legal doesn't make it right, and that's the part that bothers me.
I come from a conservative background and my family and friends used to criticize him when he was in the news or in the tabloids back in the 80s and 90s. Now they worship him and look up to him like he's some sort of saint.
A lot of times when I bring that up they echo what you're saying "Thats not illegal" or "That's in the past..." That is entirely true and Trump is innocent until proven guilty, but it shows a lac
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Just because something is legal doesn't make it right, and that's the part that bothers me.
So, unethical but otherwise legal behavior is worth of THIS kind of coverage and threats of impeachment?
Look, we ALL knew what kind of guy Trump was BEFORE he was elected, even before he dreamed of running for office. This continued harping on him and unending investigating him and anybody who has the misfortune of being associated with him is crazy, in a partisan sort of way..
Re: Dipshit Donnie? (Score:1)
Actually, it is a crime to hire a bad lawyer.
Legal competence is a required state of the professional obligations and since Trump testified under oath that he hired the best people, he committed fraud and perjury or he knowingly induced his attorney to commit criminal acts on his behalf.
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Or as Rudy puts it, "It is not a crime to hire a bad lawyer."
As a bad lawyer, he should know.
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an eual in a ransom note? (Score:2)
an eual in a ransom note?
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More bad press about crypto currency, pushing us even closer to regulation to destroy any anonymous funds.
No regulation is needed, and by crypto's very nature it wouldn't work anyway. Although crypto was originally designed to be money, it has become so inconvenient to use this way that literally its only currency application is to pay ransoms.
Mene mene tekel upharsin. (Score:2)
Or idiomatically translated: You have been weighed and the tally has come up short, in the estimation of the foreigners.
Didn't even get paid (Score:5, Informative)
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This is what a panicked (Score:2)
It is also the kind of fear mongering spam that is mostly avoided because it draws way too much attention towards the fraudster.
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Right? Looks like a pump and dump... encourage a TON of people to buy bitcoin, so the value rises, then you dump your holdings! Nailed it!
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Bitcoin is becoming linked with more and more criminal activity, you know exactly what will happen in the end, the more crime Bitcoin becomes associated with the sooner pressure will mount to ban it.
Also happened in Canada today (Score:2)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/bomb-threat-hoax-canada-cities-1.4945170
Re: Also happened in Canada today (Score:1)
Yeah in Canadian news it was labeled as "thousands of bomb reports from Alaska to Florida including many major cities in Canada and the US." Even subway stations and airports were evacuated in Canada because of this.
What I'd be curious is what's with that domain name this bomb hoax guy was using in the reported screenshots. Like @whentheworldends.com or some shit. Anyone whois and nslookup this stuff? I haven't been at my workstation all day yet.
pop quiz hot shot (Score:1)
what do you do?
I received one - it was serious! (Score:4, Funny)
Those notes (Score:3, Insightful)
Those notes had Nigeria written all over them.
Well no they had a threat and a demand for BTC written all over them, but you get what I mean...
I Received Several Like This One (Score:1)
Hello. My recruited person has hidden the explosive device (lead azide) in the building where your company is located. It was assembled under my direction. It is small and it is covered up very carefully, it is impossible to damage the structure of the building by my explosive device, but in the case of its detonation you will get many victims.
My man keeps the building under the control. If he notices any unnatural behavior or policemen the device will be exploded.
I can withdraw my recruited person if you make a transfer. You transfer me 20'000 usd in Bitcoin and the device will not explode, but do not try to fool me -I assure you that I will call off my mercenary solely after 3 confirmations in blockchain network.
My payment details (Bitcoin address)- 1LVZqNEUHnhGxZ2qgJApd3qbHWZtpMhkAo
You have to pay me by the end of the workday, if the working day is over and people start leaving the building the device will explode.
Nothing personal, if you don’t transfer me the money and a bomb detonates, other companies will pay me a lot more, because it isnt a one-time action.
For my safety, I wont enter this email account. I monitor my address every twenty five min and after seeing the payment I will order my person to leave your district.
If the explosive device explodes and the authorities see this email:
We arent terrorists and do not assume responsibility for acts of terrorism in other buildings.
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If I recall correctly, this isn't a new thing at all. I vaguely remember these sorts of emails being sent out several years ago.
However, this sounds a lot more like some Johnny-come-latey has heard of the fabulous sums being reaped by the porn extortion racket (yeah, right) and has decided to try a new angle on the scam. Given how sensitive the powers that be are to terrorism these days, and given how brutal the likes of China and Russia can be if they have a point to make and a worthless moron to make it w
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Yeah... I looked at half a dozen or so examples yesterday. For anyone who has examined as many of those "I recorded a video of what you were doing while watching those naughty videos" extortion spams as I have, these look extremely familiar. They have that guy's fingerprints all over them.
A few days ago, I heard a story that US investigators had tracked down the identity of the person doing those previous extortion spams, he was Russian, but Russia refused to extradite. Maybe they will extradite now.
Bett
I got one of these today. (Score:4, Interesting)
My first bomb threat! The ransom was typed as $20.00 in BTC, not 20000.00. He also said it was just business, and he was not responsible for any property damage. It was an entertaining read, the whole office got a kick out of it, and talk of involving the FIB just led to stories about how the cops never do anything anyway, may find a way to pin it on you for making the call, and if we're gonna waste time at work, we don't need no fed telling us how.
Email was spoofed or compromised from some used car salesmen in Boise, ID. I'm sure it's gonna be an entertaining morning for that dude.
AT LAST: (Score:4, Funny)
Someone has found a use case for Bitcoin