US Presses Crypto Exchanges To Block Ransomware Profits (bloomberg.com) 28
The Justice Department is creating a new team to investigate and prevent hackers from using cryptocurrency exchanges to remain anonymous while extorting money from victims of their attacks, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Wednesday. From a report: The main goal of the new enforcement team is to take down the infrastructure and "criminal supply chain" that allows hackers to carry out ransomware attacks in which victims' data is frozen until they pay a ransom, Monaco said. "Cryptocurrency exchanges want to be the banks of the future," Monaco told the Aspen Cyber Summit. "We need to make sure that folks can have confidence when they use these systems."
#Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
Where are the tags when you need them?
Cryptocurrency exchanges should've never been allowed to exist for this long. It's a ridiculous farce to have a huge international anti-money-laundering and sanctions system while people can casually saunter around them with cryptocurrencies, and this is why ransomware went from a rare oddity to a 9-digit industry crippling critical infrastructure. Outlawing the exchange of cryptocurrencies will set things back to how they were, with the pleasant side-effects of dismantling all sorts of criminal finance.
Re:#Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:5, Interesting)
The insanity is about to level up. You know all those Bitcoin ATMs that are being installed all over the U.S.? The phone scammers have begun to direct their victims to them.
I just saw a post on Nextdoor where some scammers tried the "you missed jury duty and the police are going to arrest you" scam, except that instead of telling their would-be victim to buy gift cards to pay the "fine", they directed her to what they called a "federal kiosk", i.e. a Bitcoin ATM.
She didn't fall for it, but other victims have been duped. It's only going to get worse.
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Ah but on the bright side when we go, "I bet you will not do this", the losers can now easily pay it off.
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How is that any different than asking for prepaid Visa card numbers? You want to ban those too?
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Still waiting for that crash that the financial wizards of slashdot have been predicting for a decade now...
Still waiting for bitcoin to hit $100K like the bitcoin bros [urbandictionary.com] have been promising everyone for years now...
Re: #Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:2)
How is that any different than asking for prepaid Visa card numbers? You want to ban those too?
Because those can be cancelled easily and instantly; and are still much more traceable than Cryptocurrency.
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Bitcoin is traceable. That is the entire point.
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Bitcoin is completely traceable*
*you can see where the coins go, split, twice, and do the hula-hula but private wallets remain private and are relatively trivial to protect the anonymity of. Your main risk is using it to purchase something identifiable or in an identifiable way before the money is hopelessly mixed and effectively washed.
Scammers might be stupid enough, but each transaction is generally small and not worth the resources to chase. Large scale ransomware is unlikely to be that naïve abo
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Bitcoin is traceable. That is the entire point.
Sure it is (rollseyes)
Tell me another bedtime story, daddy!
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Because those can be cancelled easily and instantly
That does not make them any more resistant to being used by scammers than Bitcoins. By the time the number gets "instantly cancelled" - the scammer's already withdrawn the funds.
If anything, the Prepaid / Gift card industry could learn something from the Bitcoin exchange industry --- Introduce a waiting period before funds from a newly activated gift card could be spent, similar to the Bitcoin wait for "3 Transaction confirmations" - I.E. Require
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How are they different than futures trading?
It's also hilarious to see this place advocating to make software illegal. I'm sure banning crypto will work about as well as stopping software and media piracy.
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I’m flattered you took much time from your day to think about me!
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How are they different than futures trading?
Futures can't be traded internationally in untraceable ways for one thing.
It's also hilarious to see this place advocating to make software illegal.
I'm not advocating for making software illegal, I'm advocating for making the exchange of untraceable computer data for money, goods or services illegal. The art world was bad enough for creating arguably valueless money laundering tokens already, cryptocurrencies cranking them out by the zillions has just made the problem vastly worse.
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Bitcoin was designed to be traceable...
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Oh har har. Everyone knows there are plenty of ways around that, from good pseudonymity to coin tumblers to exchanges through cryptocurrencies designed to be untraceable.
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Pretty good FP, though I doubt anything can be done to encourage "constructive" discussion on any topic related to cryptocurrencies. It's a "no common sense" zone where reasoned discussion is not allowed. Or you could word it as incommensurable premises?
The cryptocurrency speculators are hardcore gamblers insisting they can beat the house. At least that seems to be true for all of the ones with track records (and most of the track records were proven bad, too). Most of them seem to have gold rush mentality,
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When I want to make private payments I use cash. Good for buying weed, not so practical for paying ransoms or buying ICBM launchers. We can accomodate personal privacy for ordinary people and enable small-scale civil disobedience without enabling large-scale criminal finance.
There are also lots of people who would support individual firearms ownership with various levels of restrictions who would largely agree that few to no people should have access to nuclear bombs.
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How about we just outlaw paying ransoms? Ah, sorry, that would simply solve the problem, and it's BAD.
It is already illegal to pay ransoms in many jurisdictions and has proven to do approximately jack shit to solve the problem. Nobody has to know you paid a ransom if it's paid in untraceable cryptocurrency. On the other hand, if it's not legal to use the means needed to pay the ransom, it's a lot harder to use that service in the first place.
Signed, every oppressive government on the planet.
Some things that hurt oppressive governments also hurt everyone else. But unlike relatively benign democracies, many oppressive governments have actually profited hands
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Not sure if this counts as 1 or 50, but how about the entire USA? Making payments to certain ransomware organizations including the who's-who of state backed-attackers would be a sanctions violation:
https://www.securitymagazine.c... [securitymagazine.com]
Canada has similar laws:
https://www.mondaq.com/canada/... [mondaq.com]
Penalties for this type of violation would be somewhere between mid-range sports car to low-end supercar money, which should be enough to dissuade the usual 5~6-digit ransoms but hasn't:
https://complyadvantage.com/kn... [complyadvantage.com]
defi (Score:2)
Since money laundering is what they are for (Score:2)
Laundering the money should provide no surprise.