The long-held understanding among security researchers and network defenders is that it's impossible to negotiate in good faith with an extortion racket because there's no incentive for the other side to actually walk away.
Paying a ransom doesn’t buy trust: It buys hope from people who have already proven they’re willing to extort you! If criminals learn that victims pay, asking for a second ransom isn’t a betrayal of the deal. It’s just the next logical business decision. 🤷
Edit: go ahead and downvote me all you want but mark my words - in 1 to 3 months this account is going to switch to shilling the online marketing strategy consulting website it’s already heavily advertising in its profile. The website is literally promoting marketing bots pretending to be real people to sell you stuff.
Unlike you, I always speak openly under my own name. Unlike you, I don’t run an army of sock puppets. Unlike you, I’ve been active on the Web and Fediverse for decades. Unlike you, I’m not a block warden. Go and troll somewhere else. Bye! 👋
“Hey ChatGPT, generate me an epic roast of this guy that wouldn’t be out of place if it were in a Neopets forum in 2005. Include a stupid emoji at the end too.”
FWIW I had to pay the ransom once and it worked fine they gave the password over and even bargained the price down and also fucked up because crypto fees so didn’t have the ability to send the actual full amount and they were chill.
Minus the whole being held for ransom they were probably more consumer friendly than the average large corporation.
Their income is based on trust: that their target trusts them to keep their end of the bargain when paid. Without that trust, there’s no reason to pay them or engage at all other than to try to trap them.
Paying a ransom doesn’t buy trust: It buys hope from people who have already proven they’re willing to extort you! If criminals learn that victims pay, asking for a second ransom isn’t a betrayal of the deal. It’s just the next logical business decision. 🤷
“It’s not X it’s Y” LLM slop BS.
Comment history is full of similar chatgpt slop.
Edit: go ahead and downvote me all you want but mark my words - in 1 to 3 months this account is going to switch to shilling the online marketing strategy consulting website it’s already heavily advertising in its profile. The website is literally promoting marketing bots pretending to be real people to sell you stuff.
Unlike you, I always speak openly under my own name. Unlike you, I don’t run an army of sock puppets. Unlike you, I’ve been active on the Web and Fediverse for decades. Unlike you, I’m not a block warden. Go and troll somewhere else. Bye! 👋
“Hey ChatGPT, generate me an epic roast of this guy that wouldn’t be out of place if it were in a Neopets forum in 2005. Include a stupid emoji at the end too.”
“I always speak openly under my own name”
Has generic, anonymous username
“I’ve been on the fediverse for decades”
Account is 11 days old and the fediverse hasn’t even existed for a fraction of that time.
I‘ve been on identi.ca back in 2008. What about you? 🤷
Oh yeah, I started on there myself back in 1892 when the server was powered by steam engines.
FWIW I had to pay the ransom once and it worked fine they gave the password over and even bargained the price down and also fucked up because crypto fees so didn’t have the ability to send the actual full amount and they were chill.
Minus the whole being held for ransom they were probably more consumer friendly than the average large corporation.
Their income is based on trust: that their target trusts them to keep their end of the bargain when paid. Without that trust, there’s no reason to pay them or engage at all other than to try to trap them.
Lucky you!
The hackers might as well start charging a monthly recurring subscription
Or increasing the ransom…If they’ll give me a million, they’ll give me 2.