Bitcoin Forum

Here we go, Bitcoin to stratospheric prices and general public adoption due to the need to get their data back.

What we need now is an app that lets people automatically pay their ransomware taxes.

So what is ransomware?

(I shouldn't have to google it since you brought it up and want to discuss it.)

It is real simple.  You start with a virus, that virus locked and encrypts the entire computer giving access to nothing but a windows stating to send X BTC to an address to get back into the computer.

Ok, thanks!

The OP's comments are a tad confusing still. He/she implies that the rise of bitcoin price and adoption is due to ransomware existing...which obviously wouldn't be true.

BUT, there is an app that allows you to pay your ransomware taxes! It's called PayPal...I think you can even set up automatic recurring payments!

It does pump up the price if the users are willing to pay Bitcoin to restore their access to the files which isn't guaranteed. Most won't however and this just creates the mentality in the public that Bitcoin is used by criminal and would be illegal soon. It hinders the adoption rates by a lot. Cryptolocker was a success for the attacker however. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker#Money_paid)

Ransomware cannot be a good thing for bitcoin.  Why are you trying to hype something that can potentially damage the community?

According to one my search ransomware is "a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid."

I don't understand what the OP does it mean with him's main post but if it is a game of words it is a not good one. Anyhow my understand is that he want a ransomware to steal the money to the others through this malicious software. This steal of money he call tax that the others must pay to him. He think to be smart and superior in proposing such things openly but for sure suffer from delirium and for being lonely. This him's situation, he want to compensate with such things and such posts. I wanted to tell him only one question: what if the people to whom he will sent him's randsomware have no idea what is bitcoin what it will be its behavior? Will him unlock the computer of the victim? Then it will feel better after steal the bitcoin to someone which will be obligated to pay its "tax"? And at the end. If someone will send to him an randsomware and buckle him to give all its bitcoins what will happen to him? Will jump from one windows from the 14th floor of a high building?

Ransomwares are viruses that automatically locks the user account and demands the payment of Bitcoins from the victim in exchange for decryption keys. The most popular one is probably cryptolocker. There are reports of it not getting unlocked. The operator would have some knowledge of the mechanics of Bitcoin for them to code this program or even use it. There is a central servers with all the keys. It will be sent if the payments is done.

It's a virus that encrypts your whole PC and the virus send the password to remove it to the server
You have few hours to pay for it and if you don't the password  on the server will be deleted and you will lose access to your files :(

What makes Ransomware interesting is that the fact when the virus detected someone tried to look into the programming code of the virus, it will delete the password files on the server as well ::)

here's the image of the ransomware itself
https://blog.malwarebytes.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/cryptolocker.png

I think this virus is detectable by most of the antivirus, so keep your antivirus open folks ;)

What we need is something to stop Cryptowall or any other cybercriminals like them, making an app for people to pay their ransom won't get bitcoin anywhere.

Including anonymity into BTC s such a bad decision. Useless trait which only helps criminals and scammers. Now we need a really good legislation to find a way around it.

Anonymity isn't always bad. It helps to deter the tracking attempts of governments and increase the privacy of the user. Decentralisation and anonymity does come together in the package. If you include one, you have to include the other.

because they cannot be stopped anyway, so let's just do it our friend, and do an app, that maybe can increase the btc awareness

everythign that could help bitcoin grow is well accepted, also the fault jhere is not in bitcoin as usual, but on who is downloading an running the virus

It's like in creating an app, we are indirectly supporting these type of activities, which is unhealthy for bitcoin's growth. Best thing to do is raise awareness against ransomwares and advise everybody not to download or click a link without having some scan.

a $50 crypter from hf will make it undetectable

Who in their right mind wants to advocate Ransomware as a tool to increase adoption? Do you really think people will start using Bitcoin, if they had to go through all that stress to

get their information hijacked and then to be forced to pay for their own data to be encrypted? I would hate Bitcoin if that happened to me. How many people has lost their data

and valuable pictures of their family and friends because of this. I make daily backups of my value data on DVD's and CD's because of this nonsense... because any other re-writable

media is useless, because it can be infected too. Please do not advocate or support this nonsense.... We do not need this kind of thing to increase adoption.  >:(  ... It's like holding

a gun to people's head and forcing them to adopt Bitcoin. Ridiculous concept.  :o

Affiliating bitcoin with such things is the last thing bitcoin needs right now. When already a lot of people know about it and are investing, why would we want to be associated
with any mallware ?! .  The only people that ransomware softwares are attracting are criminals, doubt any victim of it would want to have anything to do with it.

Well i found that Kaspersky is offering free service about this case
It is a website for this and who is victim please visit it as it is RANSOMWARE DECRYPTOR
The ransomware authors are arrested and all existing keys have been added to our database.

https://noransom.kaspersky.com/

October 28 update: ALL Coinvault and Bitcryptor keys (14k+) added to the database
April 29 update: 13 decryption keys added to the database
April 17 update: 711 decryption keys added to the database

Ransomware will make people passionately hate bitcoin and forever associate it with crime. OP needs to explain themselves.

I guess OP is trolling right?
Because I can not believe he is really serious that ransomware can be anything good for Bitcoin.

Exactly this. If we would start developing applications like this, this would give regulators all the rights to ban us completely.

This is a very stupid idea! Let people use Bitcoin as they wish but don't encourage them in this way or another for what and how to use it.

There are many variants of this malware and anti viruses are not so accurate. Based on this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker#Mitigation), the behavior is no different from legit programs till it encrypts the files. Many viruses do not get detected by antiviruses as there are many crypters out in the market which uses a stub and merge it with the virus for it to deter antivirus detections.

By this bitcoin is becoming popular and famous in the black way. [not good]
Since its advertised by thiefs, hackers this is bad for bitcoin.
The hacker couldn't accept paypal because we know the chargebacks and what information needs paypal.

In my opinion ramsonware is very bad for bitcoin, it could increse price of bitcoin if lot of people want to restore its documents, but these users will not see bitcoin as a good payment system. We need good news related with bitcoins, not bad publicity like hackers stoling your money.

Another bad thing for these people is that if they want to buy bitcoins.
If they start/want to buy bitcoin they will look for an exchange then they are required to submit government documents.
And i think that this makes people more afraid to purchase bitcoin, but yeah the price normally should increase but not to much.

Are you so sure about that? According to the FBI 1% of ransomware victims pay it. So, if there are 10 million victims, then there would be 100,000 new bitcoin users. That is quite a lot of buying activity. According to the FBI they have received ransomware complaints totaling $18 million dollars. One estimate of how much the hackers are making is as much as $300 million. That is $300 million in bitcoin purchases.

No way this is good for bitcoin long term.. Sure, some people buying a few bitcoin bumps price, but the effect is so minor to the general negative publicity.

I'd rather see no ransomware floating around.

Around 1.3 percent based on this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CryptoLocker#Money_paid). Its actually more like 3 million. It doesn't feel right to make people use Bitcoin for ransom. It doesn't make sense at all. You are literally only attracting people to buy Bitcoin and use it once, never again and wouldn't trust that it's a good thing to use it. IMO, it's much better to attract long term users.

Not really.
For people to get into Bitcoin and regularly use it, they should be able to have a good and smooth experience, not the opposite.

Well that's really bad for these people, they had no other choices.
But kaspersky is offering their free service to scan and decrypt these files.
About the price maybe it can be increased but after these people buy bitcoin they will never get back to use bitcoin.

Ransomware doesn't only use Bitcoin for ransom payments, it uses other electronic money systems. PCworld says the victims of the TeslaCrypt virus paid in PayPal My Cash cards, and Bitcoins. Other viruses only accepted Money Pak and PayPal My Cash. Ransomware will use other electronic payment systems besides Bitcoin and taint their reputations too.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2923532/in-desperation-many-ransomware-victims-plead-with-attackers.html

I'm sorry but saying that Ransomware is the best thing that ever happened to Bitcoin is just inaccurate.
Ransomware is one of the more scummy ways to scam people and for that to be associated with Bitcoin can never be a good thing.

i actually got the cryptowall virus couple months ago. it locked up all my documents like docx,txt,png,jpeg,pdf and all those file formats. it doesnt really affect your windows though, only encrypts your information files. i didnt have many important files so i decided not to pay the $500 ransom and just reinstalled windows :(.

Sure that is good. Like Silk Road. And like the actual other Silk Roads which are active and not yet closed by the Authorities. I wanted to see you if your son, or daughter, or you wife, or your brother or sister are users of such kind of sites, buy and use the pure drugs sell by those only with bitcoin (and this make good to bitcoin), or are victims of your ransomware and must pay the amount of money equal the value of your home. I want to see you if you will be victim of ransomware and the request made to you put you in a debt which must make you to work all the life to pay the "tax" you will be tighten to pay to the owners of ransmoware. And after all to show you my quoted (your) post in order that you finally understand how idiot you are. Bah, even this word is very few for you...

I don't think it can be considered adoption in any way. It's traumatic for the people who are victims to it, then they have to undergo the utter grind of obtaining coins which is not super straightforward in a lot of places. They won't be coming back for more any time soon.

AFAIK, those were mostly from the cryptolocker and the servers was cracked after a relatively long time. Those who require a document urgently would have no choice but to pay. Those keys were available because of the seizure of the central command server.
Bitcoin is anonymous which is optimal for such activities. For those payment processors, they have existed for a relatively long time and governments have regulations for them. It does not taint the reputation of those as much as Bitcoin's, where most governments does not take a stance to regulate it.

Some years ago, I frequently saw spam promoting pyramid schemes, which were heavily involving PayPal, and it was usually advertised with titles such as Make Money On PayPal! (http://"http://paypalfreemoneys.blogspot.de/2007/11/make-money-on-paypal.html").

Before Bitcoin, and probably even now, PayPal and other payment services such as WebMoney, UKash or PaySafeCard, were often associated with cybercrime, for example in the context of selling stolen credit cards.

I also remember that there were somewhat similar scams like CryptoLocker, though less sophisticated, and in the style of "you are infected! you must pay now", which heavily used PayPal and friends.

However, I've never seen any outcries to ban PayPal, UKash or PaySafeCards as consequence of these scams.

While this might be considered as anecdotal evidence, my point is basically:

You're probably exaggerating, because you're "scared" of the possibility someone may think bad about Bitcoin, but I wouldn't be surprised, if a "regular person" (i.e. a non-Bitcoiner) doesn't even create the link "bitcoin == bad, because scam".

He is I assume because ransomware just spreads hate about bitcoin and even though it is not yet stoppable I am sure it'll get picked up by antiviruses soon, the best things users can do is take backups of their important stuff in the computer, so if any such viruses do enter, you'd only need to wipe the OS clean, restore your backup and start again, no need to pay any ransom.

I think there was something like this 4 months back but it was an antivirus on your computer.
It was called Hyperantivirus. They claimed to pay you money and btc if you installed and ran their antivirus program. I think it had a timebomb and would hold your computer's data for ransom. It did, infact , have access to your all your files as it was designed as an antivirus. Interesting isn't it. A program designed to protect your computer from what it is actually doing, hijacking your data for ransom.  ::)

Exactly and the only people who would want to install that type of software, would be someone who cannot afford the retail commercial anti-virus software. So this kind of

Trojan would effectively target poor people.  >:( >:( The people who cannot even pay for the commercial software, has to fork out money for ransom payments.. to get their

precious family pictures... Now OP wants us to promote such nonsense. If someone is talented enough to write software like that, they could channel that same talent to

write the next killer application for Bitcoin.  :(

That would make more sense. Become the next Steve Jobs of innovated bitcoin app.
But alas, people will always be tempted by the darker side of the human condition because it is easier and faster to get what they are after and in this case fast cash.

Not a good idea. First, the amount used for ransomware is miniscule. It should have no effect on bitcoin price.

And second, the more bitcoins gets pushed into the dark corner, the higher the chance that politicians feel the need to attack bitcoin. Then bitcoin price will crash and that's it.

This! Bitcoin has a really bad fame already. It surely is a bad thing when the first contact people have with bitcoin is a negative one of that extend.

The thing is that paypal transaction were overwhelmingly more legit transactions than scammy ones. I think that is not so clear with bitcoin. Bitcoin is simply way too small still. And dark uses are strong.

This is disgusting.

Scammers are scammers, they can be avoided.

But just brutal hackers like this virusing PC's is just horrible.

We need a better operating system, windows is just a pure crap that can be exploited in so many ways.

it is a troll... he is stating that this is going to be a problem with bitcoin as it grows.

Malicious actions and harming of other people in any possible way is never the answer. Ransomware is just a kind of computer virus which benefits from new technology.
It is not ok, good or beneficial to bitcoin. Quite opposite. If something like that ever happened to me I would hate bitcoin with passion for the rest of my life.

Well, I heard that linux is pretty safe but in my country not many people are using it because people find it strange to use it :(
Well personally, i never use linux in my whole life before so i don't know how it works ::)

Linux can be safe but it isn't 100% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware). If the adoption rate grows, criminal would be targeting linux systems too. The reason that hackers target windows is because of its widespread adoption. I personally use Windows and it is much more familiar to me than Ubuntu.

Correct. Agree completely. Windows is a very good system. Has about 30 years of life and development. Cannot be wrong something with this life and with an army of developers, programmers and various staff (making hundred of kind developments connected with it) who work continuously to improve it. There are update every month and new versions every about 5-6 years. I think that cannot be another os better than it. The only reason of its problems is that is very spread in all the world and is target of everyone who want to see the value of itself.

There have been quite a few botnets made for linux clients as well. It is not 100% safe but it really depends on the competency of the user.

A more prominent issue is that most do not care about updating it at all. Windows does have a license key and some companies don't have enough funds to upgrade their computer and hence are exposed to exploits if Windows does not support it anymore. Linux however, are more opensourced and are free.

Seems without meaning to be a company and to not have money to upgrade your computers. First of all, if don't have the needed funds that mean that they can use the windows which have. Microsoft offer update (protection) for the previous versions even after to many years after the launch in the market of the new versions. Second, Seems to strange for me that a company have not founds to make upgrade for its computers. The amounts needed are not to much according to me if we are talking for a company. If a person is able to make the upgrade of its computer the company must be ten times more able. Because is in the market to make profit. The person not.

It may help grow usage of bitcoin but I don't it is good publicity.
Imagine you are the one that their pc gets locked. And you paid those btcs.
You wouldn't ever want to hear bitcoin word in future.