Bitcoin Forum

An email threatening to blow up an airport unless Bitcoin worth around Rs 16 lakh was deposited within 24 hours in an account sparked a security scurry at the Calcutta airport on Sunday.

Bitcoin is the most popular digital currency in the world. It is unregulated by government authorities and is used across the world.

The email, which did not specify which airport would be blown up, was sent to the inbox of the Calcutta airport's duty manager early on Sunday.

Police officers investigating the threat said it was apparently a prank but failed to track down the sender till late on Sunday.

The mail was sent from the id 911@sigaint.org. Sigaint is an email service that can be operated with the help of specialised software and settings, and is used to mask a user's identity and location.

When officers of the Bidhannagar commissionerate's cyber crime division tried to reply to the sender's ID, the mail bounced back.

"The mail, which was sent to the duty manager's official ID and was read around 6am, asked for more than 60 Bitcoins to be deposited in an account within 24 hours, failing which an airport would be blown up," an officer said.

The exchange value on Sunday evening of 60 Bitcoins was a little more than Rs 16 lakh.

Bitcoin was created in 2009. Encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of Bitcoins and verify their transfer.

Bitcoin, not tied to any country, does not have any central authority or middlemen. From a user's perspective, it is nothing more than a mobile app or computer programme that provides a personal Bitcoin wallet and allows a user to send and receive Bitcoins.

Bitcoins are often used in illegal transactions like arms deals among terrorists.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160307/jsp/calcutta/story_73193.jsp

This seems to be a petty prank mail. Funny that this type of bogus news gets place in a newspaper. But, these newspapers never pick up bitcoin stories that create huge positive impact on society. Hypocrisy at its best.

Another thing that keeps on destroying BTCitcoin image. Hate when these types of news pops out and just to turn out, it was a prank and thank GOD, was a failed one. Regarding the article, the last line to be exact, can't agree with it since it has been proven that BTCitcoin was not used for arms deals among terrorist groups in multiple known outlets already. It would be really good that whoever made that reports, knew what actually happens instead of giving false information.

This is a shame. It is exactly the sort of thing that gives Bitcoin and the whole cryptocurrency industry a bad name.
I just want to see these guys caught and jailed!

Yes, also criminals will realize bitcoin is a better way to recieve money, the change of being cought is bigger if you say deposit the money on a bank account you will get caught.

In holland there was also a case where a man demanded bitcoins, where he would planr bombs in the jumbo supermarkets,  you can look it up on google.

Interesting. Although this part is total BS.

Exactly.  The news is quick to report on anything negative with Bitcoin. I am thinking back to the Los Angeles hospital incident where they demanded bitcoin before hacking into the network.  This story is so useless.

I don't think this is a prank email
Some guy threatened to blow up a mall unless he get Bitcoin
In the end he only received 0.25 because the mall officials thought it was a prank joke
But it was not, the mall did really get bombed :(
Luckily there was no one hurt there
I don't wanna play with the bomb if i were the security :P

It may be prank or maybe someone has tried in order to check that if they got the money, but now is the time that governments have to do something for it to make it non-anonymous otherwise it will be dangerous.

I'm curious as to how big the airport is supposed to be, because it seems unlikely that someone would blow up an airport for a seemingly fairly low amount of money.

I had a situation similar this not all that long ago in my area, some kid asking for 4(?)BTC or he would blow up a school or something. I can't remember the specifics, but nothing happened with it.

This type of stuff is gonna get more and more common. Not actual terrorism/ violence, but the threat of it. If you were an asshole then why not? There's nothing to lose.

What a fucked up prank, let's hope they made some mistake in hiding themselves and get caught soon but here's the thing, terrorist have done similar things in the past, only difference was they had other demands like freeing up one of their friends from jail etc.

tl;dr criminals will do crime with or without bitcoin.

So from now on whenever there is a hostage situation, or bribary, or blackmail it should be called a fiat crime.
Someone asking to be paid in Bitcoin, does not make it a Bitcoin crime.

The final line was proven to be wrong last week I am pretty sure.  Apparently terrorists don't use Bitcoin to trade.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Beard-AMISH2.jpg
"I just sent the Amos clan an email threatening to cut off their beards if they don't sent 60 BTC to a bitcoin address I provided within 24 hours. Assuming they have computer access and comply, how do you suggest I move them bitcoins and what should I buy with the windfall? FWIW, The Gleb assured me that I won't get caught if I allowed him to fuck my goat, Ginny. I hope it's not a problem that I didn't use Tor because I'm allergic to onions, so I sent the request via Yahoo because I've always wanted to be a yodeler."

FUD Alert ---> Bitcoins are often used in illegal transactions like arms deals among terrorists. Where is the proof of these kind of statements? My guess is, the 60 Bitcoins will never see the light of day and the

stupid idiot behind this threat, will soon be caught. You do not mess with airports and make bomb threats.. they will hunt you down and you will end up in jail. I would not write this off as a tactic to discredit

Bitcoin.... Nothing is strange these days, when it comes to this scene.  ::)

Sad to see such news coming only from India .I'm very sure its not a terrorist attack ,just a hoax.Some random scammer Indian would have used this attempt thinking Indian police is worthless shit and they can never trace jack.People like him and escrow.ms are the reasons Indian government will ever put a ban on use of bitcoins.

More tedious bitcoin FUD. Getting a bit bored of reading about stuff like this. Some people in high places really want bitcoin to fail don't they. Stuff like this story is really scraping the barrel though.

The question is, could these types of threats sink the Bitcoin project itself?

Prank or not, it's once again Bitcoin that's receiving the hate of the media. I wonder what new nonsense policy governments will force through when something like this happens for real.

Yeah it was really big news here in the Netherlands. They caught the person even small bombs were found to pressure the Supermarket 'Jumbo' to pay him.

I do not think that would happen. this is not the first time for bitcoin to be mentioned in a bad news and it is still alive after that.
bitcoin is like any other currency. it can be used in good ways and bad ones. what determine that is the owner of it only

Seems as an scam made for a newbie user, airports have big security controls and police wouldn't believe this. The scammer wanted to make fast money, i think that airports had a lot of bomb alerts pranks and don't appears on newspapers, it was on newspaper because asked for bitcoins.

I agree.  It has to only be a matter of time before lunatics start building fake/real bombs that can only be defused with a code received after a bitcoin payment.  They wouldn't necessarily have to threaten people either.  They could place devices next to things of value.  A rich guy might pay a lot to have a bomb defused that's stuck to his Ferrari.  Or a museum where something that looks like a bomb is left next to a priceless work of art, etc.  Basically extending ransomware into the physical world. 

Reminds me a little of the bombing of Harvey's Resort Hotel:

https://youtu.be/1YTmDEQWY2A (https://youtu.be/1YTmDEQWY2A)

Bitcoin is constantly on the news with bad things, but the media is just making it bad, and the bitcoin indeed still exist so it does not matter.
I think some people also want to influence but the media is also the problem because its stops the bitcoin from growing to a bigger better bitcoin.

Of course it is bad thing. On the other hand, some can argue that there is not such a thing as bad advertising. I think it also proves how anonym bitcoin is. Definitely not %100 but i guess it is close with mixers. While i was reading the post, i realized that it would be a great movie script with this case. Perhaps we might see one in the future.

These kind of funny or pranks will degrade the value and growth of bitcoin. At times if due to some changes bitcoin gets more adoption and overcomes the local currencies surely governments will indicate such incidents and try to terminate it.

Such demands probably get only worse.

After some hospital in USA payed ransom in Bitcoin, now everyone can start sending emails demanding ransom in Bitcoin about bombs, etc. And police cant just ignore them. And press will just keep writing stories like this.

This is really too bad.  It is the few that give bitcoin a bad name.  Its also sad that people don't realize that if it wasn't bitcoin, it would be something else.  These type of things will always be done, regardless of if bitcoin is involved, and the mainstream media just ends up painting bitcoin as worse than the culprit.

This is the first time I have heard of Bitcoin used as ransom against bombing an airport and it's a terrible prank imagine how many people could have been harmed if that turned out to be true. These kinds of fake threats give the real criminals more ideas for their next attacks.

In my country indonesia also have kind of that bomb criminal using bitcoin for payment. But do you guys think this situation make bitcoins more popular but in bad mode.

Even if this is a prank, it will still hurt the image of bitcoin. Coupling this to recent events with hospital files encrypted and other stuff like that, the general public could get a more negative image of bitcoin all together.

It takes some understanding of bitcoin to realize that the same thing could've been done with fiat and is happening with fiat all the time.

Biggest reason they are now shifting to bitcoin is the easy of "accepting" the transaction. You don't want a pile of cash with a couple of police offers and bomb squats on your back.

Most likely it is an empty threat anyway. Threatening to do something at a high security place is something completely different than hacking hospital files and the hospital confirming their files are compromised. Anybody can make threats, and although they should not be taken lightly, payment is unwise in my opinion.

This shows that there are many that want actually derail Bitcoins's positive image and it may spark off unwarranted fears that Bitcoin may be used for terrorist activities. I guess evne if that were so, fiat has been used to conduct wars and atrocities for centuries and nothing has been done about that and fiat is still controlling billions of lives.

Bitcoin may sound negative to the media but if there's no bitcoin they'll probably have it in FIAT anyway. Bitcoin like all the other coins out there is only a tool to transfer money, it's up to the criminals which mode of payment will they prefer. I'm seeing such like this as a chance for some altcoins to get some attention like "ransom of 100000 xxxcoin or else.."

Criminals and bad people are using bitcoin because of the simplicity of using it, You can't blame bitcoin just like that though since this is the fault of those abusing it in such a way...

A bright spot in this type of threat is the difficulty of the operational phase. One can make a threat to do something like this with total anonymity. But to carry out the attack would be to greatly expose yourself after having tipped off the authorities. The sentence for such an act would be very severe and probably would not pass a cost benefit analysis.  

I think the point is not to carry out the attack, but gain from the mere threat.  Like ransomware, most people probably don't pay, but if you make enough attempts some will.  It's true, the cost per attempt is higher than ransomware, but it isn't as high as an actual attack.  The use of fake bombs could greatly increase the chance of payment.  Extortion in general is made so much easier when the problem of money transfer is removed.  That really seems like the biggest issue in extortion.

Oh yeah, I agree. But unlike ransomware an attack can not be carried out without risk of exposure. With a cryptolocker ransom the actual hostage taking is also accomplished without exposure. There is no calling the attackers bluff with a ransomware operation because they can prove they are not bluffing.

Impossible. Bitcoin is antifragile; unsinkable. Much like Titanic 8)

Of course anything to make bitcoin look bad, what's new

There's a similar problem in Indonesia, but the bomb is in a mall.

The guy want a lot of bitcoin in exchange he will not blow up the mall.

The guy got arrested tho. He needs money real bad.