Bitcoin Forum

Senators Urge Crackdown On Crypto As Ransom Payment After Gas Pipe, Meat Plant Hacks

After a second widespread ransomware attack in less than one month, two senators on the Intelligence Committee suggested Sunday that lawmakers should take increased measures to regulate and trace cryptocurrencies, the medium of exchange that’s become popular among hackers for allowing transactions to remain anonymous.

KEY FACTS
In an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, “The only way you can begin to get on top” of the “pervasive” ransomware problem is “to develop a pattern,” before launching into a critique of the anonymity provided by cryptocurrencies often used to pay ransoms.

Read more https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/06/06/senators-urge-crack-down-on-crypto-as-ransom-payment-after-gas-pipe-meat-plants-hacks/

bitcoin doesn't hack computers, NSA hackers do

sadly, the Bitcoin equivalent of Charlton Heston is Brock Pierce, who's actually closer to Jeffrey Epstein in reality ::)

Senators are dumb. They dont get support because they are smart.

It is surprising that rather than going after the hackers they want to go after the crypto. I wonder how these idiots managed to become senators in the first place. Perhaps the authorities in the United States should do an IQ check before the elections and bar anyone having an IQ of less than 80. If Bitcoin is not available, then they will just use some other payment method. I can't really believe that these people are so dumb. I guess now Janet Yellen should be happy that she got some company from the opposition bench.

As you said in the other post, it's anti-govt money. Of course that they've took this opportunity to call for arms against Bitcoin. It's not the first time and it surely won't be the last.

Ransomware attacks have been reported since 1989, and that is two decades before the first Bitcoins were mined. Joseph Popp was the mastermind behind "AIDS trojan", the first ransomware ever created. Although it is true that Bitcoin made these sort of attacks more successful, it will be wrong to claim that targeting BTC instead of the actual hackers will result in a reduction in ransomware attacks. As we all know, the attackers would simply move to a more anonymous form of payment.

Politicians are stupid in most cases, but not exclusively in the sense that they have a low IQ - but to take care of themselves and their interests first, and then of those who elected them. If, on the other hand, politicians actually went for IQ testing before the election, I am afraid that the results would be devastating in that regard - and they are certainly devastating if we look at the world around us.

---

Ransomware is something that affects people who do not have the basics of computer literacy anyway - which means that firstly they are not aware of what the Internet is, and secondly what backup is. It is easiest to blame cryptocurrencies for everything, but it is not the tool that is to blame, but the people who use it.

By all means increase regulations. That is, after all, the compromise governments must make to legitimize Bitcoin. I'd love to see what solutions they can come up with to crackdown on crypto as ransom payment instead of cracking down on poor computer security. Somali pirates be hoping they don't start cracking down on US dollars.


Totally made my day, and scarily, not off the mark.

I would definitely agree with this. As someone who is working in the IT sector, we are made to undergo training on how to avoid phishing mails and trojans. And I believe that anyone with basic computer knowledge will be able to avoid such attempts. So first they need to analyze how the computers got infected with ransomware in the first place. How can they be sure that this was not an insider job? And perhaps the talks about targeting crypto may be a diversionary tactic to shift attention from these flaws.

The issue of further regulation of cryptocurrency by states and their governments will be raised periodically and regularly. It will be a long-term confrontation between cryptocurrency and participants in this market on the one hand, and governments on the other. After every significant case of ransomware using cryptocurrency, there will be similar senators screaming about the need to strengthen its regulation. Such facts should be treated as business as usual.

The biggest problem here is that they will probably make a big deal out of it and exaggerate on their way of making. Another problem that the crackdown won't work is probably because the future attacks might never be perpetrated by the people inside their soil.

And yet another big ransomware attack, yet another ransom that was paid in Bitcoin, yet some more bad publicity for Bitcoin:
Meatpacker JBS says it paid equivalent of $11 mln in ransomware attack (https://www.reuters.com/technology/jbs-paid-11-mln-response-ransomware-attack-2021-06-09/)

@NeuroticFish. This is bitcoin’s fault! Read the title of this article. You know that this writer only wants to sensationalize a standard hearing by the senate for CBDC hehehe. If someone can get a quoted statement from bitcoin it would say but what did I do?

https://www.coindesk.com/elizabeth-warren-us-lawmakers-put-bitcoin-on-trial-in-senate-cbdc-hearing

Nothing unexpected, really. Just scroll up and see my previous answer (post #5)  ;)

If you don't understand it, ban or regulate it. If these senators would have lived in the stone age, we would have now much better regulated fire and storms.

it actually wouldn't surprise me if one of these ghouls claimed "bitcoin has made god angry"

Of course it did! That's why there's a solar eclipse today (albeit partial), you didn't know?!