Bitcoin Forum

"PRAGUE (AFP) - Blackmailers are threatening to spread Ebola in the Czech Republic unless Prague pays them a million euros' worth of the virtual Bitcoin currency, police said Monday.

An e-mail allegedly from the blackmailers claiming they had "biological material" from an infected patient in Liberia was published by the country's top commercial TV station, TV Nova, on Monday.

"An unknown perpetrator or perpetrators are blackmailing this state, threatening to spread the Ebola virus," the country's deputy police chief Zdenek Laube told reporters.

"From the very beginning these culprits have been seeking to spread panic, which is their primary goal," he added."


http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/europe/story/blackmailers-threaten-czech-republic-ebola-outbreak-bitcoin-currency-2014102

This is called extortion inoculation. BS enough times and nobody will pay BTC to any extortionist.

How can people think about that kind of stuff. This kind of activity should be treated very forcefully. And I hope Ebola gets them first before they can spread it. >:( >:(

Lol you've got to laugh at these childish scammmers. Nobody is going to fall for this and certainly no one is going to pay it. They're just trying their luck. Hope they get caught.

Someone should start a bitcoin vigilante fund to catch that idiot.

The world has heard enough times that bitcoin is used by terrorists and drug dealers. This is wouldn't damage the name of bitcoin anymore than it is now.

If Czech government pays (I know they won't), the community (users, exchanges, mixers) would have an opportunity to openly help a government to track terrorists! That's good publicity for us :)

It's hard to believe and likely not true, but there is a risk for such virus to be used by terrorists.

It doesn't hurt reputation of Bitcoin. At some point any publicity makes people curious about the techmoney and more will start to use it.

Lol.. there is no such thing as bad publicity.

It actually does hurt bitcoin. Specially the anonymity part is what these people take advantage of. The government can easily take advantage of that.

I dont think this is bad publicity tbh, we have little control if people want to do this kinda thing, expect a lot more until the government catchup and develop simple ways to track down transactions on the blockchain.

Little do they know, the west wants lots of cases to stock up on blood antibodies. (why else would they fly it in)

They should take cash. With bitcoin they will be easily traced.
Or at least some Cryptonote coin.

Can call it bad publicity but there are probably someone who still does not have any slightest idea of bitcoin will now decide to check it out

This isn't bad publicity.

What's any different to Mexican kidnappers taking a child from a rich family & demanding a 2 million USD ransom in cash?

No publicity is bad publicity, hopefully people google BTC & come on board.

Maybe somebody will. Til then, there's Roger Ver's Bitcoin Bounty Hunter website. http://bitcoinbountyhunter.com/

Maybe Czech Republic government should.

They payment method that a terrorist is really not relevant. Most governments refuse to negotiate with terrorists because of the risk that other groups will simply do similar things in order to extort money from governments.

The reason why they are asking for payment in bitcoin is because it is very easy to 'move' bitcoin and it is difficult to trace the identity of someone who owns/controls a specific address.  

EDIT: they are really just highlighting features of bitcoin

Morons that want a quick way to obtain wealth instead of working for it. I hope they get caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent. There is a special place in hell for people that try to capitalize on the fear of others.

One of the next scams will be "pay us a million BTC, Satoshi, or we'll redirect one of the near-miss asteroids into planet earth".

http://images.moviefanatic.com/iu/t_full/v1364990936/dr-evil.jpg

Nice try scammers. It will never work, they likely do not have any substance maybe some fluid which they call "ebola".
Otherwise Czech is doomed for real.

if those fkn idiots would demand dollars, would this be bad publicity for the dollar?

tens of thousands of years of violence and genocide and war crimes and all this sheit were managed without bitcoin.

no publicity is bad publicity  8)

Not necessarily bad...just a misconception that fools will not believe into...research is key.

What if, they do have a corpse or a cadaver that just died from ebola? They chop it up into several parts, spread it across the country, then detonate each on in a highly populated public area.

The whole country would fall to its knees within days.

They need to show proof.

hate those guys who spread some horrible news to panic us and they should be punished to make sure the order of our society.

You're talking about Fox News, no?

https://cryptothrift.com/auctions/healing-products/msa-millennium-face-gas-ebola-mask-w3m-filter/ (https://cryptothrift.com/auctions/healing-products/msa-millennium-face-gas-ebola-mask-w3m-filter/)

bitcoin user not affected infected

Yeah.. But bad publicity or not, its still publicity. Still a + for bitcoin.

peoples mind set is actually changing right now, alot of people dont think of bitcoin as a scam currency, but as "another currency".. so when news talks about bitcoin being used, the mindset is not "oh crap bitcoin is bad" but more like "oh the scammers dont want to use a credit card, cash or paypal"

there was yet another use of bitcoin on the TV show 'the goodwife' this year where the blackmailer tool that encrypts hard drives was the centre of attention and the payment method was bitcoin.. the emphasis was on the scam not bitcoin.  bitcoin was just a side mention, treated as just a useful payment method.. there was no chatter about bitcoin being bad, no chatter about bitcoin being hard to purchase or even any chatter about risks of bitcoin.. the characters simply paid the amount and then argued for half the episode about the scammers

Not cool, why do people feel the need to spread hate?

I would disagree with your mindset. If something is being used for illicit purposes then it will not only cause people to want to disassociate with it, but it will also attract regulatory attention.

I would not however say that asking for a randsome in bitcoin to be negative for bitcoin. I would say the reason they are asking for this is to avoid direct contact with law enforcement when they go to collect the randsom (instead of having to physically pick up cash).

If they took the ransom in FIAT, would it also be bad news for FIAT?

They need to trace the source of these threats and take them seriously. It doesn't matter if they are asking for money or a prisoner release, you cannot negotiate with terrorists.

Actually, I see it as a business model: Pretend to be an extortionist and get paid via BTC to cease whatever via paying yourself, then pretend to purchase miners from BFL and have the fiat in your bank within two days via BitPay. Fuckin' genius, if you ask me.

it seems the time is come for  ebola coin !  :D

Doubt this will be the last time people try to extort bitcoins outta people like this.


Ugh, don't give the alt coin devs any ideas  ;D.

There has already been multiple threads about it, there was a Scrypt Ebolacoin and a few joke threads.

Here is an article about donations for Bitcoin to Sierra Leone to help fund aid workers http://www.coindesk.com/sierra-leone-group-diverts-bitcoin-campaign-fight-ebola/

There are other options as well, the Bitcoin miners could choose to exclude those transactions from the Blockchain as well.

It doesn't matter what currency they use, they are blackmailers. They just think that this would be a safe way to get paid and run away when in reality those btc would be tagged and no one would want to touch them again.

That's a weird form of extortion if there is one
Viral warfare ransom

This is ridiculous.... >:(

LOL. So who wants to send a massive TX to themself and bc.i tag it "ebola ransom payment"?

Sonny Vleisides comes to mind.

It could go both ways. Some people will get the message:

"If the blackmailers are willing to risk jail, or even infect and kill a bunch of people just to get bitcoins - the bitcoin must be worthwhile"

But there's probably other group, those who only watch the headlines, and they may get something like:

"ebola=bitcoin=panic=terrorism"


Personally I don't see a problem with that sort of publicity. As long as media don't twist the story into "terrorists demand ebola, or they'll release bitcoin" - it's all good.

https://i.imgflip.com/dorql.jpg (https://imgflip.com/i/dorql)via Imgflip Meme Maker (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator)

No such thing as bad publicity but..

a/ its fake
b/ just some hype to label bitcoin as useless in the media's eyes again :-\ (like with silk road)

There is no such thing as bad publicity. Bad publicity is still a publicity.