police pay ransom in btc

[bitards]

Does not really involve btc to much, but it is hilarious, to me at least
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/illinois-cops-pay-hackers-dollar500-ransom-to-unlock-a-computer/ar-BBhTrQp

[pawel7777]

Wait, what? Have they paid ransom with tax payers money?

The department felt it had no option but to pay up. Records show the department paid $606 in a money order, which included bank fees and surcharges, to a New York Bitcoin cafe.

I ain't no lawyer, but pretty sure that's not quite legal what they did.

[pozmu]

Bitcoin is ideal tool for ransoms.
I heard about criminals sending (paper) letters full of threats to shop owners requesting some ransoms in BTC.
Anyway, these disk encrypting malware is terryfying, I heard about some Romanian guy who commited suicide because his computer got infected with this sh*t  

Wait, what? Have they paid ransom with tax payers money?

The department felt it had no option but to pay up. Records show the department paid $606 in a money order, which included bank fees and surcharges, to a New York Bitcoin cafe.

I ain't no lawyer, but pretty sure that's not quite legal what they did.

They had no other way if disk was encrypted... unless it was older version of the virus which had bug in implementation of encryption algorithm that allowed to unlock locked computer quite easily.

[bcoinbilly]

I can't believe this story to be true. These things usually turn out to be untrue but this one seems to be legitimate. Hopefully this type of behavior does not happen in the future.

[countryfree]

The American police forces are paying a ransom? Is this from a comic book?

[ajareselde]

The American police forces are paying a ransom? Is this from a comic book?

There could be several cases where paying a ransom would be better option, and altho its by my understanding the policy of state not to deal with threats like that, if they had important files
which would lead to much more financial damage, its only logical to do lesser harm and pay them.
It would be interesting to know how the computer got infected in the first place, i doubt it got infected on a officialy related usage, if u know what i mean.

cheers

[croato]

It is just hilarious. First time i ever hear that police pays ransom lol.

[MustafaJohnMing]

You never know. Hahaa!

[bryant.coleman]

Oh god... Cryptolocker again... any idea who is behind this virus? So far they have affected hundreds of thousands of computers, stealing close to a billion USD in total. One of the most successful trojans ever created!

[RedhatCAT]

Wait, what? Have they paid ransom with tax payers money?

The department felt it had no option but to pay up. Records show the department paid $606 in a money order, which included bank fees and surcharges, to a New York Bitcoin cafe.

I ain't no lawyer, but pretty sure that's not quite legal what they did.

Why would this not be legal? There is nothing in the law that says governments are not able to pay bounties for services.

The reason why they paid the bounty was because doing so was going to be cheaper then possibly being able to recover the encrypted data

[Gronthaing]

The American police forces are paying a ransom? Is this from a comic book?

There could be several cases where paying a ransom would be better option, and altho its by my understanding the policy of state not to deal with threats like that, if they had important files
which would lead to much more financial damage, its only logical to do lesser harm and pay them.
It would be interesting to know how the computer got infected in the first place, i doubt it got infected on a officialy related usage, if u know what i mean.

cheers

Don't know if it is ever a good idea to pay the ransom. At least if it is only to avoid other financial damage. It sends the wrong message. Worse, it helps the criminal become even more dangerous and with access to more resources. And it creates an incentive for more people to do the same.

[koelen3]

I have seen this happen quite few times and it is so strange but amazing that hit police
And if we look into it in a manner they are promoting bitcoins

[pawel7777]

Wait, what? Have they paid ransom with tax payers money?

The department felt it had no option but to pay up. Records show the department paid $606 in a money order, which included bank fees and surcharges, to a New York Bitcoin cafe.

I ain't no lawyer, but pretty sure that's not quite legal what they did.

Why would this not be legal? There is nothing in the law that says governments are not able to pay bounties for services.

The reason why they paid the bounty was because doing so was going to be cheaper then possibly being able to recover the encrypted data

It's not a "bounty" it's "ransom". There's a huge difference between those two.

They effectively paid the criminal to reward him for his criminal activity using tax payers money.

[Kevinrasf]

Wait, what? Have they paid ransom with tax payers money?

The department felt it had no option but to pay up. Records show the department paid $606 in a money order, which included bank fees and surcharges, to a New York Bitcoin cafe.

I ain't no lawyer, but pretty sure that's not quite legal what they did.

Depends, if they see BTC as a Commodity not money they basically gave the hacker a pizza as reward.

Not money.

[Blazr]

It was a police computer, these computers should have all evidence on servers not on the local drive and there should be plenty of backups, plus whoever is the admin who let this computer have installation rights should be in trouble.

Cryptolocker is quite smart in that it attempts to encrypt any network storage or any USB devices connected too. Most people usually use one of these to do their backups.

About paying the ransom, I don't believe it is illegal for them to do that, I guess paying it was unavoidable in this case.

[jacktheking]

So did the police paid the hackers? Well.. if I expect the police computer to be backed up every day. If I were in-charge, I will not pay the $500 dollar. I would pay 10x ($5000) to track down the hackers - even if it is impossible to track as it is Bitcoin.

[Nerazzura]

So did the police paid the hackers? Well.. if I expect the police computer to be backed up every day. If I were in-charge, I will not pay the $500 dollar. I would pay 10x ($5000) to track down the hackers - even if it is impossible to track as it is Bitcoin.

preferably for the appointment of the next police made a new section that specifically address the issue of IT

[Lethn]

This has already been posted, check for other threads before you decided to make a new topic.

[pawel7777]

Wait, what? Have they paid ransom with tax payers money?

The department felt it had no option but to pay up. Records show the department paid $606 in a money order, which included bank fees and surcharges, to a New York Bitcoin cafe.

I ain't no lawyer, but pretty sure that's not quite legal what they did.

Depends, if they see BTC as a Commodity not money they basically gave the hacker a pizza as reward.

Not money.

Irrelevant. Most governments (and their institutions) have "no ransom" policy, for obvious reasons. It doesn't matter whether it's money, gold, bitcoin or pizza.

[Q7]

Somebody needs to check the accuracy of the report. First thing first, if the hacker managed to lock down the computer, getting only $500 worth of bitcoin may sound too low for a ransom. Furthermore, I don't think the police will be forced to compromise when it comes to this situation.