Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts

by David Gerard

When phrases like “a whole new form of money” or “the old rules don’t apply any more” start going around, people get gullible and the ethically-challenged get creative.

Proponents of Austrian economics include the fringe economics blog Zero Hedge, which has confidently predicted two hundred of the last two recessions.

Some victims have tremendous difficulty obtaining the bitcoins to pay the ransom – most exchanges have strong identity verification requirements, and often the delay before allowing trades is longer than the ransomware’s deadline. Not to mention the frequent delays getting Bitcoin transactions through at all. Bitcoins are so hard for normal people to use that from CryptoLocker on, ransomware operators have been known to provide technical support to victims, so they can work out how to pay them and unlock their files. F-Secure even compiled a customer service evaluation of ransomware gangs.