Yes, I would absolutely rather have that. Preventing criminals from receiving additional money prevents them from having the resources to attack others in the future. Unlike you, I actually care about my community and think deeply about the consequences.

▲

maxbond 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Alternately they may not believe starving out the criminals will actually work and so foresee different consequences. Like when Google penalized SEO, and so spammers used their networks for extortion instead of spam. Similarly if we killed ransomware, the machinery built to conduct these attacks would not just lie fallow. It's capital that will continue to be leveraged to generate returns. We may not like the next business model they come up with.

It's not a contest, we all can care and think deeply and still come to different conclusions.

▲

matkoniecz 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I am not claiming there is magic "fix it" button, but yes, killing ransomware would be a good thing.

Deliberately letting ransomware go on, because you are scared that evil people may do something worse is quite absurd.

Deliberate welfare for criminals is in fact bad.

	▲	maxbond 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is a very narrow framing, and that is what I am trying to get at. Obviously it would be absurd to deliberately provide welfare to criminal enterprises. But our adversaries get a vote in what happens. There is a level of risk at which you are forced to pay the ransom. If we don't get trapped in this false binary we might consider other options. I think the takeaway from my comment should be, if you want to make it illegal to pay a ransom to these groups, then you will also need to dismantle their infrastructure and organization. Otherwise you're just putting the ball in their court and hoping they'll fumble it. It's not that we're "scared," it's that that isn't a strategy.

▲

throw5g6y53 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Even if it was a loved one of yours who was in danger? You would rather your children, parents, or spouse die, instead of paying the kidnappers a ransom?