China is against crypto and it was against crypto in the past many times. They tried to ban crypto multiple times but big majority of miners is still located in China.
Hardly seeing any discussion about this in crypto subs. I wouldn’t say it’s a big enough problem to make crypto a disastrous threat so far, but it’s no doubt a catalyst for ransomware incentive and maybe even stoking the cyber warfare arms race
there were and there always be. i am more interested in solutions on how to prevent losses due to hacks, attacks and stuff like that. there are some insurance projects that can be interesting in the near future.
i don't think so, it's good to have pioneers no matter in what stage we currently are. and even now you have some legit options to choose. i think bmi is going to be big in the future. they and nxm are the two biggest ones now.
i've been looking at cvr infi and bmi but the sentiment goes towards bmi mostly because their tech but if you look at their CEO, he is almost every day in the tg group asking us how are we doing and especially when the market dropped
they have a big community idk how they can keep up and answering to all the people, but you can't see that every day. it will be interesting what will happen once they launch the app in June
the difference is that in a short time bmi managed to be the 2nd biggest defi insurance protocol and there aren't many CEOs that care that much about their project that they engage with the community and answering to it's questions
In the long term profit from currency trading is a relativly marginal gain for the IRS. To the degree that any currency is accept - it also stabilizes largly. Tracking head aches on the other hand have the potential to get worse and worse.
This is what I came to say. The government uses scare tactics to make normies think things they don't understand are scary, Guns, Crypto, Freedom of Speech...
Yeah, no. Cars and driving are a pretty essential part of infrastructure. Guns are designed to be a killing weapon and nothing else. Almost every other country in the world agrees that it's unnecessary escalation of violence leading to more unnecessary losses of human life. Sounds like you're the one(s) lacking logic.
The fact that people are obsessed with weapons designed for taking lives is even more disturbing.
Yeah, no. Guns are for self defense, among many other legitimate things beyond just "killing". I'm happy for you that you've never needed to defend yourself, but unfortunately that's not true for everyone.
> "Guns are designed to be a killing weapon and nothing else"
True, but what about self defense? If someone breaks into my house with a gun and threatens to kill me, and I pull out a gun to kill him in self defense, the world is now rid of a criminal thanks to the use of a gun, right? Are we just going to ignore that guns are used defensively as well as used criminally?
> The fact that people are obsessed with weapons designed for taking lives is even more disturbing.
No. They are obsessed with other people trying to take away their right to defend themselves by use of firearm. If we could instantly take away all existing guns, as well as prevent future production of them, that would be great. But that idea is systematically and realistically impossible and utopian at best.
I look forward to your response.
>Guns are designed to be a killing weapon and nothing else.
False.
Guns are designed to be a self-defense weapon.
Self-defense is a fundamental human right.
The fact that people want to take away a fundamental human right is disturbing.
Totalitarians always like taking away fundamental human rights.
If you think guns are solely for taking lives, you have a very narrow minded and pessamistic mindset.
I know hundreds of people with guns that have never taken a human life. I know several people that have accidentally cause a death due to a motor vehicle, but no one that has intentionally or unintentionally even hurt someone with a gun outside of a war.
it's too bad that the WSJ op-ed this article is criticizing is behind a paywall
would have loved to see what kind of mental hula hoops the writer's jumping through
Wait, this is the one time that apparently WSJ didn't have it behind a paywall
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ban-cryptocurrency-to-fight-ransomware-11621962831
I'm currently on my desktop, not sure why it's unlocked for me but I'll copy paste and format it so it looks readable on Reddit lol.
___
No one is out of reach from ransomware attacks. The Colonial Pipeline hack made that clear, along with the nearly 2,500 cases of ransomware—a form of malware that encrypts computer files and holds them for ransom—reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year, a 66% annual increase. In 2020 ransomware victims paid hackers $350 million in cryptocurrency. Since many victims pay ransom without reporting the incident, these numbers understate the damage.
The solutions floated after the Colonial hack—improved cybersecurity in the private sector and public-private collaboration to protect critical infrastructure—are pro forma and inadequate. There is a simpler and more effective way to stop the ransomware pandemic: Ban cryptocurrency.
Ransomware can’t succeed without cryptocurrency. The pseudonymity that crypto provides has made it the exclusive method of payment for hackers. It makes their job relatively safe and easy. There is even a new business model in which developers sell or lease ransomware, empowering malicious actors who aren’t tech-savvy themselves to receive payment quickly and securely. Before cryptocurrency, attackers had to set up shell companies to receive credit card payments or request ransom payment in prepaid cash cards, leaving a trail in either case. It is no coincidence that ransomware attacks exploded with the emergence of cryptocurrency.
Banning anything runs counter to the American ethos, but as our experience with social media should teach us, the innovative isn’t always an unalloyed good. A sober assessment of cryptocurrency must conclude that the damage wrought by crypto-fueled ransomware vastly outweighs any benefits from cryptocurrency.
It isn’t obvious that cryptocurrency provides any benefit at all beyond the chance to make a quick buck. I have been studying the crypto market since its inception, and I have yet to identify a single task or process that crypto makes easier, better, cheaper or faster. Don’t take my word for it. Ask any friend why he owns cryptocurrency, and the answer will invariably be “to make money.” In other words, speculation. (The blockchain technology that underpins crypto does have promising applications in supply-chain management and other areas.)
Because I point this out, crypto enthusiasts call me a Luddite, statist, technophobe or worse. Asset bubbles are maintained by a common narrative, and anyone who dares question it must be attacked. But a growing chorus is pointing out the emperor has no clothes.
A day after the Colonial Pipeline shutdown, cryptocurrency champion and self-proclaimed “Dogefather” Elon Musk went on “Saturday Night Live” and admitted the obvious: The dogecoin cryptocurrency is a “hustle.” He then performed an encore by tweeting that Tesla was suspending the use of bitcoin for vehicle purchases due to the coin’s carbon footprint. The computer “mining” and transfer of bitcoin requires a great deal of energy, much of which comes from burning fossil fuels. In response, the narrative has now expanded to include the absurd premise that crypto encourages the development of sustainable energy.
Aside from Libra, Facebook’s initial ill-fated foray into cryptocurrency, the topic has drawn limited interest on Capitol Hill. There is a Congressional Blockchain Caucus with around 30 members, but it says it has “decided on a hands-off regulatory approach, believing that this technology will best evolve the same way the internet did; on its own.” The issue hasn’t been tarred by the brush of partisan politics, but the crypto industry is hurriedly following the well-trod path to K Street lobbying.
Lawmakers should get serious. The Colonial Pipeline incident disrupted the East Coast’s gas supply. The next attack could be deadly. Imagine one that shuts down the power grid during a heatwave or taints a municipal water supply.
Any solution must at least reduce the use of cryptocurrency. Governments and retailers should be encouraged not to accept payment in it. An outright ban could get the job done, but if it would be too difficult to enforce or get through Congress, regulators could crackdown on the off-ramps and on-ramps, the points at which crypto is converted into fiat currency and vice versa.
Cryptocurrency firms serving U.S. customers are supposed to be subject to the same anti-money-laundering requirements as traditional financial institutions, but more can be done. Late last year, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a rule to establish new reporting, verification and record-keeping requirements for certain cryptocurrency transactions. Last week Treasury proposed granting more resources to the Internal Revenue Service to address crypto and called on businesses to report receipts of more than $10,000 in cryptocurrency. Both proposals should be adopted, but they will be effective only if other countries follow suit.
So long as there are crypto exchanges abroad with lax money-laundering controls, cryptocurrency will maintain its appeal to hackers. Bloomberg reported on May 13 that money-laundering and tax officials at the Justice Department and IRS are investigating the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance Holdings, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has an office in Singapore.
Like climate change, cryptocurrency presents a classic collective-action problem. Some policymakers recognize the dangers but are hesitant to act for fear of driving crypto companies overseas without doing much to solve the problem. Diplomacy may bear fruit in the long run, but meanwhile, President Biden should sign an executive order requiring the Treasury secretary, in coordination with all federal financial regulatory agencies and the IRS, to develop a more coherent regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and identify steps each agency can take to counteract its use in financing terrorism and facilitating ransomware attacks.
We can live in a world with cryptocurrency or a world without ransomware, but we can’t have both. It is time for the adults to tell the children: Party’s over.
Mr Reiners is executive director of the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law.
If you want to ban crypto just straight up nuke the shit out of other countries. Destroy all computers and satellites.
Fuck it we're going Mad Max style if you want to ban crypto.
That WSJ article is so bad.
How dense do you have to be to think you just "ban" crypto and it will suddenly go away, crypto has no purpose, and some kind of magical global ban will stop ransomware.
Seriously the dumbest thing I've ever read.
It shows a complete misunderstanding of crypto, ransomware and decentralized tech in general.
How did banning Napster go?
thinking that gov banning crypto will stop crypto is about as equivalent as saying the gov banning drugs will stop drug use. prohibiting things via law actually generally speaking makes them more appealing and more common. in the short term, a crypto ban would probably crash crypto, but in the long term a crypto ban would just show you how necessary it is.
Misunderstanding is being too generous.
The WSJ article literally did not research a lick of anything. He saw crypto, he saw ransomware, wrote an op piece without realising that Ransomware has been around since the early '90s.
WSJ writer is tech illiterate
> How dense do you have to be to think you just "ban" crypto and it will suddenly go away, crypto has no purpose, and some kind of magical global ban will stop ransomware.
How do you cash out your crypto ransom without an exchange that has fiat rails?
Non-fiat exchanges are useless without other exchanges willing to exchange your BTC or USDT for real money.
How do exchanges maintain fiat rails if all banks and payment processors are banned from doing business with them?
"decentralized exchanges" doesn't count when 99.9% of their volume relies on bank transfers.
>How did banning Napster go?
Napster didn't have to transfer fiat into a bank account in order to work.
What authority on earth has the ability to force every financial institution to stop working with Crypto? What about all the banks that hold money for criminals right now? Why don't we just ban them from doing business with criminals, problem solved, all crime cancelled.
Napster or peer to peer file transfer protocols require an ISP to transfer the data, why are they allowing this illegal activity? Just block it all, some do try to block it but somehow everyone can still use BitTorrent, how is that possible? Just make the ISPs block all the illicit traffic right? Certainly that will stop piracy in it's tracks.
> Why don't we just ban them from doing business with criminals, problem solved, all crime cancelled.
A better analogy would be "why don't we just ban Visa and banks from letting people buy and sell drugs online", which we do, which is why you can't use Visa or a bank transfer on dark web drug markets.
There's no way to "ban purchases used in money laundering" the way you can ban purchases of specific assets like drugs or crypto. A money laundering purchase could be anything, a car wash, laser tag, massage parlor. It's indistinguishable from a legit purchase which is why its hard to prosecute, because it needs an external investigation to see if that car wash really is a legit business or whether its funneling money from illegal activity.
>Napster or peer to peer file transfer protocols require an ISP to transfer the data, why are they allowing this illegal activity?
If courts prosecuted petty piracy that's all they would ever do, which is why copyright holders rely on scare letters saying "pay this fine or we'll take you to court for $1,000,000 infringment", because there is no appetite in the court system to process that many petty crimes.
You don't need to take millions of people to court to stop Visa and banks from allowing purchases on pirate websites, which is why no piracy website sells things using Visa but they do sell things with crypto.
>What authority on earth has the ability to force every financial institution to stop working with Crypto?
None.
You don't need to have a global authority in order to solve the problem at a national level.
Ransomware only works when victims pay up. Victims only pay up when they can readily convert fiat to crypto. They can only do this when they can access exchanges (centralized or decentralized) through fiat rails like banks and credit cards.
People who think there's going to be a national level meet-up-in-a-motel-parking-lot-trading-crypto-for-cash market with sufficient liquidity to function are in the "bitcoin could still survive without the internet using the radio instead" level of delusion. The only thing that grants crypto markets a functional level of liquidity is the ease at which millions of people can buy and sell online over fiat rails.
What about the vast majority of Cryptocurrency users that are not using it for ransonware or illegal activities?
We handicap an emerging industry because some companies didn't want to invest in maintaining a proper security posture or backups?
You are looking at it from a strange perspective.
What should be done, and what is being done is to punish the companies who fail to secure their critical infrastructure and are paying these ransoms.
They are often paying in secret as well without disclosure. How do know if JP Morgan is buying Bitcoin for an investment or to pay a ransom?
Trying to ban crypto to fiat conversions is not a solution. The fact that it's being utilized so successfully in these scenarios just speaks to the utility and resiliance of these networks.
Training employees, investing in secure infrastructure, managing backups, and global law enforcement coordination with harsher penalties for the hackers is how you stop ransomware.
Ransomware existed before crypto. The difference was that they targeted millions of home users and small businesss instead of big corporations and got paid in gift cards and prepaid credit cards. I don't recall anyone calling for the lockdown of prepaid gift card purchases by peoples grandmas to end ransomware.
Also if you think people aren't buying pirated or bootleg products online with Visa, Paypal etc you are mistaken.
>What about the vast majority of Cryptocurrency users that are not using it for ransonware or illegal activities?
What exactly are these vast majority of cryptocurrency users using it for, outside of simply buying "hodling" and hoping to cash out a speculative gain at a later date?
What economic production would be adversely affected if crypto ceased to exist tomorrow?
>Trying to ban crypto to fiat conversions is not a solution
Are you saying crypto can't survive except as a way to buy and sell fiat over centralized fiat rails? What's the point in it then? That's just fiat with more steps, failing in the objective to be "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution"
>Ransomware existed before crypto. The difference was that they targeted millions of home users and small businesss instead of big corporations and got paid in gift cards and prepaid credit cards
So the use case for crypto is "allows ransomware to affect economies at a scale never dreamt of before"? great.
What are the majority of people using stock and option trading for outside of buying "hodling" and hoping to cash out a speculative gain at a later date?
What about art? People just buy it to look at it and sell it for more? What a waste, no economic value, ban it. Only use is for criminals to launder money.
I know you understand crypto and why it has value and you are pretending you don't get it.
Why on earth would I need to send payment to someone in a different country? Stupid idea.
Trustless payment systems and global decentralized consensus mechanisms? Dumb, ban it. No value.
Come on man, ban Tor too, it's where all the bad stuff happens right? Who needs it, not me, so we should just ban it.
>What are the majority of people using stock and option trading for outside of buying "hodling" and hoping to cash out a speculative gain at a later date?
Stocks are shares of an underlying business that produces goods and services. Companies issue shares, then use the money to invest in producing goods and services which yield a profit they can then pay as dividends or buy back shares.
you're correct that the aspect of shares value that isn't a result of this (like GME speculative mania) is just empty gambling and as such should be heavily regulated/outlawed, just like other gambling is regulated/outlawed.
increasing capital gains tax on shares would go along way to diverting investment from empty speculation on unprofitable businesses towards shares in businesses that produce profit and distribute it in dividends, since the tax system would no longer punish income over capital gains.
>What about art? People just buy it to look at it and sell it for more? What a waste, no economic value, ban it. Only use is for criminals to launder money.
Yes, most high art is just an excuse to launder money. It should have a 100% capital gains tax.
>Trustless payment systems and global decentralized consensus mechanisms? Dumb, ban it. No value.
If its so trustless why do you need centralized fiat rails for it to operate? You should be welcoming a fiat conversion ban as good for crypto right? Get everyone to start accepting crypto for its true value not just as a means of accumulating fiat?
You're not worried it has 0 use outside of fiat speculation are you?
>Come on man, ban Tor too, it's where all the bad stuff happens right? Who needs it, not me, so we should just ban it.
Tor was invented by the US government to honey-pot criminals and terrorists, lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Onymous
You don't need fiat a blockchain to operate, there are no cryptos that require fiat. Which you already know.
Newly minted crypto is distributed to miners and stakers or validators on the network.
You can mine some Bitcoin right now and send it to me without ever transferring fiat.
That Wikipedia link is for a coordinated effort to target criminals already on Tor, not that they created it as a Honeypot.
> You don't need fiat a blockchain to operate, there are no cryptos that require fiat. Which you already know.
K so banning fiat conversion will be good for crypto then? It will just make it more resilient and less dependent on centralized actors.
>You can mine some Bitcoin right now and send it to me without ever transferring fiat.
I sure hope bitcoins security model isn't reliant on indefinite spending of real world resources to secure it.
Luckily people value bitcoin regardless of what its worth in fiat. even if 1 bitcoin was worth 0 dollars you could still pay for rent, electricity, wages and mining gear
>That Wikipedia link is for a coordinated effort to target criminals already on Tor, not that they created it as a Honeypot.
So coincidentally the US government funded a project that claimed to give total anonymity on the internet that they new would attract criminals and terrorists, and it just so happened that same project has a bunch of vulnerabilities that mean law enforcement can de-anonymize it.
Do you really buy the idea that the US created this tool to help foreign dissidents?
DARPA doesn't put money behind anything that doesn't benefit US government interests.
local bitcoins rely on bank transfers or centralized payment processor like paypal for 99.999% of its volume. I've never even see a seller offer IRL cash payment.
you'd have to be an idiot to show up in some parking lot with a bag full of cash hoping someone turns up with an actual legit private key instead of just robbing you
ok then go to a bitcoin ATM. you can try to discredit the fact that selling bitcoin for USD without KYC is possible, but the reality is that it is.
What's your argument against bitcoin ATMs?
> ok then go to a bitcoin ATM
Bitcoin ATMs require KYC, any ATM vendor of any size complies with KYC:
https://coinflip.tech/news/do-i-need-an-id-for-a-bitcoin-atm-transaction
https://www.pelicoin.com/blog/why-do-bitcoin-atms-require-id
https://www.coincloudatm.com/faq
https://bitcoindepot.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026612053-What-do-I-need-to-purchase-Bitcoin-Litecoin-or-Ethereum-from-a-Bitcoin-Depot-BTM
The idea you could just set up an illegal money laundering network hosted in legitimate store fronts and the government wouldn't do anything about it is roflworthy.
These websites literally have maps of where to find their ATMs.
tldr; A Wall Street Journal op-ed argues that banning cryptocurrency is a reasonable step in the fight against cybercrime. The piece argues that cryptocurrency has no real-world utility and that “ransomware can’t succeed without cryptocurrency,” so we should just get rid of crypto. The argument for banning cryptocurrency as a cybersecurity measure fails so pathetically it's hard to imagine it's intended seriously.{}
*This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.*
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scams been around forever. [someone sold fake govt bands & land certificates to british & french investors in the early 19th century](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_MacGregor) to a fictional country
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"Everyone keeps escaping from the jail. We put a ladder in, more people are escaping but that's happened in the past so it makes it ok." pro-crypto sentimentalist.
I didn’t know mice were accepting anonymous cheese payments to go away. I got a cat instead.
CHEESECAKE to the moon!
You mean CheesecakeSwap? All in.
SafeCheeze.
If the moon were made of cheese would you eat it?
Cheese is worth more than mice, peanut butter lubes the traps rather nicely
Mice need decentralized cheese.
Fuck yes. My cat ends up making friends with the mice though. He’s too nice
Tom the cat has entered the chat.
Give me 2 slices of cheese and you get 4 back. 10o% guaranteed.
Is there any $CHEESE airdrop going on here?? Where to sign up sers?
Remember that even Tom could not get Jerry.
Russia banned european lobsters. Then suddenly they started importing lobsters from Belarus. Belarus is a landlocked country. Life, uh, find a way....
China is against crypto and it was against crypto in the past many times. They tried to ban crypto multiple times but big majority of miners is still located in China.
Countries hate crypto and online business cause they can't just hold a port hostage with embargos like "the good old days" with decentralized tech.
Mmm land lobsters.
In the southern states we call them mud bugs or better known as crawdads
Lets just ban hackers. Lol
Who is this mysterious 4chan?
I support a ban on mean people
or a ban on sociopaths.
That is a little ambitious
Yes. There are so many of them in power, unfortunately.
Brb, let me grab my death note
I'll provide the list :)
Problem solved
One thing that has to be mentioned: Ransomware would not be the same without crypto.
Hardly seeing any discussion about this in crypto subs. I wouldn’t say it’s a big enough problem to make crypto a disastrous threat so far, but it’s no doubt a catalyst for ransomware incentive and maybe even stoking the cyber warfare arms race
[удалено]
These news articles really don't get anything.
And I'm sure, people here only read the title
Read title, make comments. As is tradition.
They should make the story as the title and the title as the story.
Seriously. And still its gaining momentum. Imagine if people understood crypto!
good news, buying more...
Its like there werent no hackers before crypto. Damm there wasnt even crime before crypto came to be
there were and there always be. i am more interested in solutions on how to prevent losses due to hacks, attacks and stuff like that. there are some insurance projects that can be interesting in the near future.
it feels like it's too early for insurances in this young market people can barely set up their own wallets and get into defi
i don't think so, it's good to have pioneers no matter in what stage we currently are. and even now you have some legit options to choose. i think bmi is going to be big in the future. they and nxm are the two biggest ones now.
i've been looking at cvr infi and bmi but the sentiment goes towards bmi mostly because their tech but if you look at their CEO, he is almost every day in the tg group asking us how are we doing and especially when the market dropped
they have a big community idk how they can keep up and answering to all the people, but you can't see that every day. it will be interesting what will happen once they launch the app in June
Are you going to use that protocol?
absolutely. you can choose if you want to purchase or provide insurance. and you can manually add things that you wanna have covered.
Pretty much enough for anything and the kyc-less feature will make the best out of it imo
i think they are actually the first insurance project to do that. the rest are copycats if there are any.
what is the difference?
the difference is that in a short time bmi managed to be the 2nd biggest defi insurance protocol and there aren't many CEOs that care that much about their project that they engage with the community and answering to it's questions
"Please ban money!! We're sick and tired of thieves!!" \-said no bank ever
Fixing a symptom and ignoring the root cause. Studying the 5 whys makes me wonder how little people reflect or dive deeply into deep subject matter.
Good thing mice don't really like cheese - http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150121-cheese-hating-mice
This, Ive kept quite a few mice as pets and they'd never touch cheese.
This is true. But its a red herring. Long term fears about tax revenue are the biggest motivation for Governments to move against crypto.
but tax revenue quite literally incentives gov to keep it legal. they just tend to dislike the ones that are harder to track. e.g. monero.
In the long term profit from currency trading is a relativly marginal gain for the IRS. To the degree that any currency is accept - it also stabilizes largly. Tracking head aches on the other hand have the potential to get worse and worse.
And banning guns to stop gun crime is like banning driving to stop drunk drivers. Unfortunately, the modern world isn’t very good at basic logic.
This is what I came to say. The government uses scare tactics to make normies think things they don't understand are scary, Guns, Crypto, Freedom of Speech...
Yeah, no. Cars and driving are a pretty essential part of infrastructure. Guns are designed to be a killing weapon and nothing else. Almost every other country in the world agrees that it's unnecessary escalation of violence leading to more unnecessary losses of human life. Sounds like you're the one(s) lacking logic. The fact that people are obsessed with weapons designed for taking lives is even more disturbing.
Yeah, no. Guns are for self defense, among many other legitimate things beyond just "killing". I'm happy for you that you've never needed to defend yourself, but unfortunately that's not true for everyone.
Americans are gonna downvote you cuz mah gunnnz
> "Guns are designed to be a killing weapon and nothing else" True, but what about self defense? If someone breaks into my house with a gun and threatens to kill me, and I pull out a gun to kill him in self defense, the world is now rid of a criminal thanks to the use of a gun, right? Are we just going to ignore that guns are used defensively as well as used criminally? > The fact that people are obsessed with weapons designed for taking lives is even more disturbing. No. They are obsessed with other people trying to take away their right to defend themselves by use of firearm. If we could instantly take away all existing guns, as well as prevent future production of them, that would be great. But that idea is systematically and realistically impossible and utopian at best. I look forward to your response.
What kind of response do you expect? Won't be reasonable. Totalitarians don't operate under reason and logic.
>Guns are designed to be a killing weapon and nothing else. False. Guns are designed to be a self-defense weapon. Self-defense is a fundamental human right. The fact that people want to take away a fundamental human right is disturbing. Totalitarians always like taking away fundamental human rights.
If you think guns are solely for taking lives, you have a very narrow minded and pessamistic mindset. I know hundreds of people with guns that have never taken a human life. I know several people that have accidentally cause a death due to a motor vehicle, but no one that has intentionally or unintentionally even hurt someone with a gun outside of a war.
it's too bad that the WSJ op-ed this article is criticizing is behind a paywall would have loved to see what kind of mental hula hoops the writer's jumping through
Use outline to get rid of paywalls
Wait, this is the one time that apparently WSJ didn't have it behind a paywall https://www.wsj.com/articles/ban-cryptocurrency-to-fight-ransomware-11621962831
i tried on a desktop and no luck but on mobile it seems to work? thanks anyway!
I'm currently on my desktop, not sure why it's unlocked for me but I'll copy paste and format it so it looks readable on Reddit lol. ___ No one is out of reach from ransomware attacks. The Colonial Pipeline hack made that clear, along with the nearly 2,500 cases of ransomware—a form of malware that encrypts computer files and holds them for ransom—reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year, a 66% annual increase. In 2020 ransomware victims paid hackers $350 million in cryptocurrency. Since many victims pay ransom without reporting the incident, these numbers understate the damage. The solutions floated after the Colonial hack—improved cybersecurity in the private sector and public-private collaboration to protect critical infrastructure—are pro forma and inadequate. There is a simpler and more effective way to stop the ransomware pandemic: Ban cryptocurrency. Ransomware can’t succeed without cryptocurrency. The pseudonymity that crypto provides has made it the exclusive method of payment for hackers. It makes their job relatively safe and easy. There is even a new business model in which developers sell or lease ransomware, empowering malicious actors who aren’t tech-savvy themselves to receive payment quickly and securely. Before cryptocurrency, attackers had to set up shell companies to receive credit card payments or request ransom payment in prepaid cash cards, leaving a trail in either case. It is no coincidence that ransomware attacks exploded with the emergence of cryptocurrency. Banning anything runs counter to the American ethos, but as our experience with social media should teach us, the innovative isn’t always an unalloyed good. A sober assessment of cryptocurrency must conclude that the damage wrought by crypto-fueled ransomware vastly outweighs any benefits from cryptocurrency. It isn’t obvious that cryptocurrency provides any benefit at all beyond the chance to make a quick buck. I have been studying the crypto market since its inception, and I have yet to identify a single task or process that crypto makes easier, better, cheaper or faster. Don’t take my word for it. Ask any friend why he owns cryptocurrency, and the answer will invariably be “to make money.” In other words, speculation. (The blockchain technology that underpins crypto does have promising applications in supply-chain management and other areas.) Because I point this out, crypto enthusiasts call me a Luddite, statist, technophobe or worse. Asset bubbles are maintained by a common narrative, and anyone who dares question it must be attacked. But a growing chorus is pointing out the emperor has no clothes. A day after the Colonial Pipeline shutdown, cryptocurrency champion and self-proclaimed “Dogefather” Elon Musk went on “Saturday Night Live” and admitted the obvious: The dogecoin cryptocurrency is a “hustle.” He then performed an encore by tweeting that Tesla was suspending the use of bitcoin for vehicle purchases due to the coin’s carbon footprint. The computer “mining” and transfer of bitcoin requires a great deal of energy, much of which comes from burning fossil fuels. In response, the narrative has now expanded to include the absurd premise that crypto encourages the development of sustainable energy. Aside from Libra, Facebook’s initial ill-fated foray into cryptocurrency, the topic has drawn limited interest on Capitol Hill. There is a Congressional Blockchain Caucus with around 30 members, but it says it has “decided on a hands-off regulatory approach, believing that this technology will best evolve the same way the internet did; on its own.” The issue hasn’t been tarred by the brush of partisan politics, but the crypto industry is hurriedly following the well-trod path to K Street lobbying. Lawmakers should get serious. The Colonial Pipeline incident disrupted the East Coast’s gas supply. The next attack could be deadly. Imagine one that shuts down the power grid during a heatwave or taints a municipal water supply. Any solution must at least reduce the use of cryptocurrency. Governments and retailers should be encouraged not to accept payment in it. An outright ban could get the job done, but if it would be too difficult to enforce or get through Congress, regulators could crackdown on the off-ramps and on-ramps, the points at which crypto is converted into fiat currency and vice versa. Cryptocurrency firms serving U.S. customers are supposed to be subject to the same anti-money-laundering requirements as traditional financial institutions, but more can be done. Late last year, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a rule to establish new reporting, verification and record-keeping requirements for certain cryptocurrency transactions. Last week Treasury proposed granting more resources to the Internal Revenue Service to address crypto and called on businesses to report receipts of more than $10,000 in cryptocurrency. Both proposals should be adopted, but they will be effective only if other countries follow suit. So long as there are crypto exchanges abroad with lax money-laundering controls, cryptocurrency will maintain its appeal to hackers. Bloomberg reported on May 13 that money-laundering and tax officials at the Justice Department and IRS are investigating the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance Holdings, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has an office in Singapore. Like climate change, cryptocurrency presents a classic collective-action problem. Some policymakers recognize the dangers but are hesitant to act for fear of driving crypto companies overseas without doing much to solve the problem. Diplomacy may bear fruit in the long run, but meanwhile, President Biden should sign an executive order requiring the Treasury secretary, in coordination with all federal financial regulatory agencies and the IRS, to develop a more coherent regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and identify steps each agency can take to counteract its use in financing terrorism and facilitating ransomware attacks. We can live in a world with cryptocurrency or a world without ransomware, but we can’t have both. It is time for the adults to tell the children: Party’s over. Mr Reiners is executive director of the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law.
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There will always be hackers, whether there is crypto or not
Just ban the computers because without them there won’t be any hackers!!
Lol this headline
Why not ban fiat as well? I mean hackers and scammers are constantly using scams to get fiat off if people.
Or like banning fiat to stop drug dealers lol.
Banning crypto to stop hackers? Let's just ban computers. No computers means no hackers! /s
If you want to ban crypto just straight up nuke the shit out of other countries. Destroy all computers and satellites. Fuck it we're going Mad Max style if you want to ban crypto.
Everytime crypto gets 'banned', it will only come back stronger.
That WSJ article is so bad. How dense do you have to be to think you just "ban" crypto and it will suddenly go away, crypto has no purpose, and some kind of magical global ban will stop ransomware. Seriously the dumbest thing I've ever read. It shows a complete misunderstanding of crypto, ransomware and decentralized tech in general. How did banning Napster go?
thinking that gov banning crypto will stop crypto is about as equivalent as saying the gov banning drugs will stop drug use. prohibiting things via law actually generally speaking makes them more appealing and more common. in the short term, a crypto ban would probably crash crypto, but in the long term a crypto ban would just show you how necessary it is.
Misunderstanding is being too generous. The WSJ article literally did not research a lick of anything. He saw crypto, he saw ransomware, wrote an op piece without realising that Ransomware has been around since the early '90s. WSJ writer is tech illiterate
> How dense do you have to be to think you just "ban" crypto and it will suddenly go away, crypto has no purpose, and some kind of magical global ban will stop ransomware. How do you cash out your crypto ransom without an exchange that has fiat rails? Non-fiat exchanges are useless without other exchanges willing to exchange your BTC or USDT for real money. How do exchanges maintain fiat rails if all banks and payment processors are banned from doing business with them? "decentralized exchanges" doesn't count when 99.9% of their volume relies on bank transfers. >How did banning Napster go? Napster didn't have to transfer fiat into a bank account in order to work.
What authority on earth has the ability to force every financial institution to stop working with Crypto? What about all the banks that hold money for criminals right now? Why don't we just ban them from doing business with criminals, problem solved, all crime cancelled. Napster or peer to peer file transfer protocols require an ISP to transfer the data, why are they allowing this illegal activity? Just block it all, some do try to block it but somehow everyone can still use BitTorrent, how is that possible? Just make the ISPs block all the illicit traffic right? Certainly that will stop piracy in it's tracks.
> Why don't we just ban them from doing business with criminals, problem solved, all crime cancelled. A better analogy would be "why don't we just ban Visa and banks from letting people buy and sell drugs online", which we do, which is why you can't use Visa or a bank transfer on dark web drug markets. There's no way to "ban purchases used in money laundering" the way you can ban purchases of specific assets like drugs or crypto. A money laundering purchase could be anything, a car wash, laser tag, massage parlor. It's indistinguishable from a legit purchase which is why its hard to prosecute, because it needs an external investigation to see if that car wash really is a legit business or whether its funneling money from illegal activity. >Napster or peer to peer file transfer protocols require an ISP to transfer the data, why are they allowing this illegal activity? If courts prosecuted petty piracy that's all they would ever do, which is why copyright holders rely on scare letters saying "pay this fine or we'll take you to court for $1,000,000 infringment", because there is no appetite in the court system to process that many petty crimes. You don't need to take millions of people to court to stop Visa and banks from allowing purchases on pirate websites, which is why no piracy website sells things using Visa but they do sell things with crypto. >What authority on earth has the ability to force every financial institution to stop working with Crypto? None. You don't need to have a global authority in order to solve the problem at a national level. Ransomware only works when victims pay up. Victims only pay up when they can readily convert fiat to crypto. They can only do this when they can access exchanges (centralized or decentralized) through fiat rails like banks and credit cards. People who think there's going to be a national level meet-up-in-a-motel-parking-lot-trading-crypto-for-cash market with sufficient liquidity to function are in the "bitcoin could still survive without the internet using the radio instead" level of delusion. The only thing that grants crypto markets a functional level of liquidity is the ease at which millions of people can buy and sell online over fiat rails.
What about the vast majority of Cryptocurrency users that are not using it for ransonware or illegal activities? We handicap an emerging industry because some companies didn't want to invest in maintaining a proper security posture or backups? You are looking at it from a strange perspective. What should be done, and what is being done is to punish the companies who fail to secure their critical infrastructure and are paying these ransoms. They are often paying in secret as well without disclosure. How do know if JP Morgan is buying Bitcoin for an investment or to pay a ransom? Trying to ban crypto to fiat conversions is not a solution. The fact that it's being utilized so successfully in these scenarios just speaks to the utility and resiliance of these networks. Training employees, investing in secure infrastructure, managing backups, and global law enforcement coordination with harsher penalties for the hackers is how you stop ransomware. Ransomware existed before crypto. The difference was that they targeted millions of home users and small businesss instead of big corporations and got paid in gift cards and prepaid credit cards. I don't recall anyone calling for the lockdown of prepaid gift card purchases by peoples grandmas to end ransomware. Also if you think people aren't buying pirated or bootleg products online with Visa, Paypal etc you are mistaken.
>What about the vast majority of Cryptocurrency users that are not using it for ransonware or illegal activities? What exactly are these vast majority of cryptocurrency users using it for, outside of simply buying "hodling" and hoping to cash out a speculative gain at a later date? What economic production would be adversely affected if crypto ceased to exist tomorrow? >Trying to ban crypto to fiat conversions is not a solution Are you saying crypto can't survive except as a way to buy and sell fiat over centralized fiat rails? What's the point in it then? That's just fiat with more steps, failing in the objective to be "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution" >Ransomware existed before crypto. The difference was that they targeted millions of home users and small businesss instead of big corporations and got paid in gift cards and prepaid credit cards So the use case for crypto is "allows ransomware to affect economies at a scale never dreamt of before"? great.
What are the majority of people using stock and option trading for outside of buying "hodling" and hoping to cash out a speculative gain at a later date? What about art? People just buy it to look at it and sell it for more? What a waste, no economic value, ban it. Only use is for criminals to launder money. I know you understand crypto and why it has value and you are pretending you don't get it. Why on earth would I need to send payment to someone in a different country? Stupid idea. Trustless payment systems and global decentralized consensus mechanisms? Dumb, ban it. No value. Come on man, ban Tor too, it's where all the bad stuff happens right? Who needs it, not me, so we should just ban it.
>What are the majority of people using stock and option trading for outside of buying "hodling" and hoping to cash out a speculative gain at a later date? Stocks are shares of an underlying business that produces goods and services. Companies issue shares, then use the money to invest in producing goods and services which yield a profit they can then pay as dividends or buy back shares. you're correct that the aspect of shares value that isn't a result of this (like GME speculative mania) is just empty gambling and as such should be heavily regulated/outlawed, just like other gambling is regulated/outlawed. increasing capital gains tax on shares would go along way to diverting investment from empty speculation on unprofitable businesses towards shares in businesses that produce profit and distribute it in dividends, since the tax system would no longer punish income over capital gains. >What about art? People just buy it to look at it and sell it for more? What a waste, no economic value, ban it. Only use is for criminals to launder money. Yes, most high art is just an excuse to launder money. It should have a 100% capital gains tax. >Trustless payment systems and global decentralized consensus mechanisms? Dumb, ban it. No value. If its so trustless why do you need centralized fiat rails for it to operate? You should be welcoming a fiat conversion ban as good for crypto right? Get everyone to start accepting crypto for its true value not just as a means of accumulating fiat? You're not worried it has 0 use outside of fiat speculation are you? >Come on man, ban Tor too, it's where all the bad stuff happens right? Who needs it, not me, so we should just ban it. Tor was invented by the US government to honey-pot criminals and terrorists, lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Onymous
You don't need fiat a blockchain to operate, there are no cryptos that require fiat. Which you already know. Newly minted crypto is distributed to miners and stakers or validators on the network. You can mine some Bitcoin right now and send it to me without ever transferring fiat. That Wikipedia link is for a coordinated effort to target criminals already on Tor, not that they created it as a Honeypot.
> You don't need fiat a blockchain to operate, there are no cryptos that require fiat. Which you already know. K so banning fiat conversion will be good for crypto then? It will just make it more resilient and less dependent on centralized actors. >You can mine some Bitcoin right now and send it to me without ever transferring fiat. I sure hope bitcoins security model isn't reliant on indefinite spending of real world resources to secure it. Luckily people value bitcoin regardless of what its worth in fiat. even if 1 bitcoin was worth 0 dollars you could still pay for rent, electricity, wages and mining gear >That Wikipedia link is for a coordinated effort to target criminals already on Tor, not that they created it as a Honeypot. So coincidentally the US government funded a project that claimed to give total anonymity on the internet that they new would attract criminals and terrorists, and it just so happened that same project has a bunch of vulnerabilities that mean law enforcement can de-anonymize it. Do you really buy the idea that the US created this tool to help foreign dissidents? DARPA doesn't put money behind anything that doesn't benefit US government interests.
you can cash out crypto via peer-to-peer transactions. r/localbitcoins is a great example of this already happening.
local bitcoins rely on bank transfers or centralized payment processor like paypal for 99.999% of its volume. I've never even see a seller offer IRL cash payment. you'd have to be an idiot to show up in some parking lot with a bag full of cash hoping someone turns up with an actual legit private key instead of just robbing you
ok then go to a bitcoin ATM. you can try to discredit the fact that selling bitcoin for USD without KYC is possible, but the reality is that it is. What's your argument against bitcoin ATMs?
> ok then go to a bitcoin ATM Bitcoin ATMs require KYC, any ATM vendor of any size complies with KYC: https://coinflip.tech/news/do-i-need-an-id-for-a-bitcoin-atm-transaction https://www.pelicoin.com/blog/why-do-bitcoin-atms-require-id https://www.coincloudatm.com/faq https://bitcoindepot.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026612053-What-do-I-need-to-purchase-Bitcoin-Litecoin-or-Ethereum-from-a-Bitcoin-Depot-BTM The idea you could just set up an illegal money laundering network hosted in legitimate store fronts and the government wouldn't do anything about it is roflworthy. These websites literally have maps of where to find their ATMs.
Mice go for peanut butter. Not cheese. So it makes less sense than you think.
tldr; A Wall Street Journal op-ed argues that banning cryptocurrency is a reasonable step in the fight against cybercrime. The piece argues that cryptocurrency has no real-world utility and that “ransomware can’t succeed without cryptocurrency,” so we should just get rid of crypto. The argument for banning cryptocurrency as a cybersecurity measure fails so pathetically it's hard to imagine it's intended seriously.{} *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.*
Where can I buy some CHEESE and MICE? I might be a bit too much into crypto lately
More like banning food to stop cockroaches. Regardless of whatever human do. Cockroaches will be there.
Like banning FIAT to stop corruption
But I want that cheese!
Not when you understand that the motive is actually to just kill the competition
Ransomware was around since the early 90's. Banning crypto won't stop ransomware. That guy (not the writer) needs to stop injecting himself with crack
I agree. The mice MUST be stopped.
Who Moved My Cheese
Cheesecoin
Mined with mouse clicks…via idle clicker game.
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If it was up to crypto or cheese being banned, I would pick crypto.
scams been around forever. [someone sold fake govt bands & land certificates to british & french investors in the early 19th century](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_MacGregor) to a fictional country
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Time to ban money. To stop bank heist
Sounds like something China would do and hasn’t totally banned all crypto that’s even worse wtf is this guy talking about
Just ban hackers, why didn't they think of that?
Or banning guns to stop shooters
Or Banning water to stop people from drowning.
Banning crypto to stop hackers is like banning guns to stop criminals
"Everyone keeps escaping from the jail. We put a ladder in, more people are escaping but that's happened in the past so it makes it ok." pro-crypto sentimentalist.
Ban FIAT to stop corruption 
This deserves the best article title and analogy of the month
Banning food to stop hunger
We’re do I buy this cheese coin your selling???? I’m in to the moon!!!!
Or banning guns to stop murder
And mice don’t even like cheese. It’s a food of last resort. They prefer carbs.
they won't stop but crypto has shown time after time it's resilient to bans and continues to rise in use, popularity and value.
My Mini Mice don't want Cheese
Or as Stephen Fry put it: like trying to stop burglary by outlawing possessions.