Ransomware

For most people reading this, I would suppose that you are already kind of familiar with the de-centralized bullshit currency, Bitcoin. Either you’ve tried it out and made a little bit of money mining it and then were quickly outpaced by minining farms, or you at least know a little bit about it. That is my guess, anyway. My first real introduction to it was when somebody gave me a few tiny pieces of Bitcoin that I promptly spent on a Humble Bundle once they started taking it in exchange for game bundles. If I had held onto that, it would have been worth significantly more virtual space bucks.

For most people, that is not their introduction to Bitcoin. It’s irrelevant to every day life, I haven’t really touched it since that one trial run buying some games and people just don’t need to know about it. But, for some folks, their first introduction was the day their computer files were locked off from them by the ransomware known as CryptoLocker. Radiolab’s latest episode (Overcast link) has an interview with someone who had no idea what Bitcoin or CryptoLocker was, and how she had to deal with this ransomware. Surprisingly, the people holding the ransom even have customer service.