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Comment by jplayer01 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, seems like a great service to a certain degree. But it's not the service they're selling and they're lying to their customers. Their service incentivizes ransomware authors, so this absolutely needs transparency. I assume most people go to them because they want the problem solved but they feel they shouldn't be paying the hostage takers. "we don't negotiate with terrorists" comes to mind. So if this service is doing exactly this and making the situation worse for everybody else, this is something that needs to be consciously weighed off and decided by the people considering their services.

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If they're making money from ransomware they have no incentive to stop or prevent ransomware. Being the English speaking liaison for ransomware isn't really that different from being an accomplice after a certain point, they both get their cut as long as the industry is booming.

I wonder how many of these "white hat middlemen" are also the ransomware owners...

Obviously the two companies collaborating would give benefits to eachother, and it might just be a convenient way to seperate the illegal from the legal...

This was my first thought as well. What’s the biggest risk when you’re paying the ransom? That the thief will run off with the bitcoin without providing the key. The easiest way to mitigate that risk is to either collaborate with the thieves or become the thieves.

Bet they run the Antivirus companies too! It's all a racket!

It can be better to know, but ignore the truth, to avoid unsavoury corporate discussions like:

“Are we paying a bribe? I’ll have to create a new line item in SAP for that” asks Alice from accounting,

and

“I need them to sign this form saying they haven’t tortured anyone in the past 5 years”, Bob from procurement auditing.

“Please have one of their senior directors sign this form declaring that none of their funds employees are based in any of these embargoed countries. I’ve attached the list.” Charlie from legal

> Their service incentivizes ransomware authors, so this absolutely needs transparency.

I don't think that companies that offer ransomware decryption services have a problem with this incentive. More ransomware means more customers for their "decryption services". ;-)

For most people, they want their problem solved, plain and simple. And they rather not know the details on how you solved it or how it affects others. especially when it comes to something as urgent as someone holding your data hostage. So to a degree, I am OK with this service.

> they want their problem solved, plain and simple. And they rather not know the details on how you solved it or how it affects others

In general, this sounds like a dangerous attitude. Asking people to do "whatever it takes" to solve an immediate problem, with no consideration of wider or longer-term effects, frequently leads to more trouble in the end.

Yep, I agree, but it's easier said than done, especially when there's a hair on fire situation.

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