When will the Feds give up on "You should never pay a ransom"?

1)Mandatory reporting of attacks

2)Laws against paying ransom

Bitcoin has finally found a practical use, LOL. Note that the attack on the pipeline was against their billing system. They shut their own pipeline so they could still be paid by their customers. If they are not allowed to pay ransom they will have to make their systems robust.

Who know what the US is doing in the cyber wars? We may be doing similar things.

Unseen,

What the petro companies and distributors need are Intranets that run parallel to the Internet, side-by-side, but never touching.  The moment a hack is detected, the Internet is cut off, the Intranet is engaged, and the hackers no longer have control of anything!  And as a backup for control via Intranet, have manual over-rides ready.

People who learn to drive on straight-drives can transition to automatics easily.  People who learn to drive on automatics have a bear of a time learning to drive a straight-drive.  Technology and learning that is backwards-compatible is always the way to go in an emergency.

Also, there shouldn’t be just one pipeline supplying a region, but a spider web of pipelines that can allow for plug up of damage and rerouting around damage, just as the World Wide Web does the same thing with data.

Finally, to make the web of oil pipelines complete, have multiple nodes of supply.  Oil supply shouldn’t be limited to just Alaska and Texas.  See if the Appalachian Mountains can dredge up some Black Gold in the same territories as the old coal mines.  Give the meth-heads and Fenty-fans up there something better and more lucrative to do with their lives!   Maybe I have some weird aesthetics, but I think an oil-rig off Myrtle Beach and Carolina Beach would look much better than their multiple “Bike Weeks” anytime!

And yes, carry on with no negotiation with or ransom to terrorists.  Those responses are what insurers call creating a moral hazard i.e. it’s enabling shitty behavior which just gets you more of it.

Unseen,

In my meager 1 bed 1 bath apartment, I have:

A 50-gallon water heater and a 6-foot water hose;

Several gallons of pre-bottled water under my pantry;

A bag of charcoal, sand, pebbles, paper and cloth to make filters for standing water;

Aquatabs and Neutralizer in case I have to break into the creek water;

A mini outdoor grill to boil water;

Antimicrobial wet wipes and waterless hunter’s soap, shampoo, and conditioner;

A bucket of cat litter, a bag of baking soda, and a folding shovel for waste disposal (always 400 + yards away from any water source;)

Toilet paper and fast-food napkins;

A whole collection of First Aid supplies for everything from little boo-boos to sucking chest wounds, plus training in First Aid, the Heimlich Maneuver, CPR, and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation;

A regularly updated medicine chest of prescriptions and supplements;

Everyday non-perishable provisions;

Disposable paper plates and eating ware;

Eight layers of op-sec between me and the outside world;

Silent but deadly weaponry after all that is breached;

And a translator app that can say “Nuts!” to any ransom-demanding State or Non-State actor in Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Persian, or dozens of other languages.

All within easy reach of any American of any income.

Uh, no, no ransom for Putin, Xi, Sulayman, or Khameini.

Let’s follow this story from El Salvador about its adoption of bitcoin as legal tender.  That should make for a stable economy!