Daily Archives: 1 November 2021

The Cost of Aiding and Abetting

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$590 million dollars. That’s the cost of aiding and abetting ransomware criminals in the first half of this year. That’s what so-called victims of ransomware attacks paid to their putative attackers to reward them for their crimes. Moreover,

The average cost of reported ransomware payments per month in the US in 2021 was $102.3 million. If the current trend continues, the number of SARs filed in 2021 “are projected to have a higher ransomware-related transaction value than SARs filed in the previous 10 years combined,” the Treasury projects.

(The average cost and the total cost differ by about 4%, but the point remains valid.)

Andrew Lipow, Lipow Oil Associates LLC CEO, is busy ducking responsibility—and he’s sadly typical:

The anonymity of a digital currency has allowed ransomware attacks to flourish. If you can’t follow the money today, regulators need to either ban the digital currencies or implement regulations that enable the identification of people and accounts involved in these transactions—just like they would do for a real bank.

Sure. Because criminals engaged in ransomware attacks can be counted on to obey currency laws. What a copout.

Aside from that, whether digital currencies need to be regulated is wholly irrelevant. What’s required is for businessmen to stop paying the ransom, stop rewarding criminals for their crimes, stop actively aiding and abetting criminals. They’re only making their companies willing repeat targets.

Beyond that, this is more than just money out of these companies’ coffers. It’s money out of other companies’ coffers, too, those that are downstream in the supply chain from the company that decides it’s fine to reward the criminals. They have to pay the higher prices the “victim” companies charge to cover their payoffs ransom payments.

It’s also money out of the coffers of other, otherwise unrelated, companies as they must bear the added security costs accruing from having also been made targets by those putative victims so amply rewarding the crimes and the criminals engaged in them.

It’s money out of us consumers’ pockets, too, in the form of increased prices we have to pay as those company executives just treat the “ransom” payments as a cost center, a cost of doing business.

Biden-Harris Deliberate Lawlessness

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This time, it’s through zir’s Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. Under the latest bit of lawlessness, Mayorkas has ordered his department’s enforcement arms to ignore existing law and not go after illegal aliens in these locations:

  • Schools, including pre-schools, primary and secondary schools, vocational or trade schools, and colleges and universities
  • Medical or mental healthcare facilities, like hospitals, doctors’ offices, health clinics, vaccination or testing sites, urgent care centers, sites that serve pregnant individuals, or community health centers
  • Houses of worship or religious studies and places where children gather, like playgrounds, recreation centers, childcare centers, before- or after-school care centers, foster care facilities, group homes for children, or school bus stops
  • Social services establishments, like crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, victims’ services centers, child advocacy centers, supervised visitation centers, family justice centers, community-based organizations, facilities that serve the disabled, homeless shelters, drug or alcohol counseling and treatment facilities, or food banks or other establishments that distribute food or other essentials of life to people in need
  • Places where disaster or emergency response and relief are provided, including along evacuation routes, where shelter or emergency supplies, food, or water are being distributed, or registration for disaster-related assistance or family reunification is underway
  • Places where funerals or other religious or civil ceremonies or observances occur, as well as ongoing parades, demonstrations, or rallies

These areas are the new Progressive-Democrat sanctuaries, within which enforcing immigration law is…illegal.

This is on top of Mayorkas’ prior lawlessness:

The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen therefore should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them[.]

After all, just because someone is breaking the law, that’s no reason to go and arrest them. C’mon, man.