[ExI] colonial pipeline shutdown

[spike at rainier66.com]

I didn’t follow this story very closely but what I heard doesn’t make sense.

 

Some hackers somehow installed ransomware on the Colonial Pipeline system which caused a shutdown, resulting in fuel shortages on the east coast, but the company paid the ransom in bitcoins and got it back running again.  That part makes sense, but the next part doesn’t.

 

According to some sources, the FBI managed to get the money back somehow.

 

Are there bitcoin hipsters among us who can explain how the FBI could do that?  Is it not true that bitcoin is secure?  If the FBI can get money from criminals, it can get money from anyone who it says is a criminal, ja?  If so, the premise behind bitcoin has been demonstrated false or flawed, so its value should have taken a steep dive.  I see that it did right when the pipeline shut down, but not when the story broke that the FBI had recovered some of the money.

 

I don’t understand.

 

spike

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