[ExI] colonial pipeline shutdown

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, 12 Jun 2021 at 01:03, spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> 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.
>
The FBI has not explained what exactly it did, but hacks of exchanges’ and
individuals’ Bitcoins happen on a regular basis, by getting into their
system and gaining access to their keys. It is a computer security failing,
not a failing of the Bitcoin protocol.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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