Are They All Toast?

It will be very interesting to see how the latest global ransomware attack pans out.

What I find particularly interesting is the fact that the extortionists demand payment in Bitcoin. They are clearly under the impression that their use of Bitcoin hides their identity. But is this really the case?

It appears to me that we are about to find out exactly how secretive it is possible to be when using Bitcoin. Won't the identity of the criminals become evident the moment they try to take money out of the anonymous account they have created? How on Earth are they going to spend their ill gotten gains without revealing themselves?

If it turns out that the criminals are toast, unable to access their loot without being found out, then I rather suspect that Bitcoin too is toast. One of the big selling points of Bitcoin has after all been that transactions can be made completely anonymously. If this turns out to be a fiction, then the appeal of Bitcoin becomes a whole lot less.

Another interesting thing is that the criminals used a loop hole deliberately built into Windows in order to satisfy NSA. Edward Snowden has warned about this for a long time, and now it has happened. Can large institutional organizations continue to use Windows now that it is clear to all that the operating system has been deliberately corrupted? Probably not. Windows may be toast too in other words, and Apple is known to have similar loop holes in their products. Will open source operating systems see growth at the expense of Apple and Microsoft?

How about NSA? That tax funded spying organization with an unsavory appetite for nude pics and private conversations. They spent tax payer money to make everybody less safe. How will they deal with the fallout?