US response to crypto ransom thieves and hackers
As cryptocurrency lessens the nationstate and what constitutes a border, we are dealing with new problems. In the past it would have been difficult to move millions of dollars using traditional banking or the SWIFT system. It also would have been difficult to physically move million in gold and even millions in paper money. Paper money is hard to spend and wash if you have millions.
The good think about moving your money around in paper, gold, and diamonds is that unless someone is actually in the same room as the goods, they don't know for sure. They don't know for sure how much or where its hidden. They don't know where it came from or how many times it has been washed.
When it comes to Bitcoin, there is a lot more that you can keep track of. Unless the criminals want Monero, almost every other coin can be easily tracked by the US government. The criminals that are hacking the United States infrastructure and demanding ransom probably don't fully understand that they are declaring war on the United States and all of its allies. An attack on the US infrastructure is an attack on US Homeland and will be viewed as one of the worst attacks since Pearl Harbor or 911.
The United States will not accept a hacking organization having the ability to take down our country. I wouldn't be surprised to see some random buildings explode in countries that we don't have particularly good diplomatic relations. If Russia or North Korea is harboring the hackers that we seek, I don't think it will go well.
I have seen all the Delta Force movies and Commando movies and Rambo movies. I hope to hell that the United States has some of those dude for real and that they can just go in and take out the hacking ring. It would be like the scene in Falcon and Winter Soldier where the fake Captain America breaks into the computer hacking underground group and gets spit in the face.
If the US can't take out a computer hacking ring now, then it will only get harder in the future. The hackers need to physically be somewhere and they need to change Bitcoin into fiat somewhere or move it somewhere and it will always be known. It will always be followed. The US's best hackers will be trying to steal it back and break the hacking ring while the military tries to destroy it physically.
The days of crypto ransom will go away but it will take a lot of people going away and Microsoft and Apple just figuring out how to block it. I mean everyone has a Mac or a PC that gets these things. Can't we blame Microsoft or Apple?