Hacker Mafia article in FT, Drudge report...

[Terry]

Both.

The idea that “We cannot negotiate with terrorists” is naive and simplistic.

There are times when we must negotiate ... until we can, excuse my bluntness, destroy the terrorists. Suicide is not painless, it is pointless.

[JustPlayingSmart]

[ QUOTE ]
Man the mafia always gets the best programmers.

[/ QUOTE ]

They're dinner the night before my college's natural science career fair was quite good. Although every participant had to be invited to attend, the food was great, and there were certain, shall we say, "extras" thrown in that were very unfamiliar to computer science students. I suspect this is why they do so well in recruiting.

[Sheriff Fatman]

Surely Party's obvious response it to agree to the payment in principle and then ask the hackers to contact Customer Services to finalise the details. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[B Dids]

Do we have any idea that Party's actually getting hit by these attacks. So far all the stories have focues on online-bookmaking.

Party could just have server problems. Sucks, but just like in poker- why look for monsters under the bed?

[RollaJ]

Party is probably one of the biggest gaming sites on the net, I am sure they get the same demands, and should be paying off to keep the site up

[CountDuckula]

[ QUOTE ]
Party is probably one of the biggest gaming sites on the net, I am sure they get the same demands, and should be paying off to keep the site up

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem with paying the Danegeld is that you never get rid of the Dane. As long as extortion is profitable, it will continue. Sure, Party can make the hackers go away for a short time by paying them off. But they'll be back, with bigger and bigger demands. It never stops. Treating it as just another "business expense" won't work, because it is not predictable enough to factor into the bottom line; you never know when they're going to issue another demand, or how much it will cost the next time they do.

-Mike

[chesspain]

Paying hackers "protection" money is absurd. At least when a storefront businessman is dealing face-to-face with mafioso, their presense as your "partners" will protect you from other slime in the neighborhood. However, there is no real upside to paying off terrorists online-it would be cheaper to invest in better security.