Got a ransom note from a bitcoiner?

[davidm]

@DiversionImmersion

Damn, these emails are getting out of hand already, really tired of them. The thing is I am already flooded with emails consisting of such nonsense. The only difference is that letters on my email are not that scsammy and are just informational for the most part. Fun fact is that I actually became interested in all that stuff and even looked through some genesis mining roi here Genesis Mining Review 2020 | Genesis Mining Profitability and ROI | CloudMiningPro since I wanna try investing some of my money in it. AS for the letters, I would contact the police quite likely, even though they may not find the scammer.

Reported.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@control-z

This is my wallet address 1D9734C2EaYKPWzDAJCECMX7yTMUGr3A5t
(something like a credit card number)

I received one of these scam emails today. They asked for $2000 in bitcoin and provided a bitcoin address. According to blockchain.com, that address had zero transactions and a zero balance.

Checking control-Z’s wallet address from 6 years ago shows… a zero balance with zero transactions.

For those interested, bitcoin addresses can be traced here: https://www.blockchain.com/explorer

I’m not that familiar with crypto though. Is it easy to set up thousands of wallets at a time? Millions? Tens? Does the target know when their account has been checked at blockchain.com or wherever?

Bonus question: what do google, Microsoft, yahoo, and other email providers do with abuse@ reports?

[Mangetout]

@Measure_for_Measure

I’m not that familiar with crypto though. Is it easy to set up thousands of wallets at a time? Millions?

Yeah, it can be automated - there are also online services that will do bulk creation for you.

Does the target know when their account has been checked at blockchain.com or wherever?

No, there’s no way for them to know if you queried the blockchain (at least, nothing built into the blockchain - I suppose the blockchain explorer website could be keeping logs, but those would probably just be for internal technical use).

Bonus question: what do google, Microsoft, yahoo, and other email providers do with abuse@ reports?

In theory, they would act to investigate and shut down the mailbox, cooperate with law enforcement to see the scammers prosecuted etc; in practice, generally not very much happens. There might be some automated process that reacts to reports and does something to scammer mailboxes, but the problem of scam email traffic online is completely out of control - it has been suggested that more than half of all email traffic is junk, including spam and scams.