Ransom

John Crowe. 1888--1974, US poet and critic

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

ransom note typography

Using too many fonts in a document. The term comes from the text in a ransom note that is pasted together from words cut out of different magazines and newspapers.

The ease with which fonts can be selected in an application has enabled the use of too many fonts in a document or newsletter. Seasoned graphics artists use only two or three fonts for a professional appearance. See ransomware.

ransomware

Virus software that blackmails users by locking them out of their computer or encrypting their computer's files in some manner. Also known as a "cryptovirus" or "cryptotrojan," a typical ransomware approach that takes only a few seconds to accomplish is to encrypt the indexes in the file system. This disables access to all the data and programs in the computer because the file system is the doorway to everything in storage (see file system). The ransomware then demands payment in Bitcoin to restore the data.

A favorite ploy is an FBI message claiming the user has child pornography on the computer, and a fine must be paid or else risk arrest. After paying the blackmail on any of these ransomware attacks, the user's machine may or may not be restored.

CryptoLocker - An Insipiration
In 2013, the creators of CryptoLocker collected millions in ransom by infecting Windows PCs until its distribution was halted a year later by the FBI and Interpol. CryptoLocker was the inspiration for other ransomware variants (gotta love that entrepreneurial spirit!). See Petya and WannaCry.

Mobile Phones Too
In 2014, using the same FBI scare tactic, thousands of Android users found their phones locked with demands for payment. See scareware and wares.

Even Cities
In 2019, two Florida cities paid their attackers more than $1 million to remove ransomware. Cybercrooks are increasingly asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they have breached a large organization or government entity. If there is any bright side to this, more organizations both public and private, are developing or improving their backup and recovery programs. See disaster recovery and cybercrime.

Ransomware Protection
As a result of this delightful phenomenon, numerous firms such as Trend Micro, Symantic, Malwarebytes and Avast Software have added ransomware protection in their lines of security products. See RaaS.

FBI MoneyPak Ransomware

Imagine finding your computer frozen with an FBI alert saying you violated one or more video, music or software copyrights or that you distributed child pornography. It demands that you put $200 cash into a MoneyPak card and enter the card number within 72 hours to unlock your computer as well as prevent the initiation of a criminal case.

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Mentioned in

References in classic literature

With it ransom yourself and your friends, and let one of you go to the land of the Christians, and there buy a vessel and come back for the others; and he will find me in my father's garden, which is at the Babazon gate near the seashore, where I shall be all this summer with my father and my servants.

We at once gave the renegade five hundred crowns to buy the vessel, and with eight hundred I ransomed myself, giving the money to a Valencian merchant who happened to be in Algiers at the time, and who had me released on his word, pledging it that on the arrival of the first ship from Valencia he would pay my ransom; for if he had given the money at once it would have made the king suspect that my ransom money had been for a long time in Algiers, and that the merchant had for his own advantage kept it secret.

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Some authorities think different, but mostly it's considered best to kill them -- except some that you bring to the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed."

But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, it means that we keep them till they're dead.

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This violent resolution was not lasting; his zeal gave way to his avarice, and he could not think of losing so large a sum as he knew he might expect for our ransom: he therefore sent us word that it was in our choice either to die, or to pay him thirty thousand crowns, and demanded to know our determination.

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"Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove."

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I would I could here end my message to these gallant knights; but being, as I term myself, in truth and earnest, the Disinherited, I must be thus far bound to your masters, that they will, of their courtesy, be pleased to ransom their steeds and armour, since that which I wear I can hardly term mine own.''

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"She is very small and very beautiful; I had hoped that they would hold her for ransom."

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The third item is that of ransom. I am asking from the friends of the Harrogate family a ransom of three thousand pounds, which I am sure is almost insulting to that family in its moderate estimate of their importance.

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"Without doubt, duke, since you are not yet ransomed, but have no care of that; it was I who took you out of M.

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"And if I ride north with you," he asked, "half the jewels and half the ransom of the woman shall be mine?"

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He would have promised a sum far beyond his resources just as readily, for he had no intention of paying anything--his one reason for seeming to comply with The Sheik's demands was that the wait for the coming of the ransom money would give him the time and the opportunity to free Meriem if he found that she wished to be freed.

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