Return to Answer

Untill the asker clarifies his/her research efforts, his/her knowledge level, etc. (which I asked for via my comment) we don’t know if the asker already did any research related to crypto algos and/or ransomware that contais and uses it. However we read it, we certaily can’t see from the question what kind of crypto-knowledge level the asker might (or might not) have.

“Understanding ransomware – What makes plain-text-attacks or brute-forcing so hard?”

Should the community decide we indeed need a canonical, ransomware-related Q, I would support that decision to the fullest while suggesting we build upon what we already have.

After all, Otus’ answer from back in January 2016 already provides a perfect base which we could build upon by adding additional information via answers (whenever that makes sense).

Untill the asker clarifies his/her research efforts, his/her knowledge level, etc. (which I asked for via my comment) we don’t know if the asker already did any research related to crypto algos and/or ransomware that contais and uses it. However we read it, we certaily can’t see from the question what kind of crypto-knowledge level the asker might (or might not) have.

“Understanding ransomware – What makes plain-text-attacks or brute-forcing so hard?”

Should the community decide we indeed need a canonical, ransomware-related Q, I would support that decision to the fullest while suggesting we build upon what we already have.

After all, Otus’ answer from back in January 2016 already provides a perfect base which we could build upon by adding additional information via answers (whenever that makes sense).

Should the community decide we indeed need a caninocal, ransomware-related Q, I would support that decision to the fullest while suggesting we build upon what we already have.

Should the community decide we indeed need a canonical, ransomware-related Q, I would support that decision to the fullest while suggesting we build upon what we already have.

When I first looked at that question, I could’t help noticing the Q’s initial problem of being rather broad:

I mean, where should we start when trying to answer that Q in a few paragraphs?

Untill the asker clarifies his/her research efforts, his/her knowledge level, etc. (as I‘ve requested via my comment) we don’t know if the asker already did any research related to crypto algos and/or ransomware that uses it. We certaily can’t see from the question what kind of crypto-knowledge level the asked might or might not have.

In a worst-case scenario, we might be forced to begin from scratch with an general introduction to cryptography, then explain a yet-to-be-defined amount of ciphers et all, followed by explaining public cryptography from A-Z, how different forms of cryptanalysis and attacks work, and who-knows-what beyond that. And we still would’t have mentioned the word ransomware yet – which merely uses cryptographic means to achieve it’s illegal purpose which frequently causes negative security impacts on individual victims or groups of victims.

Even when completely ignoring the described broadness issue for the benefit of the doubt, I end up noticing that today’s ransomware Q hardly asks anything that wasn’t already asked before. To me, it almost reads like a rephrased duplicate (with an additional “broadness problem”).

To be exact, I think today’s ransomware Q might already find a perfect answer at this likewise generalized, yet less broadly formulated Q&A:

That one was asked and answered in back in January 2016. It’s not yet clear to me what today‘s Q might be asking beyond that. I’m still waiting for the requested clarifications by today’s ransomware-question poster.

When I first looked at that question, I could’t help noticing the question’s initial problem of being rather broad:

I mean, where should one start when trying to answer that Q in a few paragraphs?

Untill the asker clarifies his/her research efforts, his/her knowledge level, etc. (which I asked for via my comment) we don’t know if the asker already did any research related to crypto algos and/or ransomware that contais and uses it. However we read it, we certaily can’t see from the question what kind of crypto-knowledge level the asker might (or might not) have.

In a worst-case scenario, we might end up being forced to begin from scratch with an general introduction to cryptography, then explain a yet-to-be-defined amount of ciphers et all, followed by explaining public cryptography from A-Z, how different forms of cryptanalysis and attacks work, and who-knows-what beyond that. And we still would’t have mentioned the word ransomware yet – which merely uses cryptographic means to achieve it’s illegal purpose which frequently causes negative security impacts on individual victims or groups of victims.

Even when completely ignoring the described broadness issue for the benefit of the doubt, I still end up concluding that today’s ransomware Q hardly asks anything that wasn’t already asked before. 

To me, it almost reads like a rephrased duplicate with an additional “broadness problem”.

From the current state of today’s ransomware question, I think it might already finds a perfect answer at and older, likewise generalized, yet less broadly formulated Q&A:

That one was asked and answered in back in January 2016. It’s not yet clear to me what today‘s Q might be asking beyond that. As noted above, I asked but I’m still waiting for the requested clarifications and/or additional indormation that could help differ it from tha already existing question(s) and/or could help narrow it‘s broadness; so that it can be answered within some more limited boundries.

That doesn’t mean all hope is lost in relation to today‘s ransomware question though. It can still transform into a “good question” (as described by our help center). After all,there’s always a chance we can save it. Yet that doesn’t work untill/unless the poster at least provides some hints for us to work with, so that we can pull things completely on-topic with an edit or two, while keeping the core of the question untouched. Has been done before, and should also be possible in this case… provided the asker replies and gives us (at least) some minimal infos.