[hwstar]

They want you to reinforce the ransomware creator's behaviour, but if you hunt them down and physically punish them yourselves, you'll go to jail. Why does a democratic government exist, and why do I pay taxes to support it? In my opinion, the FBI is the slacker here. We are paying taxes to the government for services which should include hunting down and making examples of the perps so that they think twice about ever writing ransomware again.

[ctdonath]

"If you hunt them down and physically punish them yourselves, you'll go to jail"

The U.S. Constitution actually has provisions for legally doing that. Lobby your congressmen to issue "letters of marque and reprisal", which Congress is authorized to provide precisely for businesses to engage in warlike behavior against pirates et al, which includes the modern form in "ransomware".

[hwstar]

That's a slippery slope which is bound to harm innocent parties. Large corporations would just love to get letters of marque and reprisal, let's hope that it is not authorized by Congress anytime soon.

[nickff]

This all assumes that the FBI's purpose is to go after criminals who are harming the citizenry. I am no longer certain that is the purpose of the police (federal, state, or municipal), given their exceptionally poor record of preventing crime, and finding those responsible for crimes.