Ransomware

[The Fungi]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:53:54AM -0400, Leichter, Jerry wrote:
> Returning to the point of the earlier question - why doesn't someone
> pay the ransom once and then use the key to decrypt everyone's files:
> Assuming, as seems reasonable, that there is a "session" key created
> per machine and then encrypted with the public key, what you'd get
> for your ransom money is the decryption of that one session key.
> Enough to decrypt your files, not useful on any other machine.
> 
> There's absolutely no reason the blackmailer should ever reveal the
> actual private key to anyone (short of rubber-hose treatment of some
> sort).

Maybe I missed it in one of the articles, but was it stated that the
blackmailer did reveal a private key? Couldn't they simply request
the encrypted data and return the decrypted version?
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