Nick Weaver kicks off this wide-ranging episode by celebrating Treasury's imposition of sanctions on a cryptocurrency mixer that facilitated the laundering of stolen cryptocurrency. David Kris calls on Justice to step up its game in the face of this competition, while Nick urges Treasury to also sanction Tornado Cash -- and explains why this would incentivize better behavior more generally. Scott Shapiro weighs in to describe North Carolina's effort to prohibit government entities from paying ransomware gangs; he doubts it will work.
David and Scott also further our malware education by summarizing two chilling reports about successful long-term intrusion campaigns – one courtesy of Chinese state hackers and the other likely launched by Russian government agents. I can't help wondering whether the Russian agencies haven't prioritized flashy hacks over effective ones – to Russia's cost in the war with Ukraine.
Nick provides a tutorial on why quantum cryptanalysis is worrying the Biden Administration and what it thinks we ought to do about it. I note how good U.S. physicists have gotten at selling expensive dreams to their government – and express considerable relief that Chinese physicists are apparently at least as good at extracting funding from their government.
