Janus the ineffable

Part 1

I bet that those dicks do not believe me that i did nothing and that i am wrongly accused. They only want to hear that i will be a good citizen when i get out. I have to convince them one way or another. I cannot stand another day to this shithole. No personal toilet, no sex and most importantly.... no internet. And that means i cannot do anything to find out who did this to me. And why he chose me to inject the ransomware to my company's network. But i guess... i guess i already know the answer to that question. I am the only one idiot that could have opened that cursed e mail with the ransomware thinking that it is from a supplier. The ransomware is a computer virus that encrypts files making them inaccessible until a ransom is paid in case you didn't know. Did you know that? Anyway by the time i realized what happened, it was too late. The whole network was corrupted and i was the one to blame. I had no idea that a virus can cause such havoc to a company. The company had no recent backup files which means the damage was irreversible. So the company sued me for the damages and since there was no other way to restore their recent files, the company eventually paid the ransom. So that is how i ended up here. I am a little nervous about tomorrow's hearing so it is difficult for me to catch some sleep as well...  Hey are you still with me? .... Hey..... Shit he has gone to sleep. Now i guess it is my turn or else i will be like a zombie in tomorrow's hearing. 

The new guy was put here from his negligence as well.  At least that's what he said. He said that h he is a car dealer and he was accused of defrauding customers by accepting to sell their car and not paying after the sell was made. To be honest i know many people that were doing this thing in the past so i do not believe him. But i guess he doesn't believe me as well. So feelings are mutual.  He is the only one that i told him what really happened. But i guess he got his own problems now. 

I remember when i first came in this place. The feeling was so intense. I had the wrong idea of how prison would be like. When the verdict was made i was just terrified. I never thought before that one day i might end up in the slammer. Now i guess i am used to it. More than i would like to. Damn.... What am i doing? I should have gone to sleep by now. Tomorrow will be a difficult day.... Convincing those assholes won't be easy......

-So Mr Harrison.... What do you think was the reason you got incarcerated? 

-One thing i do know ma'am is that i am not opening another e-mail without checking it first. 

-The thing is that your negligence cost your ex-company a considerable amount of money. Since you were not able to compensate for the damages, you were sentenced for 5 years to prison. Now nobody said nor it was proved that you were behind this attack but as far as i am concerned, your irresponsibility carries the same weight with the actual crime. 

- I understand but....

-Nevertheless we are aware of your good conduct and good behaviour during your sentence. After careful consideration, the board decided to grant you the parole that you asked for under conditions. Have you got any questions?

-No... No questions. Thank you so much...

-Stay out of trouble Mr. Harrison

-Yes ma'am

Wow. Didn't expect that. Guess i was wrong about the board. Next thing i know the security guard opens the door to my cell. Can't see my inmate so i ask the guard:

-Where is the guy that was with me?  

-How the fuck should i know? Guess they moved him somewhere else.

Nah. Who cares anyway? Most probably I will be free in 2 weeks. I will have to go to the library to speed up my research somehow. 2 more weeks... Boy i have never been so impatient before. Can't wait to get out of here and start digging to find the people who did this to me. Better make sure that i will not get my parole revoked though. It won't be easy. But at least i know where to start. I know that the ransom was paid with bitcoins. It is a very common method because they are not traceable. At least most people think that are not traceable. Because what really happens is that everybody can have access to the transaction history of every account. This is the thing with the distributed ledger technology, the technology that bitcoin and most of the other cryptocurrencies are using to validate transactions. They are decentralized and someone has to validate the transactions. That someone are actually computers that are trying to solve a mathematical problem that can be solved only by brutal force meaning computational power. The computer that solves the problem announces the solution to the network and validates the transactions. It also gets some bitcoin in return. It took me many weeks to understand how actually the system works because before that i was using my computer only for basic tasks like emailing and using spreadsheet software. Now i understand one thing or two about cryptocurrencies. It was the attack that made me to do so. 

After the attack, all the computers had the same message at the starting screen: 

Oooops!!!! Your files have been encrypted

All your files have been encrypted and are no longer accessible. You may try to recover your files but that cannot be done without our decryption service. In order to have access to your files you must make a payment of 500 bitcoins to the following bitcoin address:

BTC address : 1JP7k4E7jGGMdtD2U8dpHoQ5rJDnTm9VuV

QR code

We promise that if you make the payment in 3 days you will have all your files decrypted. After that you will have to pay double the money. Also notice that if you do not make the payment in 7 days, your files will be lost forever

Hurry up!! You do not have much time...

Of course when i first saw that message i was shocked. But i thought that only my computer was infected. Only when i heard people shouting and screaming i realized that i was totally fucked. At that time I didn't even know how much 500 bitcoin was worth. So I wrote down the address just in case I could make the payment afterwards. When I said to my supervisor that I am willing to pay the ransom he told me:

Do you have any idea how much 500 bitcoin is worth? It is more than 3 million. How the fuck are you going to find them? You will have to work all your life to pay them...