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LockBit is a cybercriminal group proposing ransomware as a service (RaaS). Software developed by the group (also called ransomware ) enables malicious actors who are willing to pay for using it to carry out attacks in two tactics where they not only encrypt the victim's data and demand payment of a ransom , but also threaten to leak it publicly if their demands are not met.

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114-493: According to a joint statement by various government agencies, LockBit was the world's most prolific ransomware in 2022. It was estimated in early 2023 to be responsible for 44% of all ransomware incidents globally. In the United States between January 2020 and May 2023, LockBit was used in approximately 1,700 ransomware attacks, with US$ 91 million paid in ransom to hackers. Government agencies did not formally attribute

228-408: A CBS News poll in 2009, 58% of Americans who follow the file-sharing issue, considered it acceptable "if a person owns the music CD and shares it with a limited number of friends and acquaintances"; with 18- to 29-year-olds, this percentage reached as much as 70%. In his survey of file-sharing culture, Caraway (2012) noted that 74.4% of participants believed musicians should accept file sharing as

342-727: A European Citizens' Initiative "Freedom to Share" started collecting signatures in order to get the European Commission to discuss (and eventually make rules) on this subject, which is controversial. From the early 2000s until the mid 2010s, online video streaming was usually based on the Adobe Flash Player . After more and more vulnerabilities in Adobe's flash became known, YouTube switched to HTML5 based video playback in January 2015. Peer-to-peer file sharing

456-612: A 2.5 year investigation into the LockBit ransomware group by the Department of Justice. In January 2023, the hacker group claimed to have attacked the French luxury goods company Nuxe and ELSAN, a French group of private clinics. The hacker group filched 821 GB of data from the company's headquarters. The same month, Royal Mail 's international export services were severely disrupted by a Lockbit ransomware attack. In February 2023,

570-502: A Chinese company. LockBit does not attack Russian entities and avoids attacking Russian allies. In May 2023, the hacker group claimed responsibility for the attack on Voyageurs du Monde  [ fr ] . The hacker group stole some 10,000 identity documents from the company's customer files. In June 2023, the United States Department of Justice announced criminal charges against Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov,

684-483: A Russian national, for his alleged participation in the LockBit ransomware campaign as an affiliate. The charges allege that Astamirov directly executed at least five ransomware attacks against victims and received a portion of ransom payments in bitcoin. At the end of June 2023, the TSMC group fell victim to a ransomware attack via one of its suppliers. LockBit demanded a $ 70 million ransom. In July 2023, LockBit attacked

798-487: A dollar are emitted as Federal Reserve Notes , disregarding these special cases: In the 16th century, Count Hieronymus Schlick of Bohemia began minting coins known as joachimstalers , named for Joachimstal , the valley in which the silver was mined. In turn, the valley's name is titled after Saint Joachim , whereby thal or tal , a cognate of the English word dale , is German for 'valley.' The joachimstaler

912-757: A dollar, and dimes at 0.100 of a dollar. After the adoption of the United States Constitution , the U.S. dollar was defined by the Coinage Act of 1792 . It specified a "dollar" based on the Spanish milled dollar to contain 371 + 4 ⁄ 16 grains of fine silver, or 416.0 grains (26.96 g) of "standard silver" of fineness 371.25/416 = 89.24%; as well as an "eagle" to contain 247 + 4 ⁄ 8 grains of fine gold, or 270.0 grains (17.50 g) of 22 karat or 91.67% fine gold. Alexander Hamilton arrived at these numbers based on

1026-585: A few cases, U.S. coins) used in circulation. The monetary policy of the United States is conducted by the Federal Reserve System , which acts as the nation's central bank . As of February 10, 2021, currency in circulation amounted to US$ 2.10 trillion , $ 2.05 trillion of which is in Federal Reserve Notes (the remaining $ 50 billion is in the form of coins and older-style United States Notes ). As of September 20, 2023,

1140-545: A grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver. Section 20 of the Act designates the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States: [T]he money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units...and that all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. Unlike

1254-418: A group of hackers attacked Toronto 's Hospital for Sick Children . After realizing their blunder, the hacker group stopped the attack, apologized and offered a free solution to recover the encrypted files. In late June 2022, the group launched "LockBit 3.0", the latest variant of their ransomware, after two months of beta testing . Notably, the group introduced a bug bounty program, the first of its kind in

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1368-575: A limited extent" as money. Treasury Notes were again printed to help resolve the reduction in public revenues resulting from the Panic of 1837 and the Panic of 1857 , as well as to help finance the Mexican–American War and the Civil War . Paper money was issued again in 1862 without the backing of precious metals due to the Civil War . In addition to Treasury Notes, Congress in 1861 authorized

1482-460: A means for promotion and distribution. This file-sharing culture was termed as cyber socialism , whose legalisation was not the expected cyber-utopia . . According to David Glenn, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education , "A majority of economic studies have concluded that file-sharing hurts sales". A literature review by Professor Peter Tschmuck found 22 independent studies on

1596-511: A modest increase in sales. "This increase in sales is small relative to other factors that have been found to affect album sales." "File-sharing proponents commonly argue that file-sharing democratizes music consumption by 'levelling the playing field' for new/small artists relative to established/popular artists, by allowing artists to have their work heard by a wider audience, lessening the advantage held by established/popular artists in terms of promotional and other support. My results suggest that

1710-507: A positive impact on album sales. Without iTunes, Amazon, and Best Buy, file-sharers would be just file sharers rather than purchasers. If you carry out the 'file-sharing should be legal' argument to its logical conclusion, today's retailers will be tomorrow's file-sharing services that integrate with their respective cloud storage services ." Many argue that file-sharing has forced the owners of entertainment content to make it more widely available legally through fees or advertising on-demand on

1824-572: A ransom of $ 25 million was not paid. London Drugs stated that that they are "unwilling and unable to pay ransom" to the parties involved." No customer or primary employee data was compromised. On May 23, 2024, the company confirmed that data had been leaked by Lockbit, and that affected employees were being offered identity theft protection services. In June 2024, the LockBit gang attacked the University Hospital Center in Zagreb ,

1938-485: A ransom was paid by 2 March 2024. The new site claimed to have the identities of members of a jury in a murder trial. There was also a threat to release Fulton County documents relating to court cases involving Donald Trump if the ransom wasn't paid. US$ This is an accepted version of this page The United States dollar ( symbol : $ ; currency code : USD ; also abbreviated US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies ; referred to as

2052-504: A result of such lawsuits, many universities added file sharing regulations in their school administrative codes (though some students managed to circumvent them during after school hours). Also in 2003, the MPAA started to take action against BitTorrent sites, leading to the shutdown of Torrentse and Sharelive in July 2003. With the shutdown of eDonkey in 2005, eMule became the dominant client of

2166-678: A series of revisions to the gold peg was implemented, culminating in the Nixon Shock of August 15, 1971, which suddenly ended the convertibility of dollars to gold. The U.S. dollar has since floated freely on the foreign exchange markets . Congress continued to issue paper money after the Civil War, the latest of which is the Federal Reserve Note that was authorized by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 . Since

2280-582: A subsequent revaluation of the same data by George R. Barker of the Australian National University reached the opposite conclusion. "In total, 75% of P2P downloaders responded that if P2P were not available they would have purchased either through paid sites only (9%), CDs only (17%) or through CDs and pay sites (49%). Only 25% of people say they would not have bought the music if it were not available on P2P for free." Barker thus concludes; "This clearly suggests P2P network availability

2394-487: A treasury assay of the average fine silver content of a selection of worn Spanish dollars , which came out to be 371 grains. Combined with the prevailing gold-silver ratio of 15, the standard for gold was calculated at 371/15 = 24.73 grains fine gold or 26.98 grains 22K gold. Rounding the latter to 27.0 grains finalized the dollar's standard to 24.75 grains of fine gold or 24.75*15 = 371.25 grains = 24.0566 grams = 0.7735 troy ounces of fine silver. The same coinage act also set

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2508-455: A violation of academic integrity at many schools. Academic file sharing by companies such as Chegg and Course Hero has become a point of particular controversy in recent years. This has led some institutions to provide explicit guidance to students and faculty regarding academic integrity expectations relating to academic file sharing. In 2004, there were an estimated 70 million people participating in online file sharing. According to

2622-512: A website and mobile app and can be easily shared with other users for viewing or collaboration. Such services have become popular via consumer-oriented file hosting services such as Dropbox and Google Drive . With the rising need of sharing big files online easily, new open access sharing platforms have appeared, adding even more services to their core business (cloud storage, multi-device synchronization, online collaboration), such as ShareFile , Tresorit , WeTransfer , or Hightail . rsync

2736-409: Is a more traditional program released in 1996 which synchronizes files on a direct machine-to-machine basis. Data synchronization in general can use other approaches to share files, such as distributed file systems , version control , or mirrors . In addition to file sharing for the purposes of entertainment, academic file sharing has become a topic of increasing concern, as it is deemed to be

2850-415: Is awaiting extradition. The case involving the downfall of the world's largest and most popular file sharing site was not well received, with hacker group Anonymous bringing down several sites associated with the take-down. In the following days, other file sharing sites began to cease services; FileSonic blocked public downloads on January 22, with Fileserve following suit on January 23. In 2021

2964-519: Is based on the peer-to-peer (P2P) application architecture. Shared files on the computers of other users are indexed on directory servers. P2P technology was used by popular services like Napster and LimeWire . The most popular protocol for P2P sharing is BitTorrent . Cloud-based file syncing and sharing services implement automated file transfers by updating files from a dedicated sharing directory on each user's networked devices. Files placed in this folder also are typically accessible through

3078-413: Is due to sharing". However, citing Nielsen SoundScan as their source, the co-authors maintained that illegal downloading had not deterred people from being original. "In many creative industries, monetary incentives play a reduced role in motivating authors to remain creative. Data on the supply of new works are consistent with the argument that file-sharing did not discourage authors and publishers. Since

3192-696: Is generally credited as being the first peer-to-peer file sharing system. In December 1999, Napster was sued by several recording companies and lost in A&;M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. . In the case of Napster, it has been ruled that an online service provider could not use the "transitory network transmission" safe harbor in the DMCA if they had control of the network with a server. Gnutella , eDonkey2000 , and Freenet were released in 2000, as MP3.com and Napster were facing litigation. Gnutella , released in March,

3306-444: Is marketed as a tool for copyright infringement. On the other hand, not all file sharing is illegal. Content in the public domain can be freely shared. Even works covered by copyright can be shared under certain circumstances. For example, some artists, publishers, and record labels grant the public a license for unlimited distribution of certain works, sometimes with conditions, and they advocate free content and file sharing as

3420-903: Is often executed in Microsoft Windows via command-line arguments , scheduled tasks , or PowerShell scripts such as PowerShell Empire. LockBit uses tools such as Mimikatz , GMER, Process Hacker, and registry edits to gather credentials , disable security products, and evade defenses. It enumerates network connections to identify high-value targets such as domain controllers using scanners such as Advanced Port Scanner. For lateral movement , LockBit spreads through SMB file-sharing connections inside networks, using credentials gathered earlier. Other lateral movement techniques include distributing itself via compromised Group Policy objects, or using tools such as PsExec or Cobalt Strike . LockBit's ransomware payload encrypts files and network shares using AES and RSA encryption . It encrypts only

3534-454: Is one of the first words of Section 9, in which the term refers to the Spanish milled dollar , or the coin worth eight Spanish reales . In 1792, the U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act , of which Section 9 authorized the production of various coins, including: Dollars or Units —each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of

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3648-459: Is reducing music demand of 75% of music downloaders which is quite contrary to Andersen and Frenz's much published claim." According to the 2017 paper "Estimating displacement rates of copyrighted content in the EU" by the European Commission , illegal usage increases game sales, stating "The overall conclusion is that for games, illegal online transactions induce more legal transactions." A paper in

3762-460: Is that it is derived from the Pillars of Hercules on the Spanish coat of arms of the Spanish dollar . These Pillars of Hercules on the silver Spanish dollar coins take the form of two vertical bars ( || ) and a swinging cloth band in the shape of an S . Yet another explanation suggests that the dollar sign was formed from the capital letters U and S written or printed one on top of

3876-497: The C and C++ programming languages until .NET was used for the LockBit-NG-Dev under development at takedown in 2024, gains initial access to computer systems using purchased access, unpatched vulnerabilities , insider access, and zero-day exploits , in the same way as other malware. LockBit then takes control of the infected system, collects network information, and steals and encrypts data. Demands are then made for

3990-468: The Coinage Act of 1834 the dollar's fine gold equivalent was revised to 23.2 grains; it was slightly adjusted to 23.22 grains (1.505 g) in 1837 (gold-silver ratio ~16). The same act also resolved the difficulty in minting the "standard silver" of 89.24% fineness by revising the dollar's alloy to 412.5 grains, 90% silver, still containing 371.25 grains fine silver. Gold was also revised to 90% fineness: 25.8 grains gross, 23.22 grains fine gold. Following

4104-551: The Comstock Lode in the 1870s. This was the so-called "Crime of '73". The Gold Standard Act of 1900 repealed the U.S. dollar's historic link to silver and defined it solely as 23.22 grains (1.505 g) of fine gold (or $ 20.67 per troy ounce of 480 grains). In 1933, gold coins were confiscated by Executive Order 6102 under Franklin D. Roosevelt , and in 1934 the standard was changed to $ 35 per troy ounce fine gold, or 13.71 grains (0.888 g) per dollar. After 1968

4218-545: The Continental Congress resolved that the money unit of the United States, the dollar, would contain 375.64 grains of fine silver; on August 8, 1786, the Continental Congress continued that definition and further resolved that the money of account, corresponding with the division of coins, would proceed in a decimal ratio , with the sub-units being mills at 0.001 of a dollar, cents at 0.010 of

4332-526: The Dutch pioneered in modern-day New York in the 17th century the use and the counting of money in silver dollars in the form of German-Dutch reichsthalers and native Dutch leeuwendaalders ('lion dollars'), it was the ubiquitous Spanish American eight-real coin which became exclusively known as the dollar since the 18th century. The colloquialism buck(s) (much like the British quid for

4446-630: The First World War , and displaced the pound sterling as the world's primary reserve currency by the Bretton Woods Agreement towards the end of the Second World War . The dollar is the most widely used currency in international transactions , and a free-floating currency . It is also the official currency in several countries and the de facto currency in many others, with Federal Reserve Notes (and, in

4560-736: The Pirate Bay trial ended in a guilty verdict for the primary founders of the tracker. The decision was appealed, leading to a second guilty verdict in November 2010. In October 2010, Limewire was forced to shut down following a court order in Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC but the Gnutella network remains active through open source clients like FrostWire and gtk-gnutella . Furthermore, multi-protocol file-sharing software such as MLDonkey and Shareaza adapted to support all

4674-558: The Port of Nagoya in Japan, which handles 10% of the country's trade. The attack forced a shutdown of container operations. In October 2023, LockBit claimed to have stolen sensitive data from Boeing . Boeing acknowledged they were aware of a cyber incident affecting some of their parts and distribution business a few days later, though it did not affect flight safety; they did not name the suspected attackers. In November 2023, LockBit attacked

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4788-741: The United States 's exorbitant privilege . The United States Mint has issued legal tender coins every year from 1792 to the present. From 1934 to the present, the only denominations produced for circulation have been the familiar penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar, and dollar. File-sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media , such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books . Common methods of storage , transmission and dispersion include removable media , centralized servers on computer networks , Internet-based hyperlinked documents, and

4902-499: The dollar , U.S. dollar , American dollar , or colloquially buck ) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries . The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar , divided it into 100 cents , and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes , popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color. The U.S. dollar

5016-401: The pound sterling ) is often used to refer to dollars of various nations, including the U.S. dollar. This term, dating to the 18th century, may have originated with the colonial leather trade, or it may also have originated from a poker term. Greenback is another nickname, originally applied specifically to the 19th-century Demand Note dollars, which were printed black and green on

5130-655: The CTC had been hacked in October, and that over the prior year Lockbit had "become the world’s most prolific ransomware group." Since 2020, it had reportedly carried out 1,700 attacks and extorted $ 91 million, according to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency . The Register reported in late November 2023 that LockBit was facing growing internal frustrations, and that its leaders were overhauling some of its negotiation methods with victims in response to

5244-529: The Constitution provides that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time", which is further specified by Section 331 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code. The sums of money reported in the "Statements" are currently expressed in U.S. dollars, thus the U.S. dollar may be described as the unit of account of the United States. "Dollar"

5358-582: The Federal Reserve estimated that the total amount of currency in circulation was approximately US$ 2.33 trillion . Article I , Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution provides that Congress has the power "[t]o coin money ." Laws implementing this power are currently codified in Title 31 of the U.S. Code , under Section 5112, which prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued. These coins are both designated in

5472-484: The LockBit 3.0 group published on the darknet a 9.5 GB archive with stolen information on Thales contracts in Italy and Malaysia. In November 2022, OEHC - Office d'Équipement Hydraulique de Corse - was the victim of a cyberattack that encrypted the company's computer data. A ransom demand was made by the hacker group, to which OEHC did not respond. In December 2022, the LockBit hacker group claimed responsibility for

5586-543: The LockBit ransomware gang as a part of Operation Cronos. An unverified report said that Lockbit had said that its servers running on the programming language PHP had been hit, but that it had backup servers without PHP that were "not touched". One person was arrested in Ukraine, one in Poland, and two in the United States. Two Russians were also named, but have not been arrested. According to Graeme Biggar, Director General of

5700-572: The National Crime Agency , law enforcement has "taken control of their infrastructure, seized their source code, and obtained keys that will help victims decrypt their systems." A decryptor for LockBit 3.0 was made using the seized keys and released for free use on No More Ransom . After the takedown, law enforcement posted information about the group on its dark web site, including that it had at least 188 affiliates. Law enforcement also obtained 30,000 Bitcoin addresses used for managing

5814-948: The Spanish milled dollar, the Continental Congress and the Coinage Act prescribed a decimal system of units to go with the unit dollar, as follows: the mill , or one-thousandth of a dollar; the cent , or one-hundredth of a dollar; the dime , or one-tenth of a dollar; and the eagle , or ten dollars. The current relevance of these units: The Spanish peso or dollar was historically divided into eight reales (colloquially, bits ) – hence pieces of eight . Americans also learned counting in non-decimal bits of 12 + 1 ⁄ 2 cents before 1857 when Mexican bits were more frequently encountered than American cents; in fact this practice survived in New York Stock Exchange quotations until 2001. In 1854, Secretary of

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5928-540: The Treasury James Guthrie proposed creating $ 100, $ 50, and $ 25 gold coins, to be referred to as a union , half union , and quarter union , respectively, thus implying a denomination of 1 Union = $ 100. However, no such coins were ever struck, and only patterns for the $ 50 half union exist. When currently issued in circulating form, denominations less than or equal to a dollar are emitted as U.S. coins , while denominations greater than or equal to

6042-854: The Treasury to borrow $ 50 million in the form of Demand Notes , which did not bear interest but could be redeemed on demand for precious metals. However, by December 1861, the Union government's supply of specie was outstripped by demand for redemption and they were forced to suspend redemption temporarily. In February 1862 Congress passed the Legal Tender Act of 1862 , issuing United States Notes , which were not redeemable on demand and bore no interest, but were legal tender , meaning that creditors had to accept them at face value for any payment except for public debts and import tariffs. However, silver and gold coins continued to be issued, resulting in

6156-694: The U.S. subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China . Bloomberg reported that the US unit of ICBC at the time was considered the world's largest lender by assets. In November 2023, LockBit released internal data that the group had stolen a month earlier from Boeing onto the Internet. In November 2023, the LockBit gang attacked the Chicago Trading Company and Alphadyne Asset Management . Bloomberg reported that

6270-450: The United States and to supervise its banking system, particularly in the aftermath of the Panic of 1907 . For most of the post-war period, the U.S. government has financed its own spending by borrowing heavily from the dollar-lubricated global capital markets, in debts denominated in its own currency and at minimal interest rates. This ability to borrow heavily without facing a significant balance of payments crisis has been described as

6384-625: The United States until the Coinage Act of 1857 . In particular, colonists' familiarity with the Spanish two- real quarter peso was the reason for issuing a quasi-decimal 25-cent quarter dollar coin rather than a 20-cent coin. For the relationship between the Spanish dollar and the individual state colonial currencies, see Connecticut pound , Delaware pound , Georgia pound , Maryland pound , Massachusetts pound , New Hampshire pound , New Jersey pound , New York pound , North Carolina pound , Pennsylvania pound , Rhode Island pound , South Carolina pound , and Virginia pound . On July 6, 1785,

6498-402: The United States was a significant recipient of wartime gold inflows. After the United States emerged as an even stronger global superpower during the Second World War , the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 established the U.S. dollar as the world's primary reserve currency and the only post-war currency linked to gold. Despite all links to gold being severed in 1971, the dollar continues to be

6612-593: The United States. In 2002, a Tokyo district court ruling shut down File Rogue, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit that effectively shut down Audiogalaxy. From 2002 through 2003, a number of BitTorrent services were established, including Suprnova.org , isoHunt , TorrentSpy , and The Pirate Bay . In September 2003, the RIAA began filing lawsuits against users of P2P file sharing networks such as Kazaa. As

6726-548: The advent of file sharing, the production of music, books, and movies has increased sharply." Glenn Peoples of Billboard disputed the underlying data, saying "SoundScan's number for new releases in any given year represents new commercial titles, not necessarily new creative works." The RIAA likewise responded that "new releases" and "new creative works" are two separate things. "[T]his figure includes re-releases, new compilations of existing songs, and new digital-only versions of catalog albums. SoundScan has also steadily increased

6840-470: The arrest of Mikhail Vasiliev, a dual Russian and Canadian national, in connection with the LockBit ransomware campaign. According to the charges, Vasiliev allegedly conspired with others involved in LockBit, a ransomware variant that had been used in over 1,000 attacks globally as of November 2022. According to reports, the operators of LockBit had made at least $ 100 million in ransom demands, of which tens of millions had been paid by victims. The arrest followed

6954-495: The attack on the California Finance Administration . The governor's office acknowledged being the victim of an attack, without specifying its scale. Lockbit claims to have stolen 246,000 files with a total size of 75.3 GB. In December 2022, the hacker group claimed to have attacked the port of Lisbon . The ransom was set at US$ 1.5 million, to be paid by January 18, 2023. On December 18, 2022,

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7068-521: The average Spanish dollar in circulation. The new U.S. silver dollar of 371.25 grains (24.057 g) therefore compared favorably and was received at par with the Spanish dollar for foreign payments, and after 1803 the United States Mint had to suspend making this coin out of its limited resources since it failed to stay in domestic circulation. It was only after Mexican independence in 1821 when their peso's fine silver content of 377.1 grains

7182-500: The backside, created by Abraham Lincoln to finance the North for the Civil War . It is still used to refer to the U.S. dollar (but not to the dollars of other countries). The term greenback is also used by the financial press in other countries, such as Australia , New Zealand , South Africa , and India . Other well-known names of the dollar as a whole in denominations include greenmail , green , and dead presidents ,

7296-463: The biggest victims. According to Trend Micro , in terms of attack attempts, United States, India and Brazil are the top targeted countries. LockBit is efficient and adaptable: they emphasize their malware's speed and capabilities to attract victims. They take external factors like data privacy laws into consideration when targeting potential victims. LockBit's success also relies heavily on their affiliate program, which helps them innovate and compete in

7410-440: The buying and selling of goods. This allowed the value of things to remain fairly constant over time, except for the influx and outflux of gold and silver in the nation's economy. Though a Spanish dollar freshly minted after 1772 theoretically contained 417.7 grains of silver of fineness 130/144 (or 377.1 grains fine silver), reliable assays of the period in fact confirmed a fine silver content of 370.95 grains (24.037 g) for

7524-434: The company stated that they refused the demand. On October 31, 2022, the LockBit hacker group claimed to have attacked Thales Group for the second time and did not demand a ransom, but said that the data would be released. The hacker group offered assistance to Thales customers affected by the theft, in order to lodge a complaint against Thales, a group "that has greatly disregarded confidentiality rules". On November 10, 2022,

7638-414: The currency, a practice compared to the policies of European monarchs. The currency as we know it today did not get the faces they currently have until after the early 20th century; before that "heads" side of coinage used profile faces and striding, seated, and standing figures from Greek and Roman mythology and composite Native Americans. The last coins to be converted to profiles of historic Americans were

7752-632: The depreciation of the newly printed notes through Gresham's law . In 1869, Supreme Court ruled in Hepburn v. Griswold that Congress could not require creditors to accept United States Notes, but overturned that ruling the next year in the Legal Tender Cases . In 1875, Congress passed the Specie Payment Resumption Act , requiring the Treasury to allow U.S. Notes to be redeemed for gold after January 1, 1879. Though

7866-668: The dime (1946), the half Dollar (1948), and the Dollar (1971). After the American Revolution , the Thirteen Colonies became independent . Freed from British monetary regulations, they each issued £sd paper money to pay for military expenses. The Continental Congress also began issuing "Continental Currency" denominated in Spanish dollars. For its value relative to states' currencies, see Early American currency . Continental currency depreciated badly during

7980-426: The discontinuation of all other types of notes (Gold Certificates in 1933, Silver Certificates in 1963, and United States Notes in 1971), U.S. dollar notes have since been issued exclusively as Federal Reserve Notes . The U.S. dollar first emerged as an important international reserve currency in the 1920s, displacing the British pound sterling as it emerged from the First World War relatively unscathed and since

8094-421: The dollar came under the gold standard de jure only after 1900, the bimetallic era was ended de facto when the Coinage Act of 1873 suspended the minting of the standard silver dollar of 412.5 Troy grains = 26.73 g; 0.859 ozt, the only fully legal tender coin that individuals could convert bullion into in unlimited (or Free silver ) quantities, and right at the onset of the silver rush from

8208-516: The eDonkey network. In 2006, police raids took down the Razorback2 eDonkey server and temporarily took down The Pirate Bay . "The File Sharing Act was launched by Chairman Towns in 2009, this act prohibited the use of applications that allowed individuals to share federal information amongst one another. On the other hand, only specific file sharing applications were made available to federal computers" (the United States.Congress.House). In 2009,

8322-422: The effects of music file sharing. "Of these 22 studies, 14 – roughly two-thirds – conclude that unauthorized downloads have a 'negative or even highly negative impact' on recorded music sales. Three of the studies found no significant impact while the remaining five found a positive impact." A study by economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf in 2004 concluded that music file sharing's effect on sales

8436-461: The first few kilobytes of each file for faster processing, and adds a ".lockbit" extension. LockBit then replaces the desktop wallpaper with a ransom note; it can also print ransom notes to attached printers. The goal is to extort payment of a ransom to reverse system disruption and restore file access. LockBit malware was previously known as ".abcd", after the file extension that was added to encrypted files as they were made inaccessible. LockBit

8550-533: The group claimed responsibility for an attack on Indigo Books and Music , a chain of Canadian bookstores. In March 2023, the group claimed responsibility for attacking BRL Group  [ fr ] , a water specialist in France. On May 16, 2023, the hacker group claimed responsibility for attacking the Hong Kong branch of the Chinese newspaper China Daily . This is the first time the hacker group has attacked

8664-425: The group to any nation-state. Software with the name "LockBit" appeared on a Russian-language based cybercrime forum in January 2020. The group is financially motivated. In February 2024 law enforcement agencies seized control of LockBit dark web sites used for attacks. However, further attacks with LockBit ransomware were later reported, with the group attempting to perform a comeback. LockBit software, written in

8778-532: The group's hackers claimed cyberattacks against 28 organizations, 12 of which involved French organizations. Among them, the Corbeil Essonnes hospital was targeted with a ransom demand of US$ 10 million. In October 2022, the LockBit group claimed responsibility for an attack on Pendragon PLC , a group of automotive retailers in the UK, demanding a ransom of US$ 60 million to decrypt the files and not leak them;

8892-468: The group's profits from ransom payments, which contained 2,200 BTC ($ 112 million USD). As of 22 February 2024 LockBit ransomware was still spreading. On 24 February 2024 a new website claiming to be run by LockBit appeared. The new site listed more than a dozen alleged victims including the FBI, hospitals and Fulton County, Georgia. The new site threatened to release information relating to Fulton County unless

9006-576: The internet. In a 2011 report by Sandvine showed that Netflix traffic had come to surpass that of BitTorrent . File sharing raises copyright issues and has led to many lawsuits. In the United States , some of these lawsuits have even reached the Supreme Court . For example, in MGM v. Grokster , the Supreme Court ruled that the creators of P2P networks can be held liable if their software

9120-657: The intruder. This tool was introduced with the release of LockBit 2.0, which has fast and efficient encryption capabilities. To expand their reach, LockBit also released Linux-ESXI Locker version 1.0, targeting Linux hosts, particularly VMware ESXi servers. LockBit recruits affiliates and develops partnerships with other criminal groups. They hire network access brokers, cooperate with organizations like Maze, and recruit insiders from targeted companies. To attract talented hackers , they have sponsored underground technical writing contests. LockBit has targeted various industries globally, however, healthcare and education sectors are

9234-721: The journal Management Science found that file-sharing decreased the chance of survival for low ranked albums on music charts and increased exposure to albums that were ranked high on the music charts, allowing popular and well-known artists to remain on the music charts more often. This hurt new and less-known artists while promoting the work of already popular artists and celebrities. A more recent study that examined pre-release file-sharing of music albums, using BitTorrent software, also discovered positive impacts for "established and popular artists but not newer and smaller artists." According to Robert G. Hammond of North Carolina State University , an album that leaked one month early would see

9348-457: The largest medical facility in Croatia . The cyberattack caused significant disruption, taking the hospital "back 50 years—to paper and pencil". LockBit claimed to have exfiltrated a large number of files, including medical records and employee information, and demanded an undisclosed sum in exchange for not publishing the data. The Croatian government refused the demands. When the LockBit server

9462-397: The latter of which referring to the deceased presidents pictured on most bills. Dollars in general have also been known as bones (e.g. "twenty bones" = $ 20). The newer designs, with portraits displayed in the main body of the obverse (rather than in cameo insets), upon paper color-coded by denomination, are sometimes referred to as bigface notes or Monopoly money . Piastre

9576-553: The low pay rate achieved. In January 2024, the LockBit gang attacked Fulton County computers. The county released a statement on the attack the following month, saying they had not paid the ransom, that it was not associated with the election process, they were not aware of any extraction of sensitive information about citizens or employees. In May 2024, the LockBit gang claimed responsibility for an attack on Canadian retailer London Drugs, which closed all locations across Canada. LockBit then threatened to release data within 48 hours if

9690-488: The major file-sharing protocols, so users no longer had to install and configure multiple file-sharing programs. On January 19, 2012, the United States Department of Justice shut down the popular domain of Megaupload (established 2005). The file sharing site has claimed to have over 50,000,000 people a day. Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) was arrested with three associates in New Zealand on January 20, 2012 and

9804-401: The modern-day World Bank Group , establishing the infrastructure for conducting international payments and accessing the global capital markets using the U.S. dollar. The monetary policy of the United States is conducted by the Federal Reserve System , which acts as the nation's central bank . It was founded in 1913 under the Federal Reserve Act in order to furnish an elastic currency for

9918-600: The number of retailers (especially non-traditional retailers) in their sample over the years, better capturing the number of new releases brought to market. What Oberholzer and Strumpf found was better ability to track new album releases, not greater incentive to create them." A 2006 study prepared by Birgitte Andersen and Marion Frenz, published by Industry Canada , was "unable to discover any direct relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchases in Canada". The results of this survey were similarly criticized by academics and

10032-517: The numerical amount, is used for the U.S. dollar (as well as for many other currencies). The sign was perhaps the result of a late 18th-century evolution of the scribal abbreviation p for the peso , the common name for the Spanish dollars that were in wide circulation in the New World from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The p and the s eventually came to be written over each other giving rise to $ . Another popular explanation

10146-461: The opposite is happening, which is consistent with evidence on file-sharing behaviour." Billboard cautioned that this research looked only at the pre-release period and not continuous file sharing following a release date. "The problem in believing piracy helps sales is deciding where to draw the line between legal and illegal ... Implicit in the study is the fact that both buyers and sellers are required in order for pre-release file sharing to have

10260-561: The other. This theory, popularized by novelist Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged , does not consider the fact that the symbol was already in use before the formation of the United States. The U.S. dollar was introduced at par with the Spanish-American silver dollar (or Spanish peso , Spanish milled dollar , eight-real coin , piece-of-eight ). The latter was produced from the rich silver mine output of Spanish America ,

10374-704: The ransomware landscape. On its site on the dark web, LockBit stated that it was "located in the Netherlands, completely apolitical and only interested in money". LockBit operators frequently gain initial access by exploiting vulnerable Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) servers or compromised credentials purchased from affiliates. Initial access vectors also include phishing emails with malicious attachments or links, brute-forcing weak RDP or VPN passwords, and exploiting vulnerabilities such as CVE-2018-13379 in Fortinet VPNs. Once installed, LockBit ransomware

10488-469: The realm of ransomware operations. They invited security researchers to test their software to improve their security, offering substantial monetary rewards ranging from US$ 1,000 to $ 1 million. In August 2022, German equipment manufacturer Continental suffered a LockBit ransomware attack. In November 2022, with no response to its ransom demand, the hacker group published part of the stolen data and offered access to all of it for 50 million euros. Among

10602-487: The rise in the price of silver during the California Gold Rush and the disappearance of circulating silver coins, the Coinage Act of 1853 reduced the standard for silver coins less than $ 1 from 412.5 grains to 384 grains (24.9 g), 90% silver per 100 cents (slightly revised to 25.0 g, 90% silver in 1873). The Act also limited the free silver right of individuals to convert bullion into only one coin,

10716-572: The section as " legal tender " in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, in contrast to the American Silver Eagle which is pure silver . Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins, which have values ranging from one cent ( U.S. Penny ) to 100 dollars. These other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar . Article I, Section 9 of

10830-552: The silver dollar at the rate of 1 silver dollar to 1000 continental dollars. This resulted in the clause "No state shall... make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts" being written into the United States Constitution article 1, section 10 . From implementation of the 1792 Mint Act to the 1900 implementation of the gold standard , the dollar was on a bimetallic silver-and-gold standard, defined as either 371.25 grains (24.056 g) of fine silver or 24.75 grains of fine gold (gold-silver ratio 15). Subsequent to

10944-477: The silver dollar of 412.5 grains; smaller coins of lower standard can only be produced by the United States Mint using its own bullion. Summary and links to coins issued in the 19th century: In order to finance the War of 1812 , Congress authorized the issuance of Treasury Notes , interest-bearing short-term debt that could be used to pay public dues. While they were intended to serve as debt, they did function "to

11058-478: The stolen data are the private lives of the Group's employees, as well as exchanges with German car manufacturers. Beyond the theft of data, the danger lies in opening the way to industrial espionage. Indeed, among the exchanges with Volkswagen are IT aspects, from automated driving to entertainment, in which Volkswagen wanted Continental to invest. In November 2022, the United States Department of Justice announced

11172-558: The use of distributed peer-to-peer networking. File sharing technologies, such as BitTorrent , are integral to modern media piracy , as well as the sharing of scientific data and other free content. Files were first exchanged on removable media . Computers were able to access remote files using filesystem mounting, bulletin board systems (1978), Usenet (1979), and FTP servers (1970's). Internet Relay Chat (1988) and Hotline (1997) enabled users to communicate remotely through chat and to exchange files. The mp3 encoding, which

11286-414: The value of an eagle at 10 dollars, and the dollar at 1 ⁄ 10 eagle. It called for silver coins in denominations of 1, 1 ⁄ 2 , 1 ⁄ 4 , 1 ⁄ 10 , and 1 ⁄ 20 dollar, as well as gold coins in denominations of 1, 1 ⁄ 2 and 1 ⁄ 4 eagle. The value of gold or silver contained in the dollar was then converted into relative value in the economy for

11400-461: The victim to pay a ransom for their data to be decrypted so that it is again available, and for the perpetrators to delete their copy, with the threat of otherwise making the data public. (While the data are not published if the ransom is paid, it was found when LockBit was taken down by law enforcement that it had not been deleted.) LockBit gained attention for its creation and use of the malware called "StealBit", which automates transferring data to

11514-423: The war, giving rise to the famous phrase "not worth a continental". A primary problem was that monetary policy was not coordinated between Congress and the states, which continued to issue bills of credit. Additionally, neither Congress nor the governments of the several states had the will or the means to retire the bills from circulation through taxation or the sale of bonds. The currency was ultimately replaced by

11628-488: The world's foremost reserve currency for international trade to this day. The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 also defined the post-World War II monetary order and relations among modern-day independent states , by setting up a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system . The agreement founded the International Monetary Fund and other institutions of

11742-404: Was "statistically indistinguishable from zero". This research was disputed by other economists, most notably Stan Liebowitz, who said Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf had made multiple assumptions about the music industry "that are just not correct." In June 2010, Billboard reported that Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf had "changed their minds", now finding "no more than 20% of the recent decline in sales

11856-536: Was closed down by law enforcement in February 2024, it was found that a new version, LockBit-NG-Dev, probably to be released as LockBit 4.0, had been under advanced development; Trend Micro published a detailed report on it. On February 19, 2024, the National Crime Agency in collaboration with Europol and other international law enforcement agencies seized control of darknet websites belonging to

11970-412: Was firmly upheld, which the U.S. later had to compete with using a heavier 378.0 grains (24.49 g) Trade dollar coin . The early currency of the United States did not exhibit faces of presidents, as is the custom now; although today, by law, only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency. In fact, the newly formed government was against having portraits of leaders on

12084-531: Was first observed in September 2019. LockBit 2.0 appeared in 2021 and came into the spotlight with their attack on Accenture the same year, where an insider probably helped the group entering the network. LockBit published some of the data stolen in this attack. In January 2022, the electronics company Thales was one of the victims of Lockbit 2.0. In July 2022, the administrative and management services of La Poste Mobile were attacked. In September 2022,

12198-465: Was later shortened to the German taler , a word that eventually found its way into many languages, including: tolar ( Czech , Slovak and Slovenian ); daler ( Danish and Swedish ); talar ( Polish ); dalar and daler ( Norwegian ); daler or daalder ( Dutch ); talari ( Ethiopian ); tallér ( Hungarian ); tallero ( Italian ); دولار ( Arabic ); and dollar ( English ). Though

12312-748: Was minted in Mexico City , Potosí (Bolivia), Lima (Peru), and elsewhere, and was in wide circulation throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The minting of machine-milled Spanish dollars since 1732 boosted its worldwide reputation as a trade coin and positioned it to be the model for the new currency of the United States . Even after the United States Mint commenced issuing coins in 1792, locally minted dollars and cents were less abundant in circulation than Spanish American pesos and reales ; hence Spanish, Mexican, and American dollars all remained legal tender in

12426-461: Was originally defined under a bimetallic standard of 371.25 grains (24.057 g) (0.7734375 troy ounces) fine silver or, from 1834 , 23.22 grains (1.505 g) fine gold, or $ 20.67 per troy ounce . The Gold Standard Act of 1900 linked the dollar solely to gold. From 1934, its equivalence to gold was revised to $ 35 per troy ounce . In 1971 all links to gold were repealed. The U.S. dollar became an important international reserve currency after

12540-583: Was proprietary and encrypted, and the Kazaa team made substantial efforts to keep other clients such as Morpheus off of the FastTrack network. In October 2001, the MPAA and the RIAA filed a lawsuit against the developers of Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster that would lead to the US Supreme Court's MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. decision in 2005. Shortly after its loss in court, Napster

12654-455: Was shut down to comply with a court order. This drove users to other P2P applications and file sharing continued its growth. The Audiogalaxy Satellite client grew in popularity, and the LimeWire client and BitTorrent protocol were released. Until its decline in 2004, Kazaa was the most popular file-sharing program despite bundled malware and legal battles in the Netherlands, Australia, and

12768-530: Was standardized in 1991 and substantially reduced the size of audio files , grew to widespread use in the late 1990s. In 1998, MP3.com and Audiogalaxy were established, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was unanimously passed, and the first mp3 player devices were launched. In June 1999, Napster was released as an unstructured centralized peer-to-peer system, requiring a central server for indexing and peer discovery. It

12882-516: Was the first decentralized file-sharing network. In the Gnutella network, all connecting software was considered equal, and therefore the network had no central point of failure . In July, Freenet was released and became the first anonymity network. In September the eDonkey2000 client and server software was released. In March 2001, Kazaa was released. Its FastTrack network was distributed, though, unlike Gnutella, it assigned more traffic to 'supernodes' to increase routing efficiency. The network

12996-609: Was the original French word for the U.S. dollar, used for example in the French text of the Louisiana Purchase . Though the U.S. dollar is called dollar in Modern French, the term piastre is still used among the speakers of Cajun French and New England French , as well as speakers in Haiti and other French-speaking Caribbean islands. Nicknames specific to denomination: The symbol $ , usually written before

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