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Comment by brianwawok | Hacker News Reader

So they respond by reporting you to the CIA/FBI

They show up and take all your electronics to investigate an extortion claim

How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? You might win in the end. You might get jail time. You might have a pretty rough 6 months and get nothing.

Being internet tough and going to court tend to be very different things.

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If that is what happens, people will start doing it anonymously and asking for Bitcoins.

I see what you did there.

what bizarre reading of my comment are you responding to? I'm saying that offering to sell someone something is objectively not extortion. That doesn't say anything about whether the justice system will interpret it as such, or whether it would be a good idea to try to sell the source to eBay.

"objectively not extortion" doesn't matter, and is completely irrelevant to the conversation being had here. The point is that if you tried doing this thing that is or isn't "objectively extortion", you're going to risk dealing with what the comment outlined above, and that is the real penalty for trying something like this.

The larger point, and the nugget you probably should come away with, is that there's a prohibitively high cost for doing what's being discussed. There most definitely is plenty to worry about here.

yeah, obviously you shouldn't try to do what's being discussed. That goes without saying. Did you read the comment I was responding to? I feel like I'm talking to myself here.

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