[112012123]

Interestingly, this is pretty much the split we've seen regarding terrorist hostage-taking in North Africa. While European governments have generally paid ransoms for the return of their citizens, the US Government steadfastly refuses to pay.

In early years, this generally led to better outcomes for European citizens, but as time wore on, it's come to a point where the terrorists actively avoid kidnapping Americans and prefer Europeans. Assuming the these types of hacks are explicitly targeted, I imagine we'd see a similar dynamic play out.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/world/africa/ransoming-ci...

[nickt]

I’ve traveled a lot in the Sahara and an old expression amongst the expats was “The French send troops, the Germans send money and the British send regrets”.

[nickt]

^French^Americans probably.

[e40]

Pretty sure I heard on a NYT podcast that proxies are used for US citizens who are kidnapped. Specifically, a high-profile US citizen kidnapped by ISIS and they were returned via payment via a proxy.

[R0b0t1]

Wealthy private citizens will pay, but the government says it will not. In the case of a private citizen paying a ransom for another you run into money laundering laws and trade restrictions.