5

This story is not very old, definitely less than 20 years, so it is not the same as

1970s novel about computer hackers extorting a city

though the theme is the same. But it is not just a city. I think that they take hostages the computer systems of most of the big companies in the world. The amount asked for each company is quite reasonable and they would all agree to pay. But there is a hitch: the ransom has to be paid in virtual money, of course, maybe called bitcoins, maybe a different name. And it has to be brought "physically" at a specific "position" in a virtual world. Which means that all kind of thieves are waiting in ambush to steal the money brought there, the total of which is enormous. Each company has to hire "shotgun riders", hackers who can keep thieves away, for amounts much higher than the ransom asked by the original hackers, some make "convoys" to share expenses...

There are many more themes mixed in, but I don't remember anything else.

1
  • Wasn't that last week's headlines?
    – Separatrix
    Dec 8, 2021 at 11:15

1 Answer 1

6

The story you are looking for sounds somewhat like Neal Stephenson's 'Reamde'

Zula Forthrast, an adopted Eritrean, is given a job by her billionaire uncle, Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, at his company, Corporation 9592, which runs an MMORPG called "T'Rain." Zula and her boyfriend, Peter, visit Richard's cat-skiing resort. Desperate for money, Peter sells a database of stolen credit card numbers to a shady contact, who is in fact working for the Russian mob. The transaction inadvertently results in a T'Rain-based ransomware virus infecting the contact's laptop and rendering the only copy of the database useless. Ivanov, a senior gangster behind the deal, tracks Peter down and coerces him and Zula to help him find the virus creators in Xiamen, China.

From this review:

During the course of the story, the good guys who are working for the Russian mafia deposit the ransom of virtual gold into a remote area of T’Rain in the hopes that the Chinese hackers will unbrick their computers. A problem arises when the T’Rain community discovers the Reamde virus scheme. Many clans within the game stake out the route to the remote location in order to ambush the Reamde victims before they deposit their virtual gold.

In T’Rain, if you kill an adversary in the game, you collect his or her valuables. The Chinese hackers need to collect the ransom and walk it out of the remote area and into a T’Rain city where they can convert the virtual money into real money. With the clans blocking their path, this becomes problematic. What results is a massive clan battle between the Chinese Reamde clan and all of the other T’Rain clans in the game. Stephenson completely captures the complexity, stress, and strategy of directing hundreds of your own teammates that are maneuvering across a vast virtual terrain against thousands of hostiles whose intent is to prevent you from doing just that.

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    I added some summary and review quotes. Feel free to revert the changes if you feel I changed too much.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Dec 8, 2021 at 12:40
  • Thank you, DavidW and FuzyBoots, for educating me and helping me qualify the answer Dec 8, 2021 at 14:24
  • Well, I did not see KatteKylling initial post that DavidW criticized. But as its stands, after FuzzyBoots summary and quotes, this answer does convince me that this is indeed the book I had in mind. Thank all of you !
    – Alfred
    Dec 8, 2021 at 15:44

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