Even police departments have been reported paying the ransom
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/04/06/tewksbury-police-pay-bitcoin-ransom-hackers/PkcE1GBTOfU52p31F9FM5L/story.html
3 publicly visible posts • joined 10 May 2017
I was thinking that 17 Qubits was a decent advance on the 6 or so Qubits I'd heard for Quantum Computers until recently. However a quick google showed claim of a 51 Qubit array:
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/another-record-for-quantum-computing-51-qubit-quantum-computer-array
Also I was intrigued/mind boggled that even Microsoft is releasing a new quantum computing programming language, with full Visual Studio integration, along with a quantum computing simulator. I did have to do a 1st of April date check ! See the Quantum "Hello, World!" teleportation program example.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/microsoft-quantum-toolkit/
So perhaps all this Quantum computing stuff is not so far off becoming useful. I wonder how many Qubits they need before some serious practical uses. I am aware of China using satellites already for a quantum encrypted network.
>I can see the talk in capitals around Europe being along the lines of "well, whatever we do let's not setup another supranational organisation like the EPO"."
It's outside of Europe, but I still have the same feeling of dejja vu:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/09/icann_latest_screw_up/