I think that the people here speculating about the FBI and private keys are
greatly overestimating the competency of these hackers.
While it's possible this it he FBI flexing some muscle that they have a backdoor into bitcoin's hashing algorithm, what seems much more likely (to me) is:
There is a more sophisticated hacking group which created this particular ransomware package. They sell this ransomware package to less sophisticated criminals.
(https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428996/colonial-pipelin...)
Is it so hard to imagine a scenario where the more advanced creators of this ransomware kit gave instructions to their purchasers on things like private keys, and the end user simply ignored them?
Somebody ignoring a warning when installing a software, and that allowing the FBI to subpeona access to the server where it was running, and grab this private key, seems FAR more likely to me than the FBI having a backdoor into BTC, or this all being a cover spy novel plot, or anything like that.
While it's possible this it he FBI flexing some muscle that they have a backdoor into bitcoin's hashing algorithm, what seems much more likely (to me) is:
There is a more sophisticated hacking group which created this particular ransomware package. They sell this ransomware package to less sophisticated criminals.
(https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/10/22428996/colonial-pipelin...)
Is it so hard to imagine a scenario where the more advanced creators of this ransomware kit gave instructions to their purchasers on things like private keys, and the end user simply ignored them?
Somebody ignoring a warning when installing a software, and that allowing the FBI to subpeona access to the server where it was running, and grab this private key, seems FAR more likely to me than the FBI having a backdoor into BTC, or this all being a cover spy novel plot, or anything like that.