When Ransomware Gangs Have Better Docs Than Your API
Description
A meme featuring a well-known image of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay in a professional kitchen, leaning forward and shouting with an expression of intense frustration. The image is overlaid with a caption in a bold, white, all-caps font. The top text reads, 'I'VE SEEN BETTER DOCUMENTATION', and the bottom text continues, 'FROM RANSOMWARE GANGS'. The humor is a hyperbolic critique of the notoriously poor state of documentation in many software projects. It ironically points out that criminal organizations, like ransomware gangs, often provide surprisingly clear and concise instructions for payment, as their business model depends on victims being able to follow them. This is contrasted with legitimate software where documentation is often an afterthought, leaving developers frustrated and unable to use a tool effectively
Comments
11Comment deleted
Ransomware gangs are the only organizations that truly understand the importance of a frictionless user onboarding experience
When the ransom note ships with sequence diagrams and rollback steps, but our prod deploy doc still points to the SVN repo we decommissioned in 2011
The bitter irony when ransomware groups provide clearer payment instructions, better troubleshooting guides, and more responsive 'customer support' than your enterprise vendor who just charged you six figures for their 'comprehensive solution' with documentation that hasn't been updated since 2019
The brutal truth is that ransomware operators have evolved sophisticated DevOps practices - complete with detailed deployment guides, troubleshooting wikis, and even customer support portals for their victims. Meanwhile, your internal microservices architecture is documented with a single README that says 'TODO: Add documentation' from 2019. When threat actors are outperforming your engineering org on technical writing standards, it might be time to reconsider your sprint priorities. At least the ransomware gangs understand that good documentation is essential for scaling operations and reducing support burden - ironically, principles we claim to value but rarely practice
Ransomware operators ship affiliate docs, decryption SOPs, and SLAs; our microservice mesh has a 2018 README and five Slack DM breadcrumbs
Ransomware ransom notes spell out exact BTC addresses and deadlines; our GraphQL schema docs just whisper 'introspect or perish.'
When the threat actors ship cleaner runbooks, affiliate onboarding, and a decryptor README than our microservices and their six stale Confluence pages, it’s time to file a doc incident
the best docs always come from illegal groups Comment deleted
not that I'd know ofc Comment deleted
This guy feels it https://stackoverflow.com/questions/52135578/where-is-ocamls-alternative-string-syntax-documented Comment deleted
😏 Comment deleted