Would it be helpful if someone payed the ransom to a online decryption code and sent the data for analysis?
Dear darthvaldomina,
Unfortunately, such thing isn't helpful because in case of online REPL encryption, each victim gets a uniquely generated key, and having the key isn't helpful for researchers. The purpose of cryptography is to secure data in a way that only the one who secured it (encrypted) and the one who has the decryption key (the receiver who has the decryption key) can view it. That said, having the decryption key only helps in offline encryption cases, because the same encryption key is used for all victims subject to offline encryption.