That's fair but should note that smart != depth of cryptographic knowledge. I am not saying that these are geniuses​, programmers or even necessarily evil but (so far) they haven't been caught.
So if these were poor teenagers who mostly copy pasted code and built the rest on the fly then as long as (opportunity cost < ransom >
(chance of getting caught * penalty)) then it was "smart".
That's what is good and bad these days; powerful tools empower motivated people.
> There seems to be an inverse correlation between smart and evil
Of course smart != depth of cryptographic knowledge, but smart => acquiring said cryptographic knowledge when building a tool that deals with cryptography. If they were just teenagers, maybe you have a point.
So if these were poor teenagers who mostly copy pasted code and built the rest on the fly then as long as (opportunity cost < ransom > (chance of getting caught * penalty)) then it was "smart".
That's what is good and bad these days; powerful tools empower motivated people.
> There seems to be an inverse correlation between smart and evil
Hopefully you're right.