I hope this doesn't come across as cynical, because it's not meant to be. But one very reasonable strategy is to work hard at your regular job, and donate money to charitable causes.
I've often thought about how to put my software engineering skills to good use, and that's the best I've been able to come up with. If you can't find a great outlet to directly put your skills to use at a charitable organization, this is a pretty reasonable proxy. It lets you do what you do best, for the people that find it most helpful (i.e. a company that's willing to pay you for it), rather than having to shoehorn your skills where there may not be a great match.
If there's an volunteer opportunity that's actually a good fit, that's obviously a good mechanism (and probably more psychically rewarding). But if not, I think this is an efficient alternative.
"So what happens if the target of the attack refuses to pay? The DoS extortionist is obligated to carry out a prolonged DoS attack against them to follow through on their threats. For a DoS extortionist, this is the worst scenario because they have to risk their bot network for nothing at all. Since the target has refused to pay, it is likely that they will never pay. As a consequence, the attacker has to spend time and resources on a lost cause.
Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.