Tracking Mafiaboy

Cruciform writes "The National Post has an article on the police effort to track Mafiaboy two years ago as the DoS attacks raged against Yahoo, E-trade and others. An interesting read." Its a fairly lengthy story with lots of little bits in this tale of a script kiddie.

Comments

the interesting part is right at then end

[Anonymous Coward]

where he is not allowed to use any software that is not commercially available as part of his sentance. What does free software have to do with this?

Are script kiddies smart, dumb, or just lazy?

[S Nichol]

I read this article in the paper version on Saturday, and it immediately made me think of a person I know. "Mike" is really big on trading "warez" and playing "gamez" (in fact, that is all he is doing these days).

Having known "Mike" for over 5 years, I can attest that he is not lacking for brains, especially with computers, but he just can't be bothered to apply himself to some productive end.
He is not especially interested in doing any worthwhile computer training now that he's finished high school. Strangely, his parents complain about this but can't be bothered with doing anything about it.

"Mike" seems to be typical of the script kiddies I've encountered... generally smart, but can't be bothered to put in the effort to do anything. Is this the experience of everyone/anyone else?

I'm also wondering if anyone has any tips for weaning people off the "warez d00d" "l33t" trip, ie. actually putting their brains to some productive use. Perhaps an AA style "five step plan"?

Re:Are script kiddies smart, dumb, or just lazy?

[MoogMan]

Well, in my experience I went through these stages:

@ Inquisitive - Messing with basic commands, learning more about the operating systems etc

@ Learning - Starting to program, learning more about the deeper parts of the operating systems

@ L33t age - Using programs to make basic trojans, basically copying from people - this "l33t trip" is what you're on about.

@ Moving on - Getting bored of the earlier stage, I wanted to do something really cool - using someones program wasnt satisfying enough. You know the kind, making exploits, basic shellcodes etc, the stuff that an informed person would call "black hat"

@ Enlightened (:p) - Finally realising that there is more challenge in doing something productive (debatable, sure) and learning about things in even more depth, and understanding how to fool these "black hats". Outsmarting the smarts as it were - this was definitely more challenging and theefore a better "high".

@ ? - Where does this lead me? :)

Now, the transistions between the stage are not always made - most people will make the transistion from the "inquisitive" age to the "learning" age and possibly onto the "L33t age". Some people stop there, some intelligent people go on to the "Moving on" age. A lot of people stop here, some people go on to the "Enlightened" age.

I've helped a few script kiddies progress through the ages, getting them onto the "Enlightened" stage hopefully - some miss the moving on stage, realising early that what they're doing may not let them strive to their full potential. Personally, I think that its something that we all go through, and it wouldnt be a good idea to prevent the rebellious nature of newbies, rather make them realise that they can do something better than they already are...

Re:Are script kiddies smart, dumb, or just lazy?

[CTachyon]

Sounds like inattentive ADD. [...]

<anecdote>

I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist, a little over a year ago, with the non-hyperactive variant of ADD. In the last year, I've been a more productive programmer than ever before, and I'm actually on my way toward getting a real job based on my Linux networking knowledge.

The downside? I'll probably be stuck taking Adderall (dextroamphetamine, basically legal speed) for life if I want to keep my focus. For the last week, I've been going without in an attempt to wipe out my tolerance (FYI, take my advice and don't deviate at all from what the prescription says without first running it past your doctor, no matter how innocuous the change seems) and I've seen myself revert completely. It's been a very stark contrast between what I've considered "normal" for the last year versus what I'd considered "normal" before, and it makes me appreciate the reality of ADD that much more.

</anecdote>

Judge's ruling silly

[tapiwa]

How is this for a ruling by the judge??

The judge also prohibited him from possessing any software not commercially available and banned him from using the Internet to talk with other hackers and hacking into any other Websites.

What is commercially available software?? Do GPL products only available for free download count?

Also, how do you ban someone from talking with hackers??? I think the true definition of what a hacker is was lost on the judge.

Lastly, why ban someone from doing something which is illegal anyway... hacking into other websites? The ruling should be modded down to -5 reduntant. :-)

Re:article illustrated something about family...

[Cmdr Taco (luser)]

Oh, come on. Did you read the whole article?

"Knesek recalls the wiretap and a portrait of a dysfunctional family. There were padlocks on the doors of the brothers' bedrooms. Mafiaboy "saw a lot, dealt with a lot, took a lot," recalled Knesek."

That, plus the part about the father being prosecuted for hiring a hit man, hints that some pretty freaky shit may have been going down in that house. At the very least, the boys were being raised in an ammoral atmosphere; it may have been worse than that. We'll probably never know what other bits of nastiness the feds got from the wiretaps.

Some years ago, a girl from my high school (years after I graduated) teamed up with a friend and ambushed her parents with a shotgun and an ax. Real messy stuff. Folks went around saying "How could that sweet girl ever do something like that?" It turned out in the trial that, since she could remember, she was abused physically and sexually, shared sexually with other cretins, was the object of homemade porn and was provided with a wide variety of drugs.

I'm not saying that sort of thing was going on in mafiaboy's case, but I've developed a deep [dis]repect for damages that can be done throught the effects of a "dysfunctional" family setting.

Re:article illustrated something about family...

[garcia]

The people who modded up were most likely in the same situation as I was.

They came from good families yet still did drugs, had detention, were violaters, etc.

Let's take a look at Ecstacy for example. A good majority of the users and dealers are middle to upper class kids that grew up in the suburbs and found something that was illegal and fun.

Liberals. Bah.

Competent law enforcement?

[Anonymous Coward]

One night, Currie and an FBI colleague saw a flurry of traffic going into and coming out of Mafiaboy's residence. Currie and the FBI agent immediately thought they had another denial-of-service attack on their hands. That was a possibility the agents had been facing all along. Figuring out how to conduct an investigation while at the same time trying to prevent another round of attacks was a big task.

Yup, a DoS attack with enough punch to take down Yahoo. Originating from ... erm ... a dialup line. Hmmmm, sounds plausible to me.

Ok, sarcasm over.

The kind of tools s'kiddies use are made to be installed on compromised systems with a lot of bandwith. However, they can be triggered with very little traffic from the cracker (often via IRC since then the s'kiddie only has to make one connection.)

Currie yanked a few of the data packets from the stream and made a live copy to analyze. If you know what to look for, you can learn a lot from the raw data packets. If it's HTML, or Web traffic, you can tell that. And although it's more difficult, you can also tell if it's e-mail. Ten minutes passed and Currie's anxiety grew. Then, all of a sudden, they noticed data packets containing messages such as "I'm going to kill ya," "Death God" and the like. Mafiaboy wasn't in the midst of another denial-of-service attack against major e-commerce Web sites: He was playing an online game called Starcraft,...

They knew when he was surfing a web page because they could see the HTML tags? Although it was 'more difficult' they could tell if it was an e-mail? They thought game traffic might be a DoS?

ffs! Have they not heard of port numbers?

It would be the first thing I would check! Kinda narrows down the options doesn't it - knowing what kinda traffic you would expect it to be.

It sounds from the article like they were literally just watching just raw body data from the packets.

Perhaps they could do with a touch more expertise and some better tools? Then again, maybe it was due to misunderstanding and/or inaccuracy by the journalist - the writer doesn't sound like they quite know what they're talking about.

Julian

Re:article illustrated something about family...

[Dave Walker]

More than likely, his parents were like mine; they hadn't a clue as to what he was doing.

I HAD good parents. I was taken to church every Sunday/Wednesday without fail. I was made to do my homework, and eat dinner at the table. Of course, there was no such thing as a home computer then, and I don't know how my parents would have handled that, if there were.

I got ratted out by my little sister for growing pot in my bedroom when she came home for Christmas break from college once. (I was getting a hop on the spring growing season, lol). I wrecked a couple of cars in the 70's whilst hitting the disco's. I knew what I needed to keep from my parents, and did so.

I've never had children of my own, but I suspect that today's kids are no different than I was then. I had "Ward and June" for parents. It wasn't hard to keep things from them. They came from a different era; they weren't prepared for what a teenage male growing up in the 70's would do.

THEY weren't shitty parents. I wasn't a case of gross negligence. Both my sisters turned out fine, lol. Even I turned out fine after the Navy made me grow up. You can't ALWAYS blame the parents.

This all said, I WOULD blame these parents. But I'd think twice about calling the parent poster's parents as 'pretty shitty'.

As a matter of fact, I wonder about YOUR parents! You're pretty quick to jump to judgement, and your LANGUAGE still isn't acceptable in polite company.

Grab a clue. Live and let live. But I forget; /.r's can't do that. LOL.

Oh well, life goes on, and then it doesn't...

Re:article illustrated something about family...

[Ryan Amos]

Middle class families are often just as messed up as everyone else. Friends of mine had parents who didn't speak to eachother, slept in separate rooms. Middle class families often keep up the facade of being normal, which can be even more damaging. Living a lie is harder than admitting you're fucked up. I was fortunate to grow up in a normal family, but many of my friends were not. I still smoked weed and got in trouble at school, but it wasn't because of my family. Family troubles can be a factor in being a troublemaker, but they're not the only cause.

Re:Yeah, he was a script kiddie and not a hacker.

[packeteer]

I agree with you but what i meant to stress more was that this kid did what many other people want to do, pull off a hack and let people know about it. I remember when i was starting out with computers, it was such a thrill to know i could cause damage to other systems and meanwhile claim to be so much more superior to them. I am glad that i was able to be guided into a path in life where i DONT maliciously hack. Unfortunatly it was a long time ago that i first got into computers, the days of the BBS, in that time people were much more willing to help you out... guide you.

The problem with the big anonymous internet is nobody cares, people say "screw those script kiddies" but in my personal experiance every REAL hacker i have known started out as a script kiddie, i did. I can admit that i used to use tools of other people creation and use them for malicious activities, this is where everyone has to start. They hear about comptuers, they like the possabilities, but it can be too much too fast. Children need to be protected from more damaging things than pornography on the internet. If a child browses around for a while s/he could eaily find a way to casue real damage, THAT is what people need to be protected from.

When i used to use IRC a lot more iwould be talking in a channel and some newb would come on and say "teach me to hack". Of course this was an instant ban but i followed this person into personal chat and told them EXACTLY how to hack. Get books, read em, and experiment.

I think those out in the online community who understand about computers need to help new people. I personally hold all the elitist people out ther responsible for these attacks. It's their arrogance that fosters these people to lash out in violent ways such as scripted attacks.