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CEO Indicted for DDOSing Competitors
ruland writes "It turns out there was a reason the hosting company CIT/Foonet was raided in February. SecurityFocus.com reports that the CEO of a web-based satellite T.V. retailer has been indicted for allegedly paying Foonet's administrator to arrange denial of service attacks against his competitors, causing outages as long as two weeks at a time, and $2 million in losses. Now he's skipped out on $750,000 bail, while the five packet monkeys who worked for him are left facing felony charges of their own."
what a bunch of retards.
Here's to hoping the term "packet monkeys" enters the lexicon as soon as possible. For some reason that made me laugh, imagining a NOC full of monkeys flinging poo at one another.
Actually, I guess that pretty much describes most NOCs nowadays...
El riesgo vive siempre!
If your boss tells you to do something illegal, they'll arrest him *and you*. When he skips bail, you'll be left holding the bag.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I seem to recall quite an uproar surrounding the seizure before. People yelling about the government raping the constituion, etc.
Glad I was one of the people that decided to wait and see what it was all about instead of taking it as a sign that our government was overextending itself. Not that they don't, but I'm guessing this isn't one of those times if everyone on staff got felony charges.
Whee signature.
According to the article, they think the CEO's skipped town to Morocco. Don't we have an extradition treaty w/them? If so, it shouldn't be that hard to get him back, assuming Morocco's police play along.
Dalnet's a Satellite TV retailer? Who knew?
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
That brings a whole new meaning to "cut throat copetition"!
What kind of company DDOS's competitors?
Cheers,
James Carr
new laws need to cover this kind of disruption, it's a thief pure and simple. also companies should focus more money on new technology and hire people that know their stuff and can keep the servers up and running. then perhaps these wacko 'guns for hire' won't be available.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
At least the CEO had the class to not outsource the packet monkey work to Russia or India. ;)
Everyone knows the perfect crime when it comes to DDoS is to post your opponent's URL on slashdot...
oh I see he skipped bail and they pinned it on his underlings, thats about par.
If this case shows one thing then that there is hope for script kiddies like me.
Man, we can become CEO someday and some other idiots will do our dirty work and get screwed for us.
Great news, thanks you made my day,
AC (uberleet hax0r)
My company was a direct target of these assholes. It is about time the FBI finally did something. They are the reason I am paying more for my servers than any other IRC shell provider.
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
RackSpace fought back, but the attackers proved determined and adaptive. In mid-October the simple SYN flood attacks were replaced with an HTTP flood, pulling large image files from WeaKnees.com in overwhelming numbers. At its peak the onslaught allegedly kept the company offline for a full two weeks.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to host these files from a tarpit? If you know you're under attack by zombie hordes that are going to repeatedly ask for a file, why not give it to them s--l--o--w--l--y? Although I suppose that since the attacks were being watched and changed frequently, the attackers probably would simply have switched tactics again.
Anyway, is it possible or practical to use the logs of the http flood to go back to the zombified PC owners and "fix" them? HTTP requires a real connection, which is traceable. Or should that list just be delivered to their ISPs and have the ISPs shut them down until they're virus free?
John
Now he's skipped out on $750,000 bail, while the five packet monkeys who worked for him are left facing felony charges of their own.
Executives pulled this stunt with stockholders quite heavily over the last 5 years. I imagine that he didn't actually pay out $750k but probably put up "collateral" with an appraised worth of $750k. It doesn't mean much if he's been cutting his own salary, stock options, and other investments at several million/year.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
" it's a thief pure and simple"
No, its not. I hate to be pedantic, but this kind of imprecision allows the RIAA/MPAA to call copying CD's "theft".
If we use language that is neutral, it allows us to evaluate the best course of action to take. Using emotionally loaded terms forces us to make emotional decisions rather thanlogical decisions, and that is not a wise thing to do.
I wonder if these admins need to join DARE. DDOS Abuse Resistance Education
- I got my free iPod and a free Nintendo DS....why not
If a manager asks me to do something that is morally or legally questionable, I ask them to send me a signed memo with their request. That usually makes them go away and drop the subject.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Companies break the law all the time, and I mean all the time.
How good is health and sagety in your workplace, ever been asked to use some equipment without the correct, training, protection, lighting, seating arangements?
Ever heard of people being dismissed wrongly, or been encouraged to talk negativly, or about confidentail information about an employee behind there back.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'd rather be unemployed and searching for a job for a good long while than being in federal PMITA prison for PACKETING someone. The packeters deserve whatever they get, because frankly, I know how much of a pain in the ass it is to get DDoSed. If you can't get the upper hand through legitimate tactics and methods, then you don't deserve to be in business. Go flip burgers or something.
I remember back when it was published ... all about how the FBI was just oppressing innocent geeks, it was all Bush and Ashcroft's fault, and the FBI were violating the 1st amendment etc.
Now maybe slashbots can realise that not every 'hacker' is a hero who's been oppressed by Da Man.
If you actually happen to know a bunch of guys who own 'botnets' and ask them to perform that task you've actually been the one to break the law.
If my boss tells me to do something and I tell him to get stuffed, I've done nothing wrong. As soon as I become a paid enforcer, I'm also responsible.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Mod parent up, that's exactly what I thought.
What kind of moron doesn't think a big DDOS like that is going to be traced? The reason everyone gets away with it with MS and SCO is because everyone hates them, so there are too many suspects...But when its your biggest competitor? You're going down.
And then to skip bail? "Noooooo please don't send me to white collar CEO prison for a week. Waaaaaaah."
This is almost too dumb to make a Dilbert strip.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Let me spell it out for you. Dalnet, frequently DDoSed. This guy, paying people to arrange DDoS attacks on competitors. Therefore Dalnet sells Satellite TVs. See? Joke. Funny? No. Flamebait? I don't think so.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This memo describes a protocol suite which supports an infinite number of monkeys that sit at an infinite number of typewriters in order to determine when they have either produced the entire works of William Shakespeare or a good television show. The suite includes communications and control protocols for monkeys and the organizations that interact with them.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2795.txt/
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's like the soldier who's ordered to commit war crimes. What do you do? It's in no way you're fault - but you're in a lose - lose situation.
Yes, it sucks, but ultimately you AND your superiors are responsible. It is better to be punished for doing the right thing than to do the wrong thing and be rewarded. Cowardice and fear are no excuse for committing injustices or allowing them to be committed.
Oh, and regarding your sig: al Qaeda endorsed Bush.
The company's hosting provider, Lexiconn, responded by dropping WeaKnees.com as a client, sending the company to more expensive hosting at RackSpace.com.
Does this make any sense? I can see if your legitimate traffic is exceeding a bandwidth limit that you might get dropped/forced to pay more. But a denial of service attack? Wouldn't most service providers want to help their customer with this kind or problem?
Should they call it 'packeteering'?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
Definitely stinky-cheese spammers too!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I HAVE mod points. God I'm a fricking idiot. Gotta get more sweet sweet caffiene.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Someone please tell me why I should feel sorry for the poor "monkeys" that were helping him commit felonies? This isn't a digital rights issue, this isn't a case of big guy trampling little guy. They partook in organized crime and gave computer people a bad name, why should we care that they are left hanging?
- Short company Y.
- Initiate DDOS campaign intended to temporarily cripple company Y and drive its stock price down.
- Cover at the depressed price.
- Profit.
Certainly the SEC would look askance at short-sales before a coordinated DDOS attack, but if a nebulous entity in Eastern Europe is doing the dirty work while a nebulous entity in East-Asia is doing the shorting, it could be extremely difficult to prove a connection.No this isn't a recommendation or some novel idea. In fact, I'm certain that organized crime is well ahead of us in the nefarious schemes department.
Many jurisdictions have so-called "whistleblower legislation" that protects you from getting fired if you report your boss' illegal activities. It's kind of a win-win situation. You get to tattle-tale on your jerk boss and then dare them to fire you afterwards (you get to sue for all kinds of money if they do it).
I'm glad to see some ISP's do care. Mine doesnt. I recall back when NIMDA was running rampant on boxes that never installed a 3-month old MS Security fix, my box was being slammed on a dily basis. After reviewing my logs, I found 90% of the attacks were coming from other customers of my companies ISP. I started e-mailing them my logs with the unique addresses grepped on a dialy basis. All I ever heard back from them was deafening silence.
Thanks, Florida Digital. I now have another ISP to never do business with again.
-The Anonymous Bastard
I checked their "News" section: still no "Deadbeat thug CEO jumps bail, flees country" headline. Looks like their webmasters are slacking.
I actually was expecting to see some sort of "new interim CEO" announcement, but couldn't find anything like that either.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
The way I would handle the packet warriors:
Hope they are using names instead of IP addresses, then change your forward DNS to point to uberelite gov't site. Drop the TTL first, so you can make the change. This way the attackers get in more trouble, and the gov't will clean them up versus all the legal fees.
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
I remember this story back in Feb with all the conspiricy people coming down on how the "FBI has overstepped their bounds again" and calling it another Ruby Ridge or Waco.
Click on the original story and even THAT makes it seem like they were just innocent people being unfairly picked on by the evil overlords known as the FBI.
If FBI agents showed up at your data center bearing a warrant, would you be able to provide them prompt access to customer data? BZZZZT! I'm sorry, but you've taken too long to answer. We'll be confiscating all the hardware you use, er, used to use, to run your business. But we'll get it back to you 'real soon now.' Thank you for playing.
Now it turns out the people raided were in fact "the bad guys" and the warrent (remember, the FBI HAD a warrent) was legit AND...er...warrented.
It's funny how everything changes when more facts are thrown in...and I'm sure not all the facts are even in yet!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Here is a post from the OrbitSat forum "I've been trying to contact this company for serveral days. There is no phone support numbers posted. The live chat is always closed" Looks like no one is keeping up with the business anymore?? YAY!
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
The levels of bad feeling now are so much higher than they were before. It's foolish to move in and screw things up over there, especially when you have no concrete plan, and no concrete reason.
9/11 was planned by Bin Laden, and his grudge with us dates back to the '70s. Probably somethign to do with the fact that we used him against the soviets and then left him in a bombed out wasteland of a country.
They don't forgive and forget, but despite that we just romp around fucking with things, and pretend like the only consequences are the immediate ones. We're going to be paying for Bush's ego and Bush's oil cronies for decades to come.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
let 'em craft their appears on a KSY-33 with a 66-baud modem, the twerps.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Wow...I remember being pretty pissed at the FBI for how they grabbed everything, essentially crippling the hosting provider. But considering the details, it makes sense; after several hours, the risk of evidence being deliberately destroyed was probably a pretty serious concern. I just can't wrap my brain around how stupid someone would have to be to get involved in something like this though. It's not exactly like nobody would notice (especially when DDoS'ing for weeks at a time) that all the traffic came from one network, regardless of spoofing. Standard procedure in killing a DDoS attack is to follow the flow of bandwidth, rather than the supposed "source" of the traffic.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
They try to get the foot soldier to do their dirty work and hang them out to dry at the first opportunity. The moral of the story: If you do someone's dirty laundry for them, expect to get dirty. These "packet monkeys" deserve all they will get.
I actually got attacked by one of these guys' botnets (Krashed I believe) when a friend IRCing from my connection pissed him off. I traced him to Foonet thinking "great, I know the head admin from being an IRC junkie back in the day" and when I told him what was going on he acted like it was no problem. I thought he should have been a little more concerned about some punk kid attacking people from his net. Figures.
I remember how times have changed... all about how the 1st amendment was oppressing the innocent FBI, it was all geeks fault, and slashbots were violating Bush and Ashcroft etc. Now maybe Da Man can realize not every FBI hero has been oppressed by hackers.
On a more serious note, there is such a thing as innocent until proven guilty, and people shouldn't say that the end justifies the means. We have to protect everyone's rights, even the rights of criminals. I know it sucks, and it would be great if we knew right away if someone was guilty, but in real life this is the only thing that approaches justice.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
It's not a win/win situation for you. You immediately become unhirable, making it more of a loss. Granted, it's not nearly as bad a loss, but it's not certainly not what I'd call a "sweeping victory."
G
So, what's that make them, 1 for 20?
There's a valid point of view that says one step forward does not make up for two steps back.
Sorry to correct you, but the ones that lost spanish poll were the Conservatives (Partido Popular, or PP), not the Socialists (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, or PSOE), who won.
In any case, ETA has degraded from a band of psychos with a blurry excuse of independentism to a bunch of mobsters with a blurry excuse of independentism...
----
There was a SIG here.
It is gone now.
(Quiz: Who know where my SIG comes from?)
it'll be on tv that stories so twisted theres sh9it in there that isnt even true but oh well. Did I mention How much he is a liar and how much I hate him?
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
I wonder what FriendofFoonet has to say about this now?
Now it time to say goodbye to all your website competitors...
P... A... C...
C ya real soon!
K... E... E...
E, because we like you!
T... E... R............
emt 377 emt 4
Simply post the URL of your enemy in Slashdot
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/wire/sns-ap-swe et-revenge,0,5006418.story?coll=sns-ap-health-head lines
I am sure cops and sociologists already know this, but some of you may find today's article interesting.
I imagine CEOs will think long and hard about acting precipitously, in revenge, or out of "we must control them..."
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Before going to that retailer link in the article, make sure that your browser is locked up tight. They try to run an awful lot of VBscript and copy/paste to your clipboard. (Not sure what it all does, but I wouldn't trust them.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
...he's a CEO that knows *something* about technology. That's an improvement.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
The mafia has been known to arrange for such attacks its just not as widley publisiz^@#$@$NO CARRIER
I like reading about dodgy business practices. It keeps me warm at night.
All we need now is some sex scadals. Hire some shemale prostitutes, under the guise of interns, to "seduce" the CEO/CIO of the competition and then release a really grainy and low-light movie of the whole thing.
Throw in some drug trafficking and get the Teamsters involved with the whole sorted affair.
wh00t!
[Quido voice]
'Cause dat wood be really tragic, yuh know... I might get so depressed I jest disappear, if yuh know what I mean...
And den, yuh know da cops - they is gonna come aroun' an' investuhgate, yuh know. I mean, da cops findin' all dohs tapes wit ya tellin' me ta do all dat illegal stuff, an all...
It would be really tragic...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Here is a log of EMP just a few minutes ago. http://www.xbox-irc.net/log.txt
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
and/or and organized criminal! Seems to me he qualifies for extradition! With the gripe he must have about losing $750 k bail, can we afford to let this dude loose in Morroco? He probably signed up with his local al Qaeda chapter!
Or maybe you might remember Ruby Ridge or Waco. Or maybe you might remember some of the excesses since 9/11. Was this a good bust or bad one? It looks more like a good one. Don't automatically think that they are the evil jackbooted minions of the evil overlord. Nor should you automatically presume that they are the good guys.
That makes an electronic discovery action on all your servers and desktops sound really nice!
Have them spell it out. Make it explicit. Usually, bad/evil/unethical ideas *poof* in a cloud of smoke if you shine some light on the subject.
That's why your former boss didn't say exactly what was wanted -- it was a bad idea to begin with! If it was a good idea (ethical or otherwise), he'd promote it and talk to others about what a great plan he had.
No, don't refuse...at first...just make it clear what it is they are asking for. If they can't show the reason for the proposed action, they aren't likely to push it. If they do, even though it is wrong, the person is a psycho or up to something even worse they aren't telling you about. In either case, it's good to know so you can move on.
Remember: Even soldiers can transfer to different units.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Perhaps he was being a good samaritan(sp?) and saw that they needed more business and sent a few customers there way. We was just trying to help them make money.
Heh, and people were saying poor poor Foonet, did nothing wrong, blah blah blah. I guess we now have our answer on why they needed to be broken.
So lets see, carding, open proxies, trojans, DDoS drones, spam, script kiddies, porn (not that its a bad thing, just lets pile it all on while we can), what did I miss?
Brielle
I mean, a Nazi soldier who broke ranks? Heh...yeah...I think I'd follow orders too and sort it all out later.
Blar.
"I do agree with you. But what about the soldier being ordered to do these things by his CO when a gun is being pointed at him?"
That is not the same as an unlawful order.
If someone robs a bank and jumps into your car and pulls gun on you and orders you to drive away, you are not an accomplice. You are a hostage.
If you are given an unlawful order and you carry it out, then you are guilty.
If someone pulls a gun on you and orders you to commit a crime, you are not guilty.
"No, because with War-Crimes the punishment for doing the right thing is an immediately administered bullet through the temple."
How the fuck is THAT supposed to happen?
Did my CO take my weapon PRIOR to giving me an order he knew I wouldn't follow? Did I somehow end up in a squad of sociopaths and not notice it?
"Your choice is "certain death now" or "do the wrong thing and live with my conscience and the posibility of execution/incarceration later"."
No, in that case, you are a HOSTAGE or a CAPTIVE or a PRISONER. And those do NOT have free choice.
"Unlike traffic cops, I feel that some people who committed war-crimes have a case, and are as much victims. This is especially true for conscripts."
No. Again, the only situation where that would be the case is where they were PRISONERS instead of conscripts. Once you issue the first weapon to the first conscript, the power balance changes.
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9 out of 10 American economists agree with the terrorists on this one...
Airline Glitch Grounds Flights
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
"just following orders"
is usually considered to be a mitigating circumstance, even where it is not considered a full defence.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
The guy has a suggestions box. I suggest we all send him our suggestions. ;-)
And yes, that is his picture on that page.
http://www.orbitsat.com/Profile/suggest.htm
I think the subject says it all - and would, if /. would let me leave the body blank. Oh well.
Remember, don't smoke in the library.
Heh; so do 10/10 non-American citizens ;-)
"Let follow your line of reasoning. Your CO gives you an order, you question the order, he commands you to do it or be shot on site, you draw your gun and shoot your CO. In the court martial you explain your situation. You are fucked."
No, you will tell the judge the circumstances and the judge will rule that you CORRECTLY refused to obey an unlawful order AND that you were acting in self defense when you shot your CO.
"The example that I used before is that of the young German officers who were instructed to shoot the recaptured POWs involved in "The Great Escape". If they refused to kill the unarmed prisoners, they would be shot. After the war, they were captured, tried, and something like 15 out of 23 were hanged."
So? Do you think that the German army didn't have any deserters?
"Now think that military service was a compulsory part of life (as it still is in many countries), these guys had wives and maybe young families, and tell me that taking the bullet on priciple was the obvious choice."
So, your scenario only works if:
#1. You are a soldier for an authoritarian regime.
#2. You have a family that lives under that authoritarian regime.
#3. Your superiors are corrupt/evil.
Now look at all the German families that risked everything they had to help Jews escape.
Because it is the easy choice does NOT mean that it is the only choice.
Have you considered the possiblity that you're doing them a favour? Improved PageRank, improved awareness, etc. For some companies, any publicity really is good publicity.
/. readers... well, sadly not everybody is above botnets and cracking attempts. So it could be pretty painful too.
Of course, their site will be out of action for a few hours and _nobody_ deserves to deal with forum comments and emails from slashdot, but overall I think many companies would choose to suffer it anyway.
Then again, if your company has sufficiently offended some of the
From the Court's factual findings: "Henry Kluepfel, Director of Network Security Technology (an affiliate Bell Company), was advised a sensitive, proprietary computer document of Bell South relating to Bell's "911 program" had been made available to the public on [a BBS in Illinois]... Around February 6, 1990, Kluepfel learned that the 911 document was available on a computer billboard entitled "Phoenix" which was operated by Loyd Blankenship in Austin, Texas... Prior to February 26, 1990, Kluepfel learned that Blankenship not only operated the Phoenix bulletin board, but he was a user of the Illinois bulletin board wherein the 911 document was first disclosed, was an employee of Steve Jackson Games, Inc., and a user of the Steve Jackson Games, Inc.'s bulletin board "Illuminati." Kluepfel's investigation also determined that Blankenship was a "co-sysop" of the Illuminati bulletin board, which means that he had the ability to review anything on the Illuminati bulletin board and, importantly, maybe able to delete anything on the system. Blankenship's bulletin board Phoenix had published "hacker" information and had solicited "hacker" information relating to passwords, ostensibly to be analyzed in some type of decryption scheme."
Kluepfel reported this to the Secret Service. Kluepfel had a positive history with the Secret Service, in that he had assisted them in prior investigations. The Secret Service agent handling the investigation, Agent Foley, contacted the local U.S. Attorney's Office and had the local U.S. Attorney file for a warrant to search and seize SJG's hardware in order to get evidence about Bell South's 911 file. "The only information Agent Foley had regarding Steve Jackson Games, Inc. and Steve Jackson was that he thought this was a company that put out games, but he also reviewed a printout of Illuminati on February 25, 1990, which read, "Greetings, Mortal! You have entered the secret computer system of the Illuminati, the on-line home of the world's oldest and largest secret conspiracy. 5124474449300/1200/2400BAUD fronted by Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. Fnord." The evidence in this case strongly suggests Agent Foley, without any further investigation, misconstrued this information to believe the Illuminati bulletin board was similar in purpose to Blankenship's Phoenix bulletin board, which provided information to and was used by "hackers." Agent Foley believed, in good faith, at the time of the execution of his affidavit on February 28, 1990, there was probable cause to believe Blankenship had the 911 Bell South document [**12] and information relating to the decryption scheme stored in his computer at home or perhaps in computers, disks, or in the Illuminati bulletin board at his place of employment at Steve Jackson Games, Inc.; that these materials were involved in criminal activities; and that Blankenship had the ability to delete any information stored on any of these computers and/or disks."
"The only information Agent Foley had regarding Steve Jackson Games, Inc. and Steve Jackson was that he thought this was a company that put out games, but he also reviewed a printout of Illuminati on February 25, 1990, which read, "Greetings, Mortal! You have entered the secret computer system of the Illuminati, the on-line home of the world's oldest and largest secret conspiracy. 5124474449300/1200/2400BAUD fronted by Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. Fnord." The evidence in this case strongly suggests Agent Foley, without any further investigation, misconstrued this information to believe the Illuminati bulletin board was similar in purpose to Blankenship's Phoenix bulletin board, which provided information to and was used by "hackers.""
That last bit is where the court found fault with the government's case. The Secret Service basically acted on Foley's mis
That's probably the best (only?) way to deal with something like this. God, I would LOVE to have my boss ask me to do something illegal - I'd have her arse in a bind in no time!
RapidSatellite.com, which sells satellite TV receivers, was hit at the same time and with similar results. The company responded by quickly moving their electronic storefront to the distributed content delivery services of Speedera, only to be crippled three days later by an attack on that provider's DNS servers, which for an hour also blocked access to other Speedera-hosted sites, including Amazon.com and the Department of Homeland Security, according to the FBI affidavit. RapidSatellite then moved to Akamai, but were out again within a week when the attackers switched to an HTTP flood attack, running massive numbers of queries through RapidSatellite.com's search engine.
I'm not being cynical, but realistic. How much you want to bet the FBI didn't really get involved until either Amazon.com or the Department of Homeland Security's resources got peripherally hit?
Every day there are thousands of DDOS attacks going on, usually against small providers or companies that don't have enough political clout to get the authorities to care much. The perps biggest mistake was probably targetting a provider that had some more substantive clients.
EMP is josh@disgu.st * EMP /WHOIS list.
EMP on @#weed @#virus @#concepthosting
EMP using irc.mzima.net Welcome to the fjear nation.
emp End of
(as of now)
"It's a growing problem and one that we take very seriously, and one that we think has a very destructive impact and potential." says FBI supervisory special agent Frank Harrill.
Hello!! They're just figuring this out?
--The Dude
I was one of foonet's customers and have now talked to the person at the FBI that I was supposed to, AND asked for his supervisor's name because he wasn't doing anything to help me. Supervisor never called me back.
Any suggestions on what I can do?? Lawyer?
You just know it's a bad idea to DDoS the Department of Homeland Security servers :-). I suspect this investigation would never have gotten off the ground if they hadn't taken out an important government site in the collateral damage when they hit the name servers at one of the ISPs.
:-) and then hit the name servers. I hope they throw away the key on these scumbags.
This was a concerted and persistent attack on several sites, they didn't just SYN flood, they pulled masses of HTML data (slashdot attack
However, when has this kind of case *ever* been investigated in the past? We've had any number of similar attacks but the DOJ sat on their lazy ass and did nothing about it. Let's hope this opens their eyes to this type of crime and they start chasing the perpetrators.
steve jackson games were raided by the Secret Service, a completely different organization than the FBI.
They couldnt just subpoena the company, because the admin was the prime suspect.
The only way to get unaltered evidence was to sieze the servers.
one time i did do this:
:-)
we were getting ddosed from some ISPs.
I called several of them, and most of them shut it off when they verified it was originating from their servers.
All except one. I talked with their admin, they verified the ddos was originating from their hosts. I asked them to shut it down and they said "well you can send us a subpoena and we will shut it down". I pointed out that by the time it took to get a subpoena the attack would have been ongoing for several days/weeks. Their response? "well thats your problem not ours".
So we did eventually report it to law enforcement. They got subpoena'd. What happens?
The guy who originally told me to go FOAD ends up calling me and SCREAMING at me on the phone about why police officers came to his door to serve him a subpoena. Apparently he thought i'd just go away or something, and never follow through.
karma's a bitch sometimes
foonet was a well known script kiddie haven and the admin was already a well known packet monkey -- he'd publically boasted many times about ddos'ing companies and individuals into oblivion. his ddos attacks on various irc networks was well known.
crocodile tears for the idiots stupid enough to buy hosting from these miscreants. you rented a room in a crack house, with meth labs next door.
Although it is ironic (at least to me) that this sentiment comes from someone who uses "Uber Banker" as a nickname.;)
Is it time for PICO?
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I knew that Richard "Krashed" packet monkey...
He was such a fucking asshole. He ddos'ed me and many of my friends (several times) and ddos'ed anirc server I used to frequent (irc.mircx.com) to its death (from the immense bandwidth charges).
I hope he ends up in jail bigtime.
I know this because I know the admin of the place through a friend, and he also had his personal server taken by the FBI as part of the raid. It was later returned to him, but at the time we were all angry because we thought it was unjustified.
What caused you to change your mind?
Have you examined the original information used to obtain the warrant?
The fact was we didnt have all the information(which later it was told to me they were investigating DDoS attacks, which turned out to be true).
What they were investigation in and of itself doesn't justify a seizure. Only the information (reasonable grounds) they were acting on can justify it.
And you don't know what that is without looking at the original affidavits.
And if you have never examined the affidavits, then your current believe is more of a matter of faith rather than an objective conclusion.
With that said.. I'll say it again. I'm not saying anything wrong was done.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
As for Waco...the people involved were definately `bad guys'...
I'm sorry, what? People who chose to live life differently were therefore "bad"? Or did you fall for the 'Saving-Our-Asses' lies and propaganda about child-molesting and other such nonsesnse pumped out by the FBI and Janet Reno?
Did the 90 or so woman and children who were burned alive deserve that fate for daring to forego such good ol' American virtues as Britney and Reality TV (or their mid-'90s equivalent)? Oh right, yeah, "They had it coming!", and "They shouldn't of oughta bin there in the first place!", right?
Why is it that if you choose to live apart, outside the mainstream, many people assume you must be "bad" and "up to no good", and should be reigned back in at gunpoint as soon as possible?
"Federal 'Pound Me In The Ass' Prison"
Coming somewhat late in the discussion, but here goes anyway.
One possibility that was not discussed so far, despite 230+ posts already, is that the FBI were snooping on these people suspecting terrorism (thanks to the Patriot Act), but they could not find anything terrorist about them, but stumbled upon the DDoS thing.
What makes me suspect that is that the CEO is a Moroccan, and not a citizen of the USA. Perhaps because he was an Arab (and perhaps Muslim), and involved in computers/internet, and had communicated with hackers (er ... crackers). All this may have made him a ripe target for being monitored. Thanks to profiling...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
If a bank robber jumps into your car and does NOT point a gun at you, are you an accomplice if you drive where he tells you to?
No, you are not.
"By your logic, Hitler was the only person accountable for the Holocaust."
Wow. And here I thought they actually taught WWII history in classrooms. How many people did Hitler personally shoot? Hmmmmm?
Again, how about all those Germans who helped Jews escape? Despite knowing that they'd be tried and executed as traitors if they were caught.
Just because it is the EASY option does not make it the ONLY option.
Your position depends upon the easy option being the ONLY option. History shows that you are wrong.
He should have just used us to slashdot them by posting a how to tutorial on installer a linux server in your skull! With color pictures!
$> man woman
$> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Bin Laden and the rest of Al Quaeda have generally been pretty clear about their goals and aims. Nothing subtle.
You can generally take fanatics at face-value.