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20,000 Zombie PCs -- $3000
Saint Aardvark writes "From F-Secure blog comes these links to two USA Today articles on spamming. The first gives an example of how a grandmother ended up becoming a security expert after Comcast cut her connection for spamming. The second quotes spammers advertising networks of Zombie PCs for sale. The price? $3000 for 20,000 machines."
Computer Tampering is a felony. In some cases the penalty could even be interpreted under the Patriot Act to be an act of "terrorism" (disrupting commerce and national security services) and punishable by death! Most states have sentences of up to 3 years in prison for each instance of installing a zombie on a PC.
You can see details here on each state's laws and then we also have a plethora of federal laws that these guys are breaking.
These are all serious, criminal violations.
As I said in another post, you need to contact your Attorney General and encourage them to prosecute. The FBI collects information, but they're at the mercy of the Federal and State Attorneys to prosecute the people who do this. As far as I know, they haven't gone after anyone.
It's just disgusting. This is a political issue. NOT a technological one. Our officials are not prosecuting the people who break the law!