20,000 Zombie PCs -- $3000

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Posted by samzenpus on Thursday September 9, 2004 @08:05AM from the but-I-wanted-30,000-computers dept.

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."

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Does your life lack a cause? by Stop+the+war+now! · 2004-09-09 08:06 · Score: -1, Troll

There are people who get up every day, work a 9 to 5 and go home to their families trading their lives for varying degrees of cash. In my view, though clearly not theirs, they are selling their lives very cheaply. These are wage slaves and the difference between people like that and a zombie is generally lost on me. Do you realize that many, I'm not saying all or even most, of the Linux supporters are like this, they have never coded anything in their lives, have never even played a video game, in fact the only reason they are supporting Linux is because it is a cause and their life lacks one. That is an incredibly sad group of folks, and I wonder what their reaction will be when they finally understand they are supporting software and not the second coming.
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I'm black and I am gay by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 08:06 · Score: -1, Troll

Sign me up GNAA!
Re:Article attaches no blame to Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 08:43 · Score: -1, Troll

Man I bet you wish everyone was as smart as you!!!!
partially old news... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 09:45 · Score: -1, Troll

ISP's have been shutting off users who spam or virus other customers for a while now... It's too bad comcast and aol (for example) don't shut off more fscking lusers who can't run windows update every week and update their virus scanners...

Message to ISP's: Use your knowledgable and diligent security staff to monitor your network and shut down more lusers. If you do your job maybe spam will eventually come to an end...
Re:Whose fault? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-09 10:11 · Score: -1, Troll

Er... 'I can think of no legitimate use of them' is probably an annoying statement to the 5 billion people in the world whose first language doesn't use (just) the roman alphabet.
Re:Ok, this has *got* to be a felony. by mabu · 2004-09-09 10:19 · Score: 0, Troll

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!