DDOS Mafia On The Loose

TivoLee writes "If you were worried that courts have been cracking down too much on Internet miscreants lately, think again. Sure, virus writers and spammers have been hit with some tough sentences in recent months. But what about this: the U.S. govt. has dropped charges against a group of four guys known as the DDOS Mafia. Two of the men admitted to releasing viruses so they could create botnets to launch DDOS attacks for hire. Their boss is accused of causing $2Mil in damage to victim sites. Yet prosecutors are dropping charges, so they can get the criminals to snitch on other criminals. Oi vey."

Comments

Wow

[kamapuaa]

Why is this bad? It's worked well against organized crime, why not try it against organized cyber-crime?

And?

[mscnln]

This is a common prosecutorial practice... whats the big deal?

Hint :

[FiReaNGeL]

Here's a hint. They do the same thing for murderers, drug trafficants, gang members. Prosecuting them will take 4 places in jail. Getting them to cooperate will help stop others, and they probably have to engage themselve not to continue doing viruses / ddos. Everyone wins. Honestly, if they do it with murderers, is it THAT surprising that they do the same thing with script kiddies?

Um, huh?

[Txiasaeia]

They're not really dropping charges, they're just buying time (and gathering evidence, I'd wage) before charging them with a crime. From the article: "Charges could still be brought. This just allows us to talk to defense attorneys and negotiate things before having to bring an indictment against a particular individual."

In other words, normal lawyer tactics. Nothing to see here.