Slashdot Mirror
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."
This sort of thing happens all the time. Prosecutors are always willing to adjust or drop charges in exchange for information which would lead to big arrests for other people. Sure these guys caused $2 million in damages, but maybe the government knows these guys could help them find other people that have caused $10 million in damages, or maybe these guys could help the government find other people who are planning these attacks before these other people do $2 million or $10 million in damages.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but I've taken some criminal law classes taught by experienced attorneys, and I watch Law & Order. On the other hand, maybe there's something I'm missing.
Part of agreements like that are "and you keep your nose clean in the future." These guys will have an eye kept on them, and if they go back to their old habits not only can they be charged with the new crimes, but with the ones they made a deal on as well.
I have no problem at all with this, provided it is used to catch more important criminals. I mean really, I'm not that interested in the script kiddies that write the software and create the botnets. I want them stopped, of course, but I'm more interested in the people behind the operation that pay them and benefit from it. Bust the kiddies, the backers will find new ones, bust the backers, it's a done deal.
Even if, in the end, all the charges are dropped, we will likely be very safe from the DDOS Mafia. Think about it: every bit of data they transmit will likely be monitored. Sure, they might try to pull a quick one past the government, but all of a sudden, at least for them, such an attempt just got much more difficult.
In former times, the Internet used to be the place where our clowns would laugh in happy anarchy. ...) those have brought with them banished from our networks.
Corporations and Business from "real life" have since taken over the networks.
We - rightly - want the filth (organized criminality, theft, fraud,
But the ultimate outcome will be a governed Internet. Already, DRM is around the corner and internet communications are being tapped.
Protect Internet Anarchy! Suffer the occasional virii and spam mails - for the sake of a free Internet!
I'm not suggesting, it's the truth. Go do a bit of research on it. There are two big purchasers of botnets:
1) Spammers. They are generally more interested in the zombie'd machine version to use it to send SPAM,.
2) Extortionists. They threaten sites with DDoS's if protection money isn't paid. If that sounds like a normal mob scam, well it is and that's often who's behind it, one of the OC syndicates out there.
There are certianly script kiddies that do it just for their own benefit, but those are generally the IRC variety. They attempt to take over channels and the like. Big attacks on major sites predicated by demands for money are generally backed by criminals with a little more experience in this kind of thing.