Interview with a Botmaster

An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post is running a fascinating feature profiling a couple of botnet operators who make thousands of dollars each month installing adware on machines they infect. This is by far the most detailed examination of this issue I've seen so far -- and includes an interview with the CEO of 180Solutions, as well as interviews with some of the botmasters' victims. From the story: 'Most days, I just sit at home and chat online while I make money,' 0x80 says. 'I get one check like every 15 days in the mail for a few hundred bucks, and a buncha others I get from banks in Canada every 30 days.' He says his work earns him an average of $6,800 per month, although he's made as much as $10,000. Not bad money for a high school dropout.'"

Comments

Spam forums lying low today

[Animats]

The usual places where you rent botnets, Specialham and Spamforum are down today. When the heat is on, they tend to go offline, but come back in days or weeks.

Re:He just made a big mistake

[cgenman]

He actually has half of his face in one of the pictures, and his mouth in another. If one were so inclined, you could splice together the two images to create something that looks like
this.

Not as great as a mugshot, especially with the slightly different perspectives of the two pictures, but it might do. A little reconstruction by a skilled artist, and you could have a really accurate full-face.

He must have gone to Roland High School. Anyone want to give them a call? (918) 427-7419

I feel bad if this kid really had been planning on getting out, but I've known people who "planned" on getting out for years and never did. And I've been cleaning spyware crap off of people's computers for years.