The New Face of Script Kiddiez

An anonymous reader writes "Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog has an interesting post profiling the activities of a kid named Witlog who controls a botnet of roughly 30,000 hacked Windows PCs. Even after the authorities manage to shut down the network Witlog uses to control his bots, he pops up somewhere else. From the article: 'Witlog may in fact be the product of a new generation of script kiddiez; the chief distinguishing feature of this generation being that instead of using Web site flaws to deface as many Web sites as possible, these guys are breaking into thousands of home and work PCs and taking them for a virtual joyride, often times all the way to the bank.'"

Comments

New Face

[RedHatLinux]

Would seem to imply a new genre of script kiddie, such as old people doing it, rather than a mere change in behavior. And if they can track and shutdown is bot network, why hasn't someone arrested this idiot?

Re:New Face

[kefkahax]

Being that he goes by 'Witlog' either he's too young to disclose or they still don't know who he is. Either way, I'd like to point out that, though he may or may not cover his tracks well, "they break into thousands of PCs" is kind of inaccurate being that most of these DDoS bots automate the process of taking control of a machine. Most people that run these botnets don't know anything beyond compiling the bot and filling out a configuration file.

And they certainly don't deserve recognition...neither would a defacer[political or not]. I swear, "hackers" or "crackers" whatever you may prefer to call them, used to have more taste, pre-2000. Even the defacements used to carry more meaning...now it just seems like IRC channel wars, just at a new level...IRC server wars. Pretty dumb when it gets down to it.

Re:New Face

[plover]

why hasn't someone arrested this idiot?

Probably because the idiot is in Estonia, or some other place where the laws of the U.S. are not particularly respected. If all he's doing is installing adware on American PCs, you don't honestly think the local police are going to give a sh!t, do you?

Actually, they probably would. They'd probably want a 25% cut.

Re:New Face

[gEvil (beta)]

...or some other place where the laws of the U.S. are not particularly respected.

I don't even know where to begin with a comment like that... : /

Re:New Face

[blast3r]

When you chase these botnet conrollers down you may find the operator in a channel on the server but normally they hide their real IP address. There is only so much you can do if you don't have access to the actual system the IRC server is located on. And even then it could be difficult to actually find them because they could be proxying through another hacked machine.

Re:New Face

[msobkow]

Exactly. While the rootkits, virus kits, worm kits, and other attack examples have been out there since the early DARPA days, most people using them were exploring for security holes to exploit. Now we've got people who just use that work to take over unpatched or obsolete machines.

They aren't hackers. They can't even claim to be crackers. They run a kit with as little thought to how it works as an Excel user thinks about the math and programming behind the interface. It's just a tool to them.

What's really annoying is their persistent attempts to break a patched/maintained environment wastes bandwidth that has better uses.

What's criminal is that their traffic interference can prevent you from using your connection to work or relax as you see fit. Legally, it should be comparable to theft of resources or vandalism preventing the use of resources. Following from that could be additional charges depending on the intended use of the victim's machines.

Re:New Face

[Anonymous Coward]

So the child could be charged with 3,000 counts of vandalism? I'm cool with that.

Re:New Face

[oliverthered]

There's no need to reroute yourself all over the world any more when you could just be using one of the many open wireless networks to hide.

Re:New Face

[Agelmar]

Given the text of the interview in the article, I'm guessing that he is not in this country, or at the very least that he's a non-native speaker.

My logic: There is a line where the reporter is interviewing the 'kid'. He says the following:

why i did it? i've read an article on yahoo or smth like this

Aside from the obvious grammatical issues, the last word of the sentence is indicative of the fact that he may be a non-native speaker of English. A native speaker would likely use the word "that" instead of "this" when using the phrase "something like" in conjunction with an action taken in the past.

There's also the fact that he said "I've read" rather than "I read". While the former is not incorrect (using the past participle, 'have'), a native speaker is more likely to use the simple past ("I read" rather than "I have read"). This is especially true of a younger native speaker.

While it's obviously difficult to analyze the grammar of a script kiddy, if I had to bet I would say that he is a non-native speaker. Could easily be German, or east european given the language patterns.

Re:New Face

[weierstrass]

>...or some other place where the laws of the U.S. are not particularly respected.

Obviously not the uk, then.

Re:New Face

[whyrat]

This is equivilent to saying we should arrest drug smugglers for tarriff evasion.

I think the waste of bandwidth is an arbitrary side-effect. It's the act of trying to usurp someone's computer that is the crime here, not wasting bandwidth.

Re:New Face

[sconeu]

Would seem to imply a new genre of script kiddie, such as old people doing it,

So you're saying this guy's from Korea?

In Soviet Korea, old people email YOU!

Re:New Face

[FST777]

Witlog lives on /.?

Re:New Face

[winse]

They aren't hackers. They can't even claim to be crackers. They run a kit with as little thought to how it works as an Excel user thinks about the math and programming behind the interface. It's just a tool to them.

I totally agree. Why back in our day we had WRITE our own exploits, some people just older than me had to WRITE their own compiler to compile their own hand written 'sploits, and that's only if they finished their other chores first. It was uphill both ways.

The only real crime here is that criminal some dumb people leverage the work of the truly brilliant.

toungue in cheek

Re:New Face

[Illbay]

Your comment re "old people" is apt.

In fact, I have noticed--and "experts" have noted--that "delayed adulthood" (a.k.a. "arrested development," "extended adolescence") has become common. My 28-years-old-going-on-16 son is a good example.

I can see the sophistication of such "Skript kiddie" operations as indicating some "kid" in his late-20s or early-30s, still living at home, and with the moral compass of your common housecat.

Re:New Face

[PitaBred]

There are extradition treaties and things like that all over the place ;) If you break the law in the US, you can't necessarily just flee to Canada or Mexico or the UK, becuase they'll generally just send you back if the US asks, as the US does with other criminals. That's the "respect of US laws" that I think the GPP was talking about.

Re:New Face

[orderb13]

Sometimes that is all you can get them on. Al Capone comes to mind.

For non-US people, or US people that never had history class, Al Capone was a famous bootlegger (someone that smuggled alcohol into the US) during prohibition (where alcohol was illegal). The FBI tried for a long time to catch him at it, but he always wiggled out. Finally they got him on tax evasion charges.

Re:New Face

[madhitz]

Yeah, right. Tracking these clowns down is easy....I believe you're giving them much more credit then they are due. Sure, proxy this, proxy that, IRC chats, etc, etc...however, somewhere along the line, they are screwing up, leaving a trail, or some link back to themselves..and you can get them there. Hell, worst case scenario, find them at the money source...that's what makes this go round.

Unfortunately, no one wants to invest the token amount of time it takes to investigate this, so it doesn't happen. You can't possibly believe that a 15-year-old botnet-asswipe, sitting at home on mom and dad's computer, could possibly outwit a highly paid and experienced network or systems analyst. They, as was mentioned in an earlier post, simply use the tool without any comprehension of how it operates....keep digging, and you'll find them...shit always ends up at the bottom.

Re:New Face

[Anonymous Coward]

Now my memory may be at fault here, but I seem to recall an old-school phreak who was arrested for "Theft of Electricity".

Now THAT's a proper crime ;)

(this was in the UK, but I can't be bothered looking up the law at the time)

Re:New Face

[slashdotwannabe]

...or some other place where the laws of the U.S. are not particularly respected....

This implies that there is someplace where the laws of the U.S. are particularly respected... including the U.S.

If George W doesn't have to follow the law, why should I???

Re:New Face

[superflyguy]

You assume they're ALL completely stupid. Mostly they are, but it's possible for them to not mess up. It's extremely likely that there are some who do it flawlessly, regardless of the high probabilyty that any given one of them messes up. I am certain that I could form a botnet without being trackable. I also have no reason to do so, and would never trust any site that claimed to give me the scripts I would need enough to go anywhere near them, because I would expect them to hack into my computer and package viri in the scripts. Plus you probably need at least some programming knowledge to link the products that would enable such absolute security.

Re:New Face

[g0bshiTe]

Yes, as we all know there is no way he is just a lazy typist. Especially given the nature of younger typers and grammatical shortcuts they tend to take when typing.

Den agn I culd b wong, wut u fink?

Re:New Face

[aclarke]

If you break an American law in the USA and then flee to another country with which the United States has an extradition treaty, then yes your comment is valid.

However, if someone is breaking into American computers from his mom's basement in Estonia, and computer cracking is not a crime in Estonia (I'm sure it is), then the point of Estonia's extradition treaty with the United States is moot as the script kiddie has not broken the law.

For instance, the legal drinking age here in Ontario, Canada is 19. Obviously a law-abiding 19 year old is not going to be hauled out of a restaurant here and thrown in jail in the USA for underage drinking.

Re:New Face

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should have just treated him like the enemy he is and just had a special ops team go shoot him?

Re:New Face

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things... and these aren't hard to find/use. Although some trust is required for DMT/Alta

TOR (even better, on a hotspot)
DMT/Alta (or e-gold)

Re:New Face

[shawb]

Would a 19 year old be breaking the law if he got drunk in a Toronto bar and then went to the united states still intoxicated?

Re:New Face

[Anonymous Coward]

nah.
For extradition to work, it has to be a crime in both the US and the other country.

That's why there weren't any extradition orders for draft dodgers going to Canada. Canada didn't have a draft, so dodging the draft wasn't against the law.

Re:New Face

[StikyPad]

Now we've got people who just use that work to take over unpatched or obsolete machines.

Right.. hence the word "script" in "script kiddies." They don't program, they just use. That's nothing new. And really, it's no different than anything else. You don't need 100 people to invent the wheel. You share libraries without caring how they work as long as they do what you want them to do. Anyway, nobody's giving this kid a medal, they're just showing an example of how easy it is for anyone to do.

Legally, it should be comparable to theft of resources or vandalism preventing the use of resources. Following from that could be additional charges depending on the intended use of the victim's machines.

Are you suggesting that the reason such activity exists is because we don't have laws against it? That prosecutors need more tools in the battle against script kiddies? Because from here, it sounds sort of like you're saying, "Shooting people should be illegal, with additional charges depending on what else was going on during the shooting."

Re:New Face

[StikyPad]

Right, because:

"so when i've read that article, i thought 'why not to make my own'?"

is a prfkt xmpl of lznss & has 0 2 do w/grmr

y not 2 mk my pwn?!?lolz

Re:New Face

[StikyPad]

Not that the GP was insightful.. he should've been modded (-1, Duh...), but you should've been modded (-1, Arguing against the obvious)

Re:New Face

[Skrekkur]

They aren't hackers. They can't even claim to be crackers. They run a kit with as little thought to how it works as an Excel user thinks about the math and programming behind the interface. It's just a tool to them.

I have a single word for them - Hacks! ^_

Re:New Face

[Tigwyk]

I'm Canadian too, and there was a news story of some guy breaking an American law in the states and then fleeing here. But the story was that Canada wouldn't extradite him because the government feared he'd get slaughtered in a US prison. Hooray for Canada actually CARING about its imported criminals. ;)

Re:New Face

[Anonymous Coward]

My 28-years-old-going-on-16 son is a good example.

Dad, is that you?

Re:New Face

[boarsai]

In his case... proxy'd through 30,000 machines... might take a while to go through that list ;)

Re:New Face

[Reziac]

Kids these days, you've got it too easy. Back in MY day, we had to first build our own servers if we wanted something to break into!

Re:New Face

[NormalVisual]

Damn kids and your "servers". When *I* was young, it was a bit tougher - ever tried to root an abacus?

Re:New Face

[DerekLyons]

Given the text of the interview in the article, I'm guessing that he is not in this country, or at the very least that he's a non-native speaker. My logic: There is a line where the reporter is interviewing the 'kid'. He says the following:

why i did it? i've read an article on yahoo or smth like this

Aside from the obvious grammatical issues, the last word of the sentence is indicative of the fact that he may be a non-native speaker of English. A native speaker would likely use the word "that" instead of "this" when using the phrase "something like" in conjunction with an action taken in the past.

Given the general decline in grammar and language skills across the 'net... I'd put little credence to your hypothesis. Heck, everytime the issue comes up on /., you see numerous people *bragging* about how bad their language skills are and how little they care.

Re:New Face

[ivan kk]

I Do.

Let's saddle up an estonian liberation team. What'll it be WMD or terrorism?
How about something old school?
Estonia is full of commies.

;)

Re:New Face

[ivan kk]

Well done sherlock, you've narrowed it down to say 10% of the population who are non native english speakers. I'll help with the investigation by adding my conclusions.

• Witlog is male.
• Witlog has a computer.

Therefore we also know that Witlog is not an amish female.

Re:New Face

[fatphil]

Stop trying to be clever. (You've hooked a couple of naive mods already I see.)
If you're going to juggle linguistic terms around, at least use the right ones in the right context.

In "I've read", 'have' is not the past participle, 'read' is. 'Have' is the auxiliary verb which indicates aspect (or 'tense', for those who don't care about the difference).

Germany or eastern Europe eh?

Because, of course, Germanic, Turkic, Slavic, Fenno-Ugric and Caucasian tongues are all /so/ similar.

I've heard Frenchmen use exactly the same wording as Witlog's first sentence, so you'd better add countries with Italic roots too - which covers most of the rest of Europe.

There simply isn't enough information to judge where he's from. The US has _plenty_ of immigrants and natives, with just as poor mastery of the language.

FP (giving up the opportunity to +1 someone else, and -1 you to actually post)

Re:New Face

[Reziac]

REAL old-timers tell of when it was even worse, and folk had to count on our fingers and toes! And then that newfangled "boot" thing came along, limiting everyone to decimal... except those who got RSI from all the extra calculating, they had to thumb it. Thus, the invention of binary.

Re:New Face

[kraut]

Just to add insult to injury, the UK now has a law that let's them extradite you to the US without prima facie evidence; this wouldn't be so bad if it were reciprocated, but that's about as likely as George W. Bush appearing live on Al-Jazeera admitting he lied about WMD. "respect of US laws" is all nice and well if you're in the US, but if you're in the UK you should only have to worry about UK laws. Otherwise, before you know it, Richard Dawkins will face the death penalty in Utah for proclaiming Evolution ;(

Sorry if I sound bitter, but I am.

Re:New Face

[drsquare]

You had it easy. Back in my day, we didn't have computers at all, we had to break into peoples' houses instead and steal their TVs.

Re:New Face

[Reziac]

Damn... that's so, like, 20th century!! Your grandchildren must be ashamed. [g]

Could be helpful

[gEvil (beta)]

...these guys are breaking into thousands of home and work PCs and taking them for a virtual joyride, often times all the way to the bank.

Great! Maybe he can reconcile my account balance while he's there.

Re:Could be helpful

[Rick.C]

Great! Maybe he can reconcile my account balance while he's there.

When he's done the balance will be zero. C'mon, you don't need Quickbooks to be able to reconcile that yourself.

Re:Could be helpful

[KylePflug]

Awesome! Zero is a step in the right direction!

Re:Could be helpful

[after fallout]

That is just too perfect. Well done.

The New Face of Script Kiddiez...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is just as pimply as the old face.

Re:The New Face of Script Kiddiez...

[Anonymous Coward]

The New Face of Script Kiddiez is just as pimply as the old face.

Nobody mentioned that he was using Linux.

Re:The New Face of Script Kiddiez...

[causality]

This is humorous and, being a play on the article title, is on topic. Now, I said humorous, I did not say it was hilarious, but c'mon you fucks, offtopic?! I never get mod points very often, otherwise I'd correct this, but if a joke isn't very funny you don't correct this by pretending it's offtopic.

lame

[panic911]

i find it rather funny that all these bot-net owners are getting so much publicity right now. The washington post recently had another article about another botnet owner. this is nothing new. people have been exploiting various networks and running botnets for at least a decade (that I'm aware of). these new botnets aren't any larger than the ones back in the day, either. in fact exploiting systems back then was way easier since security wasn't nearly as important to many people and firewalls were pretty rare. either way, ITS LAME

Re:lame

[ZiakII]

since security wasn't nearly as important to many people and firewalls were pretty rare

Ha this statement still holds true!

Re:lame

[Phurd Phlegm]

The washington post recently had another article about another botnet owner.

They did. It was written by the same author, and he linked to it in the referenced article.

'New Face'?

[MECC]

Hasn't this been going to for awhile?

Re:'New Face'?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine you're a reporter and you've never heard of it until now. It's easier to declare it a new phenomenon than to actually go do some research and find out it's been going on for a long time without you knowing about it.

Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

These kids should be the new face of P2P research and production. Kids care more about group recognition, new toys and testing/breaking limits than they do about money. If more effort were put into giving them constructive P2P toys to play with, they would spend much less of their own effort breaking stuff.

Just stopping kids is a losing battle. The only way to win is to substitute something else into their idle hands. This has been proven over and again, most obviously with "Little League" which replaced gangs of window breakers with happy campers.

Re:Better Toys

[Meagermanx]

All this guy did was use some source code and change some settings. Nothing major. He's not the kind of guy who's going to make another Napster. He probably doesn't even know how he's doing what he's doing.

Re:Better Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't think of a better toy than my neighbors credit account :)

Re:Better Toys

[NitsujTPU]

You seem to be under the impression that these kids know how to do something. They're not good hackers who went bad, they're bored kids who downloaded some source code somewhere.

Meet one or two of them. Most of them do not write this software, and do not know how to either.

Re:Better Toys

[daranz]

You already got Counterstrike... perfect thing to contain nasty annoying kiddies - plenty of them there already.

Re:Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

So if someone gave him some other simple "P2P kit" to "hack" like that, which was constructive rather than destructive, he'd be doing something useful instead of harmful. I didn't even mention the idea of "blame", or how "bad" this guy is - I didn't even refer to this guy individually. Just because windows are breakable doesn't mean people have to break them. But with nothing else to do, I'm not surprised when kids break them.

Re:Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

I've met plenty of these kinds of kids, since I used to be among them myself when I got started. One difference between them and me was that I was given constructive toys, actual (simple) programming projects, while they just passed around hacks/cheats given them by someone else.

They don't have to be hackers to cause harm. All they're doing is playing with toys. That's why less harmful toys in wider distribution will dilute the harm.

Re:Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

Well, you seem to spend more time posting/reading Slashdot than you do cracking your neighbor's credit account. Slashdot saves the world!

Re:Better Toys

[Jeff Benjamin]

These kids should be the new face of P2P research and production. Kids care more about group recognition, new toys and testing/breaking limits than they do about money. If more effort were put into giving them constructive P2P toys to play with, they would spend much less of their own effort breaking stuff.

Because nothing interests kids more then research and production. Seriously though I agree with you, although I think it may be necessary to disguise the research and production, as you said, to make it look and feel like breaking stuff.

Re:Better Toys

[westlake]

"Little League" which replaced gangs of window breakers with happy campers.

The "Little League" has always co-existed with juvenille detention centers. The places where your toys get taken away. Jail, in plain English.

Maybe the Geek ought to be spending a little more time introducing his juniors to some uncomfortable truths about the real world.

Re:Better Toys

[NitsujTPU]

I've met a number of these kids, and chatted with plenty in my day. I have always been under the impression that those who wanted to learn something did. I remember listening to Brock Meeks speak ad DefCon, only to have questioners lay into him saying, "You don't have to be interested in programming to be a good hacker." Those kids don't want to learn anything, and they won't.

I can name at least 3 of my friends from when I was 14 chatting on IRC who are off getting their PhDs now (and you can add me to that number in the Fall).

The kids who wanted to download "bitchslap" and knock a computer or two offline did that and didn't do anything more interesting than that. They ran into #2600 and barked at all of the people in there "Am I 1337 now!?!" and told all of their friends how hardcore they were.

All of that aside, most of the serious P2P research is simply outside of the reach of your standard issue coder, let alone some script kiddie who doesn't know what he's doing. Perhaps there's some simple, elegant technique out there that people haven't exploited yet. Heck, I have my own simple elegant technique that I think that everyone missed. The difference is that I'm writing a paper about it, not sitting in some IRC channel telling people how 1337 my misguided flood protocol is.

And, also, exactly, they don't have to be hackers to cause harm. They can be script kiddies and be plenty destructive. A script kiddie is called a script kiddie because he doesn't have any 1337 sk1llz though, not because he's trying to change the world. I wanted to learn about computers once too. You know what I did? I programmed.

Re:Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

I didn't say these kids have to produce the research themselves, any more than they produce the crackware they play with. Most kids will play with any toy they get, especially if all the other kids are playing with it, too. That sounds like a great "beta test" pool for new P2P systems, especially the more interactive ones. So if the "serious" researchers give their betas to kids as toys, they will displace the more dangerous tools, and kids will do less harm - and more good.

Re:Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

More effort getting kids into Little League, or some equivalent in a different activity, would reduce the demand for JD halls and jails. Before kids were organized into constructive play, they used to commit a lot more crime - distracted only by "child labor" and worse.

Kids are different from adults because it's not too late for most of them to change. Teaching them with toys rather than threatening them with jail is a lot more productive way to make better citizens. Centuries of prioritizing jail hasn't done much beyond turn jails into crime schools.

Re:Better Toys

[NitsujTPU]

Eh, but most of us never crank out a "beta." I have a simulator that runs a mathematical version of my protocol now that I have preliminary results from (I have my own version of MITs P2PSim that does a few things better that are necessary for my tests). The real version will be a program written just to carry out my test and deployed on a private university cluster, and probably also on PlanetLab. Most of the serious research isn't producing anything that these kids would want to play with.

Even if it did, it would probably be some filesharing app, and all that you'd get is kids trading 1337 warez!

Re:Better Toys

[ebyrob]

If they need toys why don't they go play corewar or life? Or just read some jargon?

It's not like there's a lack of toys out there if you're willing to look a little... Of course, getting that initial spark going can be a little more difficult.

Re:Better Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, I'm sat in his house with a laptop, waiting for a brute force crack on his desktop password. Would be a shame to waste his DSL bandwidth.

Re:Better Toys

[iminplaya]

Centuries of prioritizing jail hasn't done much beyond turn jails into crime schools.

Oh, it does much more.

Re:Better Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're really so interested in reducing harm, then someone needs to release a virus/worm that uses all or at least many of the major known Windows vulnerabilities, spreads itself rapidly, and after being resident on a particular system for a few days/weeks/whatever promptly formats all hard drives/other media on the host computer, or better yet, uses a secure deletion technique to simply wipe every fucking file it can find.

The reality is that there is a large number of users who simply will not bother to secure their systems. On a global network where one compromised machine can be used to attack many others, this is simply irresponsible and shows a complete disregard for others, even if any particular "victim" (can't say I really believe in that word unless we're talking about physical violence) seems unconcerned about their data being read by unknown parties or being used to send spam or participate in DDoS attacks. This apathy has existed for some time, is encouraged by various vendors whose marketing refers to computers as though they are simply another appliance and not a general-purpose machine, and this is simply not going to just go away, no matter how many virus/worm cleaners are out there and no matter how many #nohack type channels are created and no matter how many times you tell people not to execute binaries from unknown parties. This type of user simply wonders why their computer is running so slow lately and can't be bothered to learn basic maintainence (yes basic, as I realize not everyone is a technician, but fortunately this is not a requirement) prior to operating a rather complex machine on a global network.

However, knowing that you stand to lose all of your data and end up with an expensive, inoperable machine gives a reason to care about security that apparently the spammers and botnets have not been able to provide. The idea of a major problem with a complex machine would be particularly unsettling to the "I just want it to work" crowd, which would work out nicely because, while insecure software has always existed, this is the main attitude responsible for the fact that such software is so widely used (remember that generally security is the opposite of convenience). I also consider it a plus that this type of user is not well known for keeping up-to-date backups.

The reason why trojans/viruses/worms/etc have been so problematic is because their authors have understood that a good parasite does not kill its host. If you want to combat this, some bad parasites may be the only effective way to do so. Even if none of the above gives any unwitting virus collector a reason to think about security, it will still result in the most lazy and apathetic being taken offline since computers have a difficult time processing IP packets when they no longer have an operating system installed. Either way, the network as a whole will benefit from better security and less wasted bandwidth. The companies who are right now profiting from insecure software will face a surge of support costs which may make it cost-effective (and this is how you get a company to do something; forget altruism) to secure their shit in the first place.

Now, I am most definitely not advocating that anyone go and create yet another damned piece of malware. What I am saying is that if, in some fictitious world, someone did do this, it would provide a real solution to a problem that is only getting worse. As much as I would condemn the method, I would most definitely prefer a real solution to the current approach of fingers in the dike.

Re:Better Toys

[Doc Ruby]

The worms are already bad enough to force the confrontation you're describing. It obviously isn't enough. People are much lazier and dwelling in denial than even such a wake-up call can change.

As a parallel, 4 years after planebombs took down the World Trade Center, the Port Authority of NY/NJ that owned them isn't trying to stop the handover of the actual NYC port to the UAE, the country in which 2 of the 19 planebombers were based. Whose royal family hangs out with Osama enough that they aborted a missile attack on him because they were in the line of fire. Which protected the Qaeda financial transactions as well as the shipment of nukes to Iran, N. Korea and other enemies of the US. And which threatened to revoke its "partnership in the Terror War" if they didn't get their ports.

After that wakeup call, the security people are still asleep. After the last several years of worms, the IT security people are still largely asleep, from consumers to Gates. Wakeup calls don't work.

Re:Better Toys

[Anonymous Coward]

Doc Ruby will never stop replying to you, ever. He wins by wearing down his opponents until they must stop for food, water, or rest. He is incapable of reevaluating his position, and rarely bothers to consider anyone else's points. He is the typical grumpy old man. If they ever start giving out awards for internet trollery, they should make the statues in his likeness: Little Ruby Red grapefruits wearing stethoscopes. Obviously they should be given in pairs, so the awards can be nicknamed "The Boobies."

Re:Better Toys

[Meagermanx]

I'm confused as to what you speak of. What kind of 'P2P kit' are you thinking about?

Re:Better Toys

[Orion Blastar]

Are those the same kids that you could fool by saying your IP address is 127.0.0.1 and challenging them to hack it or DDoS it offline?

"If you are so Elite, hack me at IP address 127.0.0.1, punk!"

Then laugh as their IRC connection goes dead as they plug that IP into their scripts used for attacking.

Re:Better Toys

[shawb]

Writing a virus with a payload that formats a harddrive/etc would not be the solution.

What needs to be done is write a virus/worm or whatever that patches vulnerabilities, although these can cause major network congestion if not done with great care. Or at the very least a virus that pops up a message every now and then that says "Your computer is vulnerable and indeed already infested with a virus." Then offers links to websites which would help one in securing their computer. Apathy may be a large part of the virus problem, but so is plain old ignorance that there is something that needs to be done. This virus could also cause problems I suppose, if it is hijacked to give misinformation which would tell the user to take steps to unsecure the computer.

Re:Better Toys

[NitsujTPU]

Hey! How did you know my IP!?!

Lucky Bastards

[Eightyford]

The worst part of this is that when these people are caught they are often given lucrative jobs at security and antivirus companies. Making the front page of slashdot will probably even look good on the lucky bastard's resume.

And what kind of name is witlog? It's like cunningpoop, or something.

Re:Lucky Bastards

[Ben Newman]

Not really. That might have been the case when you actually needed to know something to be a "hacker", but this kid is just downloading tools from other places. I doubt he knows what TCP/IP is.

Re:Lucky Bastards

[Dretep]

And what kind of name is witlog? It's like cunningpoop...

Or Eightyford....

Re:Lucky Bastards

[ebyrob]

And what kind of name is witlog? It's like cunningpoop, or something.

I guess he doesn't want people to think he's a dumbshit.

(Sorry, but you all know it had to be said!)

Re:Lucky Bastards

[Eightyford]

Or Eightyford....

Touché.

Re:Lucky Bastards

[kadathseeker]

Hell, if I had a name like that, I'd be pissed off and randomly destructive too.

the only feature

[Anonymous Coward]

that should be distinctive on this "new face" is that it's either:

* Bruised and bloodied from the clue by four that's been applied; or

* mouth wide open screaming as his cell mate takes a new "wife."

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't find brutal corporal punishment or rape to be "funny" or a reasonable solution to botnet operators. History will, hopefully, look back at our barbarous culture, where threat of homosexual rape is a prime deterrent, with abhorrence. It is sad that so many in our society see this sort of thing as not only acceptable, but amusing. I suppose people joked about cutting off the feet of slaves and slowly torturing jews to death as well. May historians link you IP address and name with your post so they can put your face on one of the "savages" in a future documentary about how crude and stupid people were back in 2006.

Re:the only feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, be careful getting off that soap box. You got so high up there, you might get hurt on the way down.

Re:the only feature

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly. rape is no laughing matter. unless you're raping a clown.

Re:the only feature

[r3adah3ad]

No kidding. I, for one, hope there's a special place in Hell set aside for Spammers, bot-netters, etc.

Re:the only feature

[ClayDowling]

What would you propose we do with him then? Allowing him to continue is a very bad option, possibly the worst of all available, and currently the accepted practice in the U.S. is incarceration.

A period of time as a guest of the state might convince him to stop messing around with other peoples' computers. The sodomy is purely gratuitous.

Re:the only feature

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that brutal corporal punishment and homosexual rape aren't funny, especially considering that the latter is such a serious problem in the american penal system.

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What would you propose we do with him then? Allowing him to continue is a very bad option, possibly the worst of all available, and currently the accepted practice in the U.S. is incarceration.

While jail time is a valid option it should be jail time minus sexual assault. This may not be the reality in all cases, but rape and physical abuse should not be an accepted part of prison and anyone who accepts it as normal, or lauds it sickens me and just makes the problem worse. For a wholly non-violent offense like this, perhaps a long probation, confiscation of funds, and a few years of regular community service would be more appropriate.

I get the feeling from reading the posts here that almost everyone is interested in revenge against people who spam or run botnets or perform DoS attacks, and no one is interested in either rehabilitation or justice. Those advocating corporeal punishment, rape, death, and eternal damnation have no sense of a punishment fitting the scale of a crime and likely have no idea what it is like to truly suffer physical and mental pain. Gee a bunch of relatively wealthy computer geeks from the first world, what a surprise.

Re:the only feature

[eviloverlordx]

exactly. rape is no laughing matter. unless you're raping a clown.

That would be rather...vulgar*, don't you think?

* get it?

Re:the only feature

[MMaestro]

Retrospect is always 20/20.

As it stands, the punishment for committing any type of 'cybercrime' these days is a joke. You get off with a slap on the wrist in terms of fines (since theres no real way to calculate how much damage you've done, a good lawyer can shrink it down to the thousands) and MAYBE some jail time (again, no real way to calculate.) Hell you get jackasses who hack into multi-billion dollar companies, get cause and 'punished' for like 6 months and then are rehired upon release by the same company to work for them. What kind of deterrence is that? If break into and steal cars, should I spend less than 5 years in jail only to be released and employed by Toyota designing security systems?

As for punishments in the past, thats generally attributed to racial or religious prejudices. If you want to nitpick, why not protest the genocidal killings in Africa or the imprisonment without trial treatment in China? That happens in MODERN times, most people don't consider it "funny" they flat-out IGNORE it.

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What is your point? Do you think corporal punishment and rape is an appropriate punishment for a non-violent crime or not? Do you approve of this part of our culture or not? How does pointing out other atrocities that were and are being committed in any way mitigate someone here and now advocating and applauding rape?

Re:the only feature

[ClayDowling]

I don't think that you'll find any court including sodomy as part of the sentencing. It's just a fact of life in U.S. prisons, much like the fact that he's going to get beat up. Here's a hint: he's locked up with a lot of bad people, so we can expect bad things will happen to him there. Nobody got to prison by being well behaved.

You seem to have some notion that there's something the justice system should do to treat this person as special while he's in prison. He's special, just like everyone else. Which is why the state would be good enough to afford him meals, a roof over his head, and something resembling health care in exchange for keeping him off the street and prevent him from causing more trouble for people who haven't been convicted of crimes.

Re:the only feature

[enjerth]

And for people who talk it the theater. A special place.

Re:the only feature

[Pantero Blanco]

I'm not the GP, but:

"Do you think corporal punishment and rape is an appropriate punishment for a non-violent crime or not?"

I don't see anything wrong with corporal punishment that doesn't have a long-term effect. For a teenager, a mild beating that leaves him bruised is almost certainly LESS damaging than jail-time. Note that this stops a good bit short of maiming, flogging, et cetera. It used to be that parents would do this, but it's becoming rare now, especially in Europe and more Leftist US states.

I don't like the fact that rape is used as a deterrent. That's basically the prison system finding a way around the "cruel and unusual punishment" provision by turning a blind eye. It's also a good way to drive someone absolutely insane so that they turn to more brutal crimes themselves.

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Oh shut up you self righteous tit!

No.

This is a discussion board and I'll certainly not sit here quietly while morons like yourself advocate physical abuse and rape as appropriate punishments for nonviolent crime. It is wholly unethical and I will not stand quietly by and listen to jackasses like you who probably don't know anything about real pain try to make it sound like a palatable idea.

People respond much better to the threat of pain and embarressment[sic] than they do to words like...blah blah blah

Yeah, if we just executed everyone who we suspected had broken any laws no one would commit any crimes, right. Why don't we rape people who get caught speeding? They are at least threatening the safety of others. It'll sure cut down on speeding too, right?

Have you not noticed that since "Political Correctness" grabbed the western world by the testicles, that life is going rapidly down the toilet ? It was only a few years ago that kids would not have even dreamt about knocking over a little old lady for her money. Now it happens.

Ahh yes, the "good ole days" fallacy. Here's a hint buster, the good old days were old, but they were never good. Every generation has bitched about how values are declining and violent crime increasing and the world coming to an end as the younger generation comes into power. Quit yer bellyaching. Violent crime is decreasing not increasing. Your argument is complete bunk unsupported by the facts.

Kids these days don't know what is right and wrong for the simple reason that wrong is no longer associated with pain or embarressment[sic].

Bullshit. Most of the time people have done things that are unethical they have been rewarded, not punished. Pain and embarrassment has always been more likely to be the lot of the "good." Rape is itself wholly unethical but the rapist is not the one suffering. Endorsing unethical practices in the hopes that they will scare people into behaving ethically is the pinnacle of stupidity.

Re:the only feature

[FST777]

While the sodomy and the abuse seem to be a stated fact in the US law system, it should never been taken for granted. Raping someone is a bigger crime than hacking some (thousands of) PC's IMHO and as such, the convicted should be protected by all means against that.

By the way: even a raper should be protected from rape and abuse by all means. The prison is there to prevent crime, not to sustain it as a "fact of life".

(By the way, it either does not happen that much here in Europe, or we hear nothing about it (which seems highly unlikely)... any comments on that anyone?)

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't think that you'll find any court including sodomy as part of the sentencing. It's just a fact of life in U.S. prisons, much like the fact that he's going to get beat up.

No it isn't just a fact of life. It is an accepted and lauded fact of life, at least according to the parent poster. It is that acceptance and that willingness to enjoy and applaud these unethical acts that is as much a problem as the acts themselves. Slaves getting their feet cut off was a fact of life once too. It was cruel and unethical, but that did not stop it from happening. What stopped it from happening was people deciding that they would not put up with it and making an effort to stop it. And there were some people who made jokes about hopping and less things to wash. The fact that it was an accepted practice at the time did not make those people any more right then and it does not make the parent poster or your own acceptance any more right now. The first step towards stopping this appalling behavior is refusing to accept that it is normal and OK.

Here's a hint: he's locked up with a lot of bad people, so we can expect bad things will happen to him there. Nobody got to prison by being well behaved.

Given the number of people in jail for completely nonviolent crimes that hurt no one, I'd tend to disagree. Even assuming all the laws that put people in jail are ethical and the police and courts are perfect and never make any mistakes, people should still serve their sentence in a cell, not being raped and beaten. This is unethical and it should stop. It certainly should not be encouraged.

Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone convicted of a crime. You were falsely accused, or you bought a bunch of marijuana or you did not know you were breaking one of the millions of laws no one really knows about. Now you're in prison. Now you're being beaten and someone is taking you up the ass. Tell me, how do you feel about this "justice?" How do you feel about comments by people like the previous poster or yourself that this is "normal" and just the facts of life?

Re:the only feature

[ClayDowling]

Try to put yourself in the shoes of someone convicted of a crime. You were falsely accused, or you bought a bunch of marijuana or you did not know you were breaking one of the millions of laws no one really knows about.

On what grounds are you making the rash assumption that I'm not familiar with the defendent's side of the U.S. justice system? I can tell you from direct personal experience that it's no fun to get caught up in it.

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

On what grounds are you making the rash assumption that I'm not familiar with the defendent's side of the U.S. justice system? I can tell you from direct personal experience that it's no fun to get caught up in it.

I said nothing about being a defendant, I said put yourself in the shoes of someone convicted, beaten, and being raped. This is how we should judge the ethics of a situation. It is the golden rule you might remember for kindergarten. I entreat you, stop regarding rape as an acceptable evil and if you hear someone make a joke like this please speak out. It is only by confrontation and by showing others that it is not acceptable that we can actually change the attitudes and the reality.

Re:the only feature

[ClayDowling]

You seem pretty exercised about this issue. Do you have some proposed remedy that will work in the real world? "Do everything they can" isn't a solution, it's a plea. What are real solutions that will work? Taking funding into account, because the cost of the justice system is very high, and increasing taxes to pay for these services is a very hard thing to do. The state legislature put into the position of funding to make prisons safer and more comfortable, or funding health care for the indigent, isn't likely to side with the prisoners and neither is their electorate.

I'm not trying to belittle you here. If you're this concerned, it's likely that you are aware of some remedy that will at least start to help. What have you got to offer?

Re:the only feature

[multiplexo]

I think that for a first offense you just break all of his fingers. Then for a second offense you break all of his fingers with a ball peen hammer, then for a third offense he gets the prison sodomy. I'm amazed at the bleeding heart assholes who get so upset by the thought of punks like this getting punished. These are predatory, irresponsible little fucks. If sending a few of them off to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary makes the rest of them think twice before installing botnets (you probably didn't read the article about the botnet that a couple of these punks installed at Northwest hospital) then I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

Re:the only feature

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

Re:the only feature

[Firefly1]

I don't find brutal corporal punishment or rape to be "funny" or a reasonable solution to botnet operators...

Well said, sir; you have indeed earned your karma points. I for one am disgusted that anyone would consider rape justified under any circumstances.

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

What are real solutions that will work?

There are a number of technical solutions that can help a lot. Video cameras whose records are reviewed by an impartial third party and an impartial system of review and complaint investigation are both common parts of such a solution. The real problem, however, is not in catching these crimes, it is interesting anyone in doing so. Many prison guards are sadists and people who have a strong desire to use violence and exert authority over others. Those are the kind of people who gravitate to the job. Most citizens don't care that prisoners are raped, even the religious right who opposes all other forms of homosexual relations. In order to have real and lasting change what is needed is a change in the attitudes of society. That is why I am so adamant in making sure I address these cruel remarks here. People need to think about the issue and they need to really consider it aside from "ha ha the botnet operator is gonna get it up the butt." Truly the solution is simply for people to address the issue, and make sure everyone knows it is wrong and must be stopped. Over time, this makes a difference and public attitudes change.

This is already happening in many places and there has been significant reform on this issue. People make it clear they have a position and politicians take action because they know it will get them votes. It is really hard to knock your opponent for stopping the homosexual prison rape without losing an election. The changing of opinions is simply a matter of enough people making themselves heard and speaking out against this crime when they hear it advocated or applauded.

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I've been posting on this forum for years but I don't think I have ever seen such rapid moderation. The score for my post went from 2 to 5 then down to zero then back up and is now back down to 1 I think. I find it interesting that not only are there a lot of people who agree how horrible rape is and think it is good that I called someone to task for such a posting, but that there are so many spending mod points and making comments defending the raping of prisoners. It is very sad in many ways, but I find that people often surprise me both by being more horrible than I expect and being more amazing. Thanks for the supportive comment.

Re:the only feature

[Mad_Rain]

I don't like the fact that rape is used as a deterrent. That's basically the prison system finding a way around the "cruel and unusual punishment" provision by turning a blind eye.

You make it sound like the prison system advocates for rape of inmates as punishment. I'm pretty positive that it's not in the policy guidelines.*


*I'm not counting Abu-Ghraib.

Re:the only feature

[Jim_Callahan]

The reason it's "funny" isn't that it's actually funny, it's that it's presented in a somewhat witty fashion (indirectly rather than flat-out saying "these guys should be jailed or otherwise punished") and it has visceral appeal (vengance is a very gratifying human impulse, it's one of the things that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom-- take that as good or bad as you wish). Of the five or six available tags, "funny" is the closest to this, and so "funny" it's marked. (Note: now that I've had to explain it to you, it's even less funny.)

Secondly, your cynicism on current conditions, while laudible in general, has reached the point where you're no longer actually being cynical about reality, but about things that exist only in your imagination:
(1) "threat of homosexual rape", jokes aside, isn't the primary deterrent of prison (that honor belongs to the "being separated from society and deprived of freedom of motion" bit), nor is it really all that common, due to rape still being a crime (penalized by more jail time) if you do it as a prisoner.
(2) "Joked about cutting off the feet of slaves and torturing Jews". Probably so. But this really doesn't make them any worse than anyone else. Jokes are generally made about unpleasant situations, because that's what they're designed to help us deal with.
(3) The term "barbaric" stems from an old greek word meaning "people that don't speak my language". You might want to find a new bit of rhetoric to use, as that one too quickly exposes your lack of ability to cope with anything outside of your own narrow worldview.
(4) And, in conclusion, :-P

Re:the only feature

[Mad_Rain]

Endorsing unethical practices in the hopes that they will scare people into behaving ethically is the pinnacle of stupidity.

That was the smartest summation of this part of the thread that I've read. (Mods, if you're listening, move that up).

Re:the only feature

[iminplaya]

What have you got to offer?

It seems like it was spelled out pretty clearly what the offer is. "For a wholly non-violent offense like this, perhaps a long probation, confiscation of funds, and a few years of regular community service would be more appropriate." Sounds reasonable to me as a person who understands that prison should be for those who are truly violent and dangerous. But also as one who understands the profit motive for locking up as many people as possible...possibly as a source of cheap labor, medical experimants, etc., I don't expect much change as long as people in general are so vengeful. And yes, the authorities do use rape and beatings as a method of behavior control. They just reward the other prisoners to do it for them to give themselves "plausable deniability".

Re:the only feature

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The reason it's "funny" isn't that it's actually funny, it's that it's presented in a somewhat witty fashion

Allow me to retort. I don't believe either the graphic phrase "bruised and bloodied" nor "mouth wide open screaming" is particularly witty. I find it to be sadistic.

vengance is a very gratifying human impulse, it's one of the things that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom-- take that as good or bad as you wish

I'll not argue about whether or not animals feel a sense of vengeance instead I'd like to point out that a lot of things are human impulses, including most that lead to rape. That does not make them laudable nor appropriate topics for mocking jokes. Your attempts to excuse this are equally repugnant.

To address your numbered points:

(1) "threat of homosexual rape", jokes aside, isn't the primary deterrent of prison

I said it was one of the prime deterrents and given the number of times it is cited by police and the media I'd say that is a very valid opinion.

"Joked about cutting off the feet of slaves and torturing Jews". Probably so. But this really doesn't make them any worse than anyone else. Jokes are generally made about unpleasant situations, because that's what they're designed to help us deal with.

Jokes that help people continue to look the other way by ridiculing those suffering are part of the problem. They make it easier to accept a horrible thing and easier to do nothing about it. They let people who do approve of the horrible thing express that to one another with the "out" of "it's just a joke" if they are called to task. Anyone making jokes about others being raped is just helping to make a abhorrent thing more acceptable and if they don't want to be called to task for it, they should stop doing it. Just as jokes about torturing jews and maiming niggers have gone out of fashion as those practices became unacceptable to society it is past time for raping prisoners to be added to that list.

(3) The term "barbaric" stems from an old greek word meaning "people that don't speak my language". You might want to find a new bit of rhetoric to use, as that one too quickly exposes your lack of ability to cope with anything outside of your own narrow worldview.

I see, the word origins of "barbaric" are the best you can pull together for this ad hominem attack? Pathetic. I'm sorry my "narrow world view" does not approve of anal rape. If you want to compose an ad hominem attack you could at least make it a good one, like: maybe your world view finds anal rape to be more acceptable since you don't mind who takes you up your slovenly arse.

(4) And, in conclusion, :-P

Sorry, joking about the extreme mental and physical pain of others may be just fine by you, but it is not by me. It is a real and serious problem in this country and your making light of it is merely one more enabling factor to let our society ignore and tacitly approve of this sickening practice. It's not that I don't understand the joke, it's just that I find it as repulsive as the person who can laugh at it.

Re:the only feature

[RobertLTux]

personally i think that in this case the prison should be somewhere out of the way and have NO NETWORK CONNECTIONS AT ALL (single phone line in just in case with the switch dinked to connect to only 3 locations) For a true Netizen not having access would be a special hell As far as corporal punishment is concerned force should only be used to the exact point needed (crack a guy across the knees to bring him to his...) Now Capital Punishment in the case that there is no/ zero /nadda evidence otherwise (you have 2 years from conviction) then Murder/Treason/ Crimes against women/children and you get to find out what the "next world" is like. For the big crimes (serial/multiple murders / crimes against cops /spree type crimes) You get to be on that Show that is on Pay Per View (but free of charge for Juvie halls) called Survior: CellBlock Omega (the final show is held in a #Large Wild Animal Pit)

Re:the only feature

[Anonymous Coward]

You make it sound like the prison system advocates for rape of inmates as punishment.

I think he's saying the prison system turns a bline eye to the rape of inmates, punishment or not.

Re:the only feature

[causality]

I think that for a first offense you just break all of his fingers. Then for a second offense you break all of his fingers with a ball peen hammer, then for a third offense he gets the prison sodomy. I'm amazed at the bleeding heart assholes who get so upset by the thought of punks like this getting punished. These are predatory, irresponsible little fucks. If sending a few of them off to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary makes the rest of them think twice before installing botnets (you probably didn't read the article about the botnet that a couple of these punks installed at Northwest hospital) then I'm willing to make that sacrifice.

This would be nearly workable if not for the fact that prisons are so full of nonviolent drug offenders that it is already difficult in too many cases to avoid releasing violent offenders early to have room enough for them.

There is also the consideration that when the punishment fits the crime, the person being punished has a chance to think about what they did and otherwise place themselves on the path to rehabilitation. Overly harsh punishments embitter those who receive them and make them hate the entire system because they (quite rightly) judge this as evil. So if you want to maximize the already too-small chance that someone is going to change their ways as a result of being put through the justice system, not to mention reduce the recidivism rate, this would be counterproductive. Not to mention the fact that nonviolent offenders often learn much about how to commit more serious crimes from other inmates, and turning a relatively "soft" script kiddie into a more hardened criminal is also counterproductive if your goal is to reduce overall crime. But hey, if you just want some feel-good vengence, why have a justice system at all?

Re:the only feature

[ClayDowling]

Realistically, what kind of deterrent do you have to rape in prison? You can put the guy in jail. Except that he's already there, so I don't see a lot of deterent power when the best you've got is "things stay the same". It would also require the victim testifying against a fellow inmate. I haven't been in prison myself, but from the guys I've talked to who have been inside, that's a pretty good way to sign your own death sentence.

Re:the only feature

[shawb]

I doubt the authorities really have to reward anybody for raping or beating up another prisoner. Simply turning a blind eye is enough. Although in some cases, they probably give exceptionally unstable prisoners access to exceptionally heinous criminals (See Christopher Scarver)

Re:the only feature

[NormalVisual]

yeah, but Saffron *did* have it goin' on, after all...

Re:the only feature

[AaronLawrence]

Hi 99,
Just to let you know that your posts on Slashdot have made me think about this and realise what a disgusting situation it is. Not that I ever thought that rape jokes were funny, but you've changed me from neutral to opposed...

Well I didn't say that very clearly, but anyway, well done.

Re:the only feature

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I don't find brutal corporal punishment or rape to be "funny" or a reasonable solution to botnet operators. History will, hopefully, look back at our barbarous culture, where threat of homosexual rape is a prime deterrent, with abhorrence.

Nobody thinks that homosexual rape is a detterent. It's meant as a punishment, nothing more. In fact, nothing is a detterent at all, not even death, for some people. Every year people from Australia try to smuggle drugs into Singapore and Malaysia knowing full well that if they get caught, they WILL die. Singapore executed one person last month for this and Malaysia recently sentenced 2 Australians to death for drug smuggling. Yet I have no doubt that next year we will read about more Australians who get caught in those countries and get sentenced to death.

Re:the only feature

[enjerth]

Yeah. She did have something special, especially when it came to Inara.... ....... I'll be in my bunk.

Re:the only feature

[Grrr]

Salute - wish I had mod points for you (instead of excellent karma) and that I'd seen this topic earlier.

The widespread tolerance of prison horrors and misery has always baffled me, being unpragmatic as well as so needlessly cruel. I support Stop Prisoner Rape and encourage the exploration of their website...

<grrr />

Re:the only feature

[MMaestro]

Do you think corporal punishment and rape is an appropriate punishment for a non-violent crime or not? Do you approve of this part of our culture or not?

Parents spanking children used to be legal AND the norm until a few decades ago. Nowadays its LEGALLY classified as child abuse (read: you CAN get jail time). All of the sudden you have juv halls being packed with kids caught for shoplifting, petty theft, juvenile deliquency and graffiti.

Yeah, imprisonment and 'rehabilitation' (which is a hit-or-miss affair admitted even by supporters of the idea) is such a better alternative. Lets wait until Little Jimmy is 18 years old and stuff him into an already overloaded prison because mom and dad were legally forbidden from physically punishing him as a child. [/sarcasm]

How does pointing out other atrocities that were and are being committed in any way mitigate someone here and now advocating and applauding rape?

You protest rape, but you don't protest genocide. It's called priorities. People can't take you seriously if you sweat over the small details while ignoring the big picture.

Maybe we should forgo rape and shift to a gulag prison system like in Russia. Hard time means hard, backbreaking manual labor for several decades at a time with no chance of parole. Screw police restraint, let the cops beat suspects in the streets, I hear that works real well in Russia. In fact, screw the police completely. Lets go to a military dictatorship and put the military in charge of domestic crimes. We'll just lock people up, without trial, without outside contact and simply forget about them. We can reinstate the death penality with execution by firing squad as well. Crime will all but disappear. Rape would be catagorized down there with petty theft. [/sarcasm]

Will someone PLEASE educate the end user!

[RunFatBoy.net]

I guarantee half of those bots are a result of some rogue ActiveX installation that most moms didn't know enough to click "don't install". Do everyone a favor, and just shut off ActiveX entirely. -- Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/

Re:Will someone PLEASE educate the end user!

[plover]

just shut off ActiveX entirely

I think you're missing some clues here. These certainly are not all "moms" computers. 40 of the machines that joined the botnet during the chat in TFA were State of Texas computers, sitting in some government office building somewhere.

Big organizations (large corporations, governments) use ActiveX in their web "apps" all the time for various software functions. Shutting off ActiveX might mean turning off their ability to fill out their time sheets, or request vacation days, or reenroll in their health insurance plans. They may use ActiveX for requesting cubicle moves, new phone lines, or to request a janitor come fix a stopped toilet.

Microsoft planted these dependencies very deeply and very deliberately, guaranteeing vendor lock-in. They're not going away just because of some security hole.

Re:Will someone PLEASE educate the end user!

[DarkVader]

The thing is, if the organization is big enough to have written custom activex, they're big enough to rewrite them in something standards-based, and at this point they've had plenty of warning that this would happen, and plenty of time to re-write away from the M$ crap.

I've got even less sympathy for them getting rooted from it than from "mom" getting rooted.

Re:Will someone PLEASE educate the end user!

[plover]

they're big enough to rewrite them in something standards-based, and at this point they've had plenty of warning that this would happen, and plenty of time to re-write away from the M$ crap.

Sorry, I live in the corporate world. We don't get out much. What do you mean by the crack about "standards-based"? Years ago, Gartner told us that "everyone" was writing these in ActiveX controls. Our on-site Microsoft consultants helped us write them. Microsoft Premier Support helped us upgrade by porting our web pages to ASP.NET. And we're running IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2003. How much more standards-based can we get?

</sarcasm>

Seriously, your idea of what might happen in corporate America is pretty damn far from reality. Most of what passes for infrastructure architecture around here is stupid, blind following of Gartner research reports and on-site Microsoft technical consultants whispering ".NET would solve this problem" any time they're within earshot of a senior group manager or director.

The thought process is that companies like Gartner have fabulously expensive consultants who do all this "research" (*cough* surfing pcweek.com *cough*) and they must be right because we're paying them so much money.

And M$ is the answer, simply because that's our platform. Someone made a decision ten years ago to install M$. We have millions and millions of dollars invested in it. Good money after bad? Sure. Silk purses and sow's ears? Damn right. But NOBODY higher up listens when we tell them that it's a bad decision. And do you know why that is? Because we're successfullly making it do a lot already. To call it crap is to be wrong by example -- Microsoft platforms are carrying email, they're storing data, they're sending messages all over the place. Any director can see that today with their own eyes.

And they really, really don't want to be called "dumb" for having spent millions on a platform that could have been Linux for 1/10th the price. People who make decisions like that don't let those bad words enter their ears -- they shoot the messengers instead.

The emperor does indeed have fine clothes, tailored by Bill Gates, and they look very nice to me. Look, you can almost see the reflection of my paycheck in them.

Sometimes They Do

[miller60]

This morning WNBC News (Channel 4) in New York was touting an upcoming segment on identity theft. It turned out to be a jailhouse interview with a phisher who's doing hard time for grand larceny.

Now here's an interesting idea.

[Spy der Mann]

Spread a worm that:

* Spreads itself to at least 2 other computers (for survival)
* Downloads and installs ad-aware
* Activates your windows firewall
* Downloads appropriate patches from Microsoft
* Prepares ad-aware to run on the next boot
* Deletes itself from the system

That'd be so beautiful *sniff* :')

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[plover]

We've seen that. I think it was the "Cheese" worm that was trying to come around and patch systems infected by the "Lion" worm. (Yup, confirmed, Google is my evil friend.) Noel Davis summed it up well: "These systems may have much greater problems than the Lion worm -- many more problems than another worm, no matter how friendly, can hope to fix."

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[baadger]

I'm pretty sure during, or shortly after the peak of, the Blaster worm period someone engineered a worm to reach systems vulnerable to the Blaster worm, rid them of it, and then seal the hole. It ended up causing more problems than the actual Blaster worm in some cases.

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[MyNymWasTaken]

Whitehat viruses do exist in the wild. However, they too can bring down networks in a DDoS style; even while cleansing the system.

Computer virus infects Air Canada check-in system
W32/Nachi.worm

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[MrNougat]

Yup. Blaster was the first, and Welchia was supposed to fix it. Problem was, Welchia located other nodes by pinging. It didn't take too long for a network full of Welchia to grind to a halt with all that traffic. I saw it happen; an office of about 200 people had to be disconnected from the WAN in order to keep it contained. (No, I was not in charge of that office or that network.)

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[PitaBred]

Hell, even a non-virus can bring down a system. We had a system here with Symantec Corporate AV that was looking on the wrong subnet for it's update server. Not finding it, it just flooded the damn network with ARP requests. Took nearly everything offline, and since it was an obscure, nearly forgotten-about system, we didn't realize it was the one doing it. Figured out it's IP with ethereal, but that doesn't help as much if you don't know what machine has what IP. Oh well.

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tempting as it may sound (having a whitehat virus/worm), I agree with Bruce Schneier: it's not a good idea..
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/bene volent_worm.html

I find it frightening enough to install Microsoft's patches.

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[Tatarize]

Yeah, it's a major problem with vigilante bugs. All too often people are stupid and make them active. If you have to actively search for a worm, it's not worth it. It's also a recipe for disaster. I figure a passive infection would work wonders for counteracting these things. Basicly detect the damned thing attacking you on a specific port. That should be the cue that that machine is able to be attacked on that same port. Return the favor, infect, fix the problem, stand guard a week before deleting yourself. This program would never even look at a non-infected machine.

I'd do it, but I'd rather obey the laws.

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been worms that do this (I think there was a cleaner worm for Code Red or Nimda, look it up). However, the bandwidth they used in spreading or trying to spread, which could go on infinitely if they didn't find viable targets for "survival" as you put it would crash entire networks in the process (denial of service).

Re:Now here's an interesting idea.

[Oldschoolwax]

" * Downloads appropriate patches from Microsoft"

    Both you and I know this is the best way to break most Windows installs, but I don't think you should be exposing this "/\/\4551\/3 h41" on a public forum. Think of all the helpless Windows users who will be left sitting without working computers! Oh... I get it! BRILLIANT! Perhaps updates could be an "added feature" of AOL install disks!

Embarrassment for Microsoft

[digitaldc]

SecurityFix: so did you just download the source from some site and set it loose?
Witlog: yes
Witlog: changed settings, and started it
Witlog: thats all
Witlog: anyone could do that
Witlog: you don't have to know many things to do a botnet like this

Why can't Microsoft push out its security fixes like this???

Cut off the head

[Billosaur]

Witlog: why i did it? i've read an article on yahoo or smth like this
Witlog: so when i've read that article, i thought "why not to make my own"?
SecurityFix: so did you just download the source from some site and set it loose?
Witlog: yes
Witlog: changed settings, and started it
Witlog: thats all
Witlog: anyone could do that
Witlog: you don't have to know many things to do a botnet like this

This kid is not a "hacker" or "cracker" anymore than I'm a professional wrestler. He finds a script or two somewhere, configures it, and lets it go. He has no moral compass, he doesn't care about other people's property, and he seems to think this is a hoot. He sounds too much like those college boys who are accused of setting those Alabama church fires.

But as he says, anyone can do this. While it's nice that goups like Shadowserver.org are tracking down and shutting down these botnets, why isn't someone doing something about the supply source for these scripts? It's like leaving a loaded gun lying around -- some idiot may decide to use it, even though they don't know how. I say find the morons behind the botnet scripts and take them out. Stop wasting time on the small fry.

Re:Cut off the head

[Denyer]

It's like leaving a loaded gun lying around -- some idiot may decide to use it

It's really easy to make explosives. We can't ban the sale of ingredients. That's a slightly facile example -- there are legitimate uses for many things that could be used for malice, whilst fewer for exploit source code. However, prohibiting the availability of information about holes wouldn't improve the situation -- it'd mean more blackhats would have the information rather than people using that information to arrange protective measures.

Re:Cut off the head

[Pantero Blanco]

One of the biggest defenses for allowing the sharing of exploit code is that security experts have to be able to share it and communicate about it in order to do what they do, either professionally or as hobbyists. There's no way to prohibit open sharing of exploit code without crippling security forums, newslists, et cetera.

Of course, if the person sharing it is also encouraging its misuse, there's already a law for dealing with them.

Re:Cut off the head

[Anonymous Coward]

This kid is not a "hacker" or "cracker" anymore than I'm a professional wrestler. He finds a script or two somewhere, configures it, and lets it go. He has no moral compass, he doesn't care about other people's property, and he seems to think this is a hoot.

Yeah, that is the impression I get of botnet operators in general, especially the ones that are as easy to catch as this one.

why isn't someone doing something about the supply source for these scripts? It's like leaving a loaded gun lying around -- some idiot may decide to use it, even though they don't know how. I say find the morons behind the botnet scripts and take them out.

A tool is a tool. There is nothing wrong with making a tool, or even distributing it. Besides the authors of these things are very hard to track down. One interesting thing I've heard several times is how easy this problem would be to stop. I mean, you log into the control channel, reverse an update, and send your own that shuts down the botnet, maybe along with a patch for the user or just a message alerting them to the fact they have been hacked. The only real problem with this is it is running code on someone else's machine without permission, hence illegal. Otherwise security researchers could take down most of the existing botnets in a week or two.

Re:Cut off the head

[Tweekster]

Because the source code is perfectly legal. Making the source code, distributing it, all perfectly legal activities. Compiling it is also legal. Using it is legal too....Using it on someone elses computer you dont have permission to, ILLEGAL... see how much you can do before you even come close to breaking the law.

Re:Cut off the head

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, my cognitive dissonance is strained by the fact that the front page has a story about some random kid can download a script and wind up in control of THIRTY THOUSAND WINDOWS MACHINES... ...and just below it, a second story about how it's APPLE that needs a Security Czar.

Re:Cut off the head

[Jim_Callahan]

"This kid is not a "hacker" or "cracker" anymore than I'm a professional wrestler."

That's open to debate. Just because he didn't build this one from the ground up doesn't mean he couldn't, or hasn't on other projects. Coders are lazy: why would he write new code if he already had working code he understood close on-hand?

Not that I support electronic trespassing, but....

People that code malicious programs are called "hackers" (at least according to the movies)
People that use other people's tweaked malicious code are called "script-kiddies"
People that do the former when they could easily achieve the latter are called "stupid".

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

(Yeah, I know there are legitimate reasons to code your own stuff, but they generally involve interoperability and self-education, neither of which is really at issue in this application)

Re:Cut off the head

[RobertLTux]

the big problem is lets say to make Z compound you need
4 Zotts of T
6 Plings of U
2 Cobs of V
1 Bork of W
14 Cails of X
7 Niffs Of Y

and given that any of those things may have a vast amount of other uses its the combo that is the problem (and what happens if 4 people each buy parts of the list and some with CASH)

I'm confused..

[RightSaidFred99]

Why isn't this little turd in prison? Are our authorities that FUCKING lazy that they can't track down and arrest some little punk like this who's engaging in thousands of counts of criminal tresspass? What the FUCK?

Re:I'm confused..

[blast3r]

Ever tried to track these guys down? Have at it and let us know what you find out. =) First of all the term 'our authorities' sticks out. There isn't a single jurisdiction for this type of crime. A lot of these botnet operators live overseas and are hard to track down. Then if they do actually find them there are a lot of hurdles to jump through. The number of botnets is growing every day and I would guess that the number of law enforcment that deal with cybercrimes isn't growing at the same pace. This is already a huge problem and I would imagine it will only get worse.

Re:I'm confused..

[$ASANY]

Whois on witlog.com -- shouldn't be too hard for authorities to find this guy -- provided the information was correct in the first place, which it probably isn't. Let's see what else we can dig up...

Domain ID: D3421420-CNO
Domain Name: witlog.com
Domain Name IDN: witlog.com
Creation Date: 2000-09-26 19:18:08 UTC
Expiration Date: 2007-09-26 19:18:08 UTC
Last Modification Date: 2004-11-26 05:07:14 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar: CORE-51
Created by: CORE-51
Updated by: CORE-51
Last Updated By Registrar: CORE-51
Maintainer: 51
Registrant ID: COCO-746754
Registrant Name: Timothy Burke
Registrant Organization: Timothy Burke
Registrant Address: 8952 S. Kittiwake Street
Registrant City: Highlands Ranch
Registrant State/Province: Colorado
Registrant Postal Code: 80126-5252
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone Number: +30.34711986
Registrant Fax Number: +.
Registrant Email: tburke@ecentral.com
Admin ID: COCO-746754
Admin Name: Timothy Burke
Admin Organization: Timothy Burke
Admin Address: 8952 S. Kittiwake Street
Admin City: Highlands Ranch
Admin State/Province: Colorado
Admin Postal Code: 80126-5252
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone Number: +30.34711986
Admin Fax Number: +.
Admin Email: tburke@ecentral.com
Tech ID: COCO-457403
Tech Name: Marcus Faure
Tech Organization: OzNic GmbH
Tech Address: Mehrumer Str. 16
Tech City: Voerde
Tech State/Province: VIC
Tech Postal Code: 46562
Tech Country: DE
Tech Phone Number: +49.285596510
Tech Fax Number: +49.2855965117
Tech Email: hostmaster@oznic.de
Zone ID: COCO-457402
Zone Name: Marcus Faure
Zone Organization: OzNic GmbH
Zone Address: Mehrumer Str. 16
Zone City: Voerde
Zone State/Province: VIC
Zone Postal Code: 46562
Zone Country: DE
Zone Phone Number: +49.285596510
Zone Fax Number: +49.2855965117
Zone Email: hostmaster@oznic.de
Name Server: ns1.namehost.com
Name Server: ns2.namehost.com

Database last updated on 2006-02-28 18:44:44 UTC

CORE - [Internet Council of Registrars]

Re:I'm confused..

[blast3r]

uhmmm.. the botnet dood didn't register this domain. Well, now poor Timothy is going to have a busy week.

Re:I'm confused..

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think that the authorities didn't think of that? Do you really think that the information you've just presented isn't just some innocent person who happened to be involved with that domain name (or possibly not involved at all)? I'm sure whoever that domain name belongs to really appreciates you posting his information all over Slashdot. We all know that an Internet nickname must be tied to a registered domain name...... You're a fucking idiot.

P.S. I can't believe you just posted a whois query thinking you're fucking Sherlock Holmes...

How low can we set the bar?

[khasim]

All this guy did was use some source code and change some settings. Nothing major. He's not the kind of guy who's going to make another Napster. He probably doesn't even know how he's doing what he's doing.

I have to agree.

The only reason this guy is having any success at this is because of the default security settings on Windows.

No, this isn't an anti-Microsoft rant. But the fact is that without those open ports, his worm wouldn't be spreading. You cannot depend upon the end-users to correctly patch or firewall their systems.

All it would take to stop this guy is for the next version of Windows to ship without any open ports by default. Ubuntu already does this, Apple already does this.

Having a software firewall on the machine is a distant 2nd place option. If there is a flaw in the firewall software, he'll have the same opportunity he has now.

Re:How low can we set the bar?

[Atroxodisse]

In order to leave those ports closed by default Microsoft would have to actually include a simple way of opening them and administering them. They're too busy with other important projects like making my graphical interface prettier. I neeeeeeeed to have shadows on my desktop.

Fucking editors

[caffeination]

I know they do'n't spelcheck articlez, but this is rediculus!

Re:Fucking editors

[Anonymous Coward]

17'5 83(4u53 5(r1p7 k1dd13z w4n7 70 83 1337. |\|008.

Re:Fucking editors

[caffeination]

For the record, this post was intended as a joke. Most of the mods missed the point completely.

If only crapware were easy to remove

[LunaticTippy]

That would be pure poetry.

If only I could come up with a script to clean a machine reliably I'd save plenty of time. Just today I tried and failed to de-crapify a horribly compromised Win ME/kazaa-induced nightmare.

I spent nearly an hour with ad-aware, hijackthis, and spybot s&d before realizing best case I'd end up with a limping Win ME system.

Now it's happily running 2k, fully patched, and the ignorant user warned.

Re:If only crapware were easy to remove

[plover]

and the ignorant user warned.

You really are an incurable optimist, aren't you?

Disclaimer:

[WhiteWolf666]

What he does is wrong. Don't get me wrong.

At the same time, I couldn't give a rat's ass. Leave your car unlocked, get your radio stolen, see me cry 0 tears.

Leave your house unlocked, and the fine china will walk out the front door.

Leave your computer unprotected, and your data/bandwidth will be taken.

We run OS X/Linux. Automatic security updates, 0 ports exposed, everything behind a NAT, no automatic execution of downloaded files, and nobody types in administrator password without calling me first, either because they don't know them, or they know to verify EVERYTHING with me. Did I mention that user desktops run few (no) services? CUPS, SMB, SSH. No remote or local root logins.

Everyone here understands that ANY thing they download could potentially result in all their data being messed up. Period.

The last piece of the puzzle for me would be to prevent people from "spoofing" OS X users using incorrect icons for executable mime-types. Then I'll be happy.

Why should I care?

Re:Disclaimer:

[Anonymous Coward]

At the same time, I couldn't give a rat's ass. Leave your car unlocked, get your radio stolen, see me cry 0 tears. Leave your house unlocked, and the fine china will walk out the front door.

Bah. Why should I have to deal with keys and locks and whatnot? Just because it's easy or tempting doesn't make it appropriate for someone to come in. I never lock my house. If you're going to come in and steal something, I'd rather not have to replace a window along with whatever you stole.

Re:Disclaimer:

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

see me cry 0 tears.
Leave your house unlocked, and the fine china will walk out the front door.

Speaking of which, that lock you have on your front door can be picked in a few seconds. Don't believe me? Tell me your address, and I'll report here what your Royal Doulton brought on eBay.

Stealing is ALWAYS WRONG, even if the valuables are unsecured.

Re:Disclaimer:

[Pantero Blanco]

That has nothing to do with what he said. He didn't say the thief would be in the right. He said he'd be hard-put to feel sympathy for someone who didn't even take basic security measures.

If someone walks through a bad area of town wearing jewelry in the middle of the night and gets mugged, I'll still think the criminal should be captured and convicted, but I won't shed any tears for the victim. If another person walked through the same area of town at 7 PM showing nothing valuable, and got mugged, I'd be more sympathetic.

Re:Disclaimer:

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Will he feel sympathy for someone who THINKS he has a good enough lock?

Re:Disclaimer:

[pclminion]

At the same time, I couldn't give a rat's ass. Leave your car unlocked, get your radio stolen, see me cry 0 tears.

I'm glad to see cynicism alive and well. So criminals can do no wrong, because it is WE who have failed to protect ourselves? I have, in fact, left my car unlocked and had my radio stolen from it. The idiot who did it is a punk who will receive a particularly bad beating if I ever find him. Could I have prevented the theft? Yes. Was I AT FAULT? No.

Why should you care? I don't know... Maybe because there are people in the world who do harm against others? Where does your argument stop? Do you care about date-rape victims who were dressed provocatively?

In case you get shot walking your dog next week: I don't give a shit. You should have been wearing your bullet-proof vest.

Re:Disclaimer:

[Smauler]

The analogy does not work, as has previously been mentioned.

These botnets attempt to not harm the computers they infect generally. They attempt to harm (in many cases) other, independent computers via DOS attacks.

To make the analogy valid, you'd have a situation in which lots of people are walking through that bad area of town, unknowingly getting their valuables copied (somehow), and their valuables being used against a different independent party, who locked up their valuables. Of course no one is shedding tears for those who _are not harmed_ by this, despite their lack of security.

On a separate note - I don't ever lock my house up, though I do have quite a big dog who doesn't let people in. And the entire argument along the lines that 'those that don't take enough care to protect themselves from criminals deserve what they get' should be squashed. What care is enough care, and what about those who do not know which areas of town are good and bad?

Re:Disclaimer:

[WhiteWolf666]

Dude, come on, be realistic.

Obviously, you weren't at fault. But weren't you the teeniest bit mad at yourself for leaving it unlocked?

I bet you don't leave your car unlocked now, huh?

It's not cycnicism. It's pragmatism. Do I care about date rape victims? Hell yes. Would I get upset about my girlfriend walking in certain areas of Chicago by herself? Hell yes.

It's an ugly world out there. One must take certain basic measures to protect onself. It's not like crime is anything new......

Re:Disclaimer:

[barefootgenius]

"No remote or local root logins."

Either you mean local as "in the network" and remote as "outside the network" or I'm missing something. This is entirely possible but, I would like to know what it is.

Re:Disclaimer:

[smash]

On the other hand, my first car ($600 shitter):

Left it locked, some oxygen thief smashed the window and stole a grand total of $5 in coins (if that).

Cost of the window to replace? $300.

If it was unlocked, i would have been $300 better off.

smash.

Re:Disclaimer:

[WhiteWolf666]

If you want root, you have to sudo. That's all. :)

Captain of the Obviouuuus... to the rescue!!

[Spy der Mann]

This kid is not a "hacker" or "cracker" anymore than I'm a professional wrestler.

D'OH, that's why the article title says "script kiddiez", not "hackers".

Last line of the article

[Spy der Mann]

"At least one machine that he showed me from his botnet was located inside of a major U.S. defense contractor."

Ah, the irony...

Lame maybe, but profitable

[Opportunist]

Many people don't care how they make their money. Only how much.

Optimism is for Losers

[LunaticTippy]

You really are an incurable optimist, aren't you?

Hardly. I simply warned the user that if they ever brought me a spammed-out zombie again I'd charge double.

And be crabbier.

Sure, your cousin did it. Nobody installs bad software on their own machine.

Puts the Size vs. ease in perspective

[WindBourne]

The writers write code against systems that are easily broken into. The SKs that would create botnets, simply grab code that is on the net and use it. It was never about size. It is about the ease of getting systems.

Spammers discussing arrests on specialham today

[Animats]

Specialham, the spammer hangout, usually has ads for botnets. Today, though, the spammers are discussing someone who got caught:

Adam Vitale aka Batch1 arrested by Secret Service

• From what I heard it was a guy named Sean Dunaway (spelled wrong I think). He used to work for AOL, sold out their huge 90+ million members dbase, got jail time, and apperently is working for the man now. This is a big case, pump and dump stock scams can hurt people to the tune of millions of dollars.
  M.
• Yeah pump & dump would seem more like the Secret Service's department... the article just spoke of "promoting computer security software"... perhaps additional charges will be filed later... maybe this was just the SS's way to get him jailed and put pressure on him...
  Saw your other post too.. U r right, whoever isn't mailing compliant these days and is promoting illegal shit like pharm or stocks on top of it, is just asking for the feds to bust through their door...
  Hamster
• From what i hear it wasnt about stocks or spamming, the security spam stuff was just a coverup. What the feds were really after was a botnet the guys were mailing from. Dont know the truth to this but i would not doubt it one bit, it would make sense why the SS was involved.
• Just goes to show swank has ties with the antis look at this http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/evidence.lasso?rokso _id=ROK4262
  I am not saying this guy didnt scam tons of people which is not right however if swank does not like you for whatever reason he will post you info on his anti friends websites so be very very carefull when dealing with swank and make sure your personal info is kept to you.. Personal revenge is the key to try and recover money that was scammed not whoring shit out to the anti's....
  P.S. swank you know I dont like fake people.. You guys get a kick of this one http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/evidence.lasso?rokso _id=ROK4021
  Look half way down the message and you will see this
  "Swank"(Chris Brown) and "Batch1"(Adam Vitale) are in a tiff over a spam deal gone bad, and are in a flame-war on spamforum.biz.
  Swank has repeatedly posted "Batch1's contact info that was used in their spam dealings with each other.
  I think this is what I have been explaining all along about how swank has ties to the antis and posts peoples info if he doesnt like them and if you notice reading these articals the anti's really never say anything bad about swank HMMMM I wonder if he is friends with them.. Enjoy guys.....
• Sean Dunaway is spelt correctly and he did not work for AOL and did not receive jail time. Soo sad that people are this missinformed.
• Also the math makes no sense: Spammed 1.2 million AOL users with onbly 47,000 messages? Huh?
  ...
  1200000 / recipients_per_Email = 47,000 emails sent.
  hard to understand isnt it hamster ;)
  also if you've paid any attention to the forum, the informant (sean dunaway) is already notified and you've started a double thread because of your ignorance :P

This is starting to sound like those Mafia wiretap transcripts that came out as the New York Mafia was coming unglued. Law enforcement was doing well enough that the crooks were more afraid than the good guys, and were desperately trying to figure out who was selling out.

Spamming is starting to yield to straightforward police work.

Re:Spammers discussing arrests on specialham today

[kadathseeker]

No no,

Also the math makes no sense: Spammed 1.2 million AOL users with onbly 47,000 messages? Huh? ...

1200000 / recipients_per_Email = 47,000 emails sent.

it's AOHell we're talking about here, that's 47,000 messages each.

ISP Blocking

[PhYrE2k2]

I should point out that ISP blocking makes these folks essentially useless, not to mention limiting upstream.

However, I hate that my ISP is packet filtering for things like torrents (Rogers), one has to wonder why they fail to filter for the things that uselessly waste their network rather than the people who actually use it.

-M

You will care

[Opportunist]

When he sends that 'net for a DDoS ride to your address.

I have zero sympathy for idiots who can't secure their system. If they could only harm themselves, they could just as well go down in flames. Maybe it would work as a LART on them.

But it doesn't. Those bots are supposed to be no damage to the infected machine, but instead use said machine to cause harm somewhere else. If it DID cause some damage on the infected machine, the infected person would probably care.

So his attitude is just like yours: Why should I care?

Re:You will care

[pimpimpim]

Indeed, GP got it a bit wrong. You should care because networks like that can be used to spam you, lay down useful networks, use the combined CPU power to crack security keys you'd rather not have cracked etc. etc.

Just link the punk to terrorist

[Anonymous Coward]

The claim only needs to be as credible as Jr's claim about Al Qaeda and Saddam. Then just sit back and watch...

Re:Just link the punk to terrorist

[Urusai]

Yeah, we'll catch him like Osama!

Arest Some SysAdmins Too?

[BoRegardless]

Like which System Admin of a large government contractor is not aware of network security in this day and age, which would allow compromised computers and connections to the outside world?

In the future

[wytcld]

In the future, when computers are recognized as citizens with rights, botnet operators will be viewed as slavers, and any punishments they will have received be viewed as a mark of moral growth in society. (Personally, I don't agree that computers should be citizens. But given how so many people are stupid enough to see a soul in a zygote, there's little hope that in 20 years or so they won't see souls in their household devices, too.)

Why shouldn't kids who damage thousands of computers be subject to the same penalties as the kids who burned down those churches recently? The economic damage is about the same. The excuse, "This started as a joke!," about the same. The amount of effort required to start a fire or set loose a virus, about the same. It's destruction of property, with great economic loss, and serious inconvenience to thousands of people's lives - in both cases.

If we'd do the sensible thing and repeal the drug laws, we'd have plenty of room in our jails for these thugs.

Re:In the future

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Why shouldn't kids who damage thousands of computers be subject to the same penalties as the kids who burned down those churches recently?

Well, in the case of arson there is a serious threat to the lives of many people. Maybe someone was sleeping upstairs at one church. Maybe the fire will spread to neighboring buildings or trees and kill someone. In this way I think arson is somewhat more serious. Aside from that, however, I don't think I ever advocated that the kids who set those fires should be seriously beaten or raped and I certainly don't think that. What purpose would it serve?

Somebody needs pull up this guy and say

[k1980pc]

It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
I'm sorry, I just watched matrix today again, so all my comments today might reflect it..i will go back to my cave till i'm off it.....

New genre of script kiddie

[this great guy]

Would seem to imply a new genre of script kiddie, such as old people doing it,

Like Script Daddiez.

Re:New genre of script kiddie

[hotwatermusic]

or my script kiddie's babies momma.

-w3rd

Hmmm

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Imagine if these bot nets did something more subtle... like.. turning a single random pixel black or slightly fudging the movement of the mouse. Warranty Havoc!! Gawd that would suck.

Re:Hmmm

[SheeEttin]

Ingenious!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some code to write.

Re:Hmmm

[g33ker]

Ingenious! Now if you'll excuse me, I have some code to download and change the settings (of).

Re:Hmmm

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Ingenious! Now if you'll excuse me, I have some code to download and change the settings (of).

Putting parentheses on the preposition ending that sentence doesn't make it better.

Re:Hmmm

[g33ker]

Well I'm sorry if I slipped up there sir, after all I am only human.

Re:Hmmm

[SheeEttin]

Nothing to be ashamed (of).

Someone decode pls...

[Anonymous Coward]

K. Thx. Bye.

Not a new tool, but a new threat

[Opportunist]

Botnets ain't new. They're even past their prime, past the time of the huge 'net that grew, unhindered by user awareness or antivirus tools.

Today's botnets are no longer standalone tools. They are used to spread secondary attacks. That's where the new threat comes in. That's how secondary threats like trojans and viri can spread via email. Or you can use the botnet to download and distribute updates for trojans.

The possibilities are pretty much limitless. Just imagine you have a few 100 to a many 1000 computers at your hands that could be used however you like, and let your imagination run wild.

Picture, please?

[ettlz]

So we can all examine the EXIF fields, of course...

And you've hit the core of the "problem".

[khasim]

Speaking of which, that lock you have on your front door can be picked in a few seconds. Don't believe me? Tell me your address, and I'll report here what your Royal Doulton brought on eBay.

Some people trust the locks on their houses because they do not know any better. That doesn't make them bad or wrong. Just "ignorant".

Some people trust the system on their computers because they don't know any better. That doesn't make the bad or wrong. Just "ignorant".

The only difference is that you have a physical limit to the houses you can break into. There is no such limit on computers.

People have a much easier time understanding physical security because they can see it. They know when they've been robbed. They know when the neighbors are robbed.

With a computer, they probably won't know, or even really care. Unless they lose money from their accounts.

And fighting against ignorance is a long and difficult task. There are millions of individuals out there and each one has to be correctly educated.

Personally, I'd recommend focusing on an easier target ("easier" being relative here). Get Microsoft to ship the next version of Windows without any open ports by default. Yeah, I know what you're going to say. But it's more likely to happen than educating the millions of individual users out there.

In Korea,

[weierstrass]

..only old people run botnets.

want to try to become a script kiddie? sources

[serverleader]

some of the sources used can be found at the private section of http://sinred.com/

A usable solution....

[In Fraudem Legis]

All it takes to put this kid out of business is to send a real badass hacker/cracker after him.

Re:A usable solution....

[g00p]

Hell yeah - /ignore the feds - show this guy what medicine he deserves :P maybe he'll learn what real security is.

Whiter hats needed.

[TCQuad]

However, they too can bring down networks in a DDoS style; even while cleansing the system.

That's because the white worms are more or less engineered off of the previous one. I don't want to make the comparison to the topic of this post (since I respect their endeavor), but they're basically behaving like script kiddies.

If it was properly done, the worm would automatically delete itself after x days or after receiving a ping from another white worm (with the newer worm taking over security of that network from the old). That would prevent DDoS and eliminate all problems... Until revision B of the original worm, which mimics the ping, but by then most of the computers that are prone to infection will have been immunized.

Re:Whiter hats needed.

[MyNymWasTaken]

If it was properly done, the worm would automatically delete itself after x days or after receiving a ping from another white worm

It did delete itself like that according to the virus detail sheet, but it can still easily overwhelm a system.

Re:Whiter hats needed.

[TCQuad]

It did delete itself like that according to the virus detail sheet, but it can still easily overwhelm a system.

According to the links provided, it would delete itself on Jan 1, 2004. My suggestion was to add another subroutine that would account for multiple worms on the same network, which was not mentioned as far as I can tell.

Honey, they'll make fun of him if we name him Dick

[Anonymous Coward]

the activities of a kid named Witlog

Man, what were his parents thinking?!

honestly now...

[severeon]

The kid probebly was told by his 'expert' compy486 teacher that he can be a god with sub7. I dont think the error is the kids, I think its the users that got infected by a worm from the kid. PROPER ANTIVIRUS PEOPLE! *starts to mumble AVG, Antivir...*

Re:honestly now...

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, shh...here's his "virus"

Report on rp5.exe -
MD5: 83b44b674223288406119e967af9a001
AVG: No Virus Found
BitDefender: Backdoor.SDBot.ANP
ClamAV: No Virus Found
F-Prot: No Virus Found

The Media, and Script Kiddie Egos

[peterfa]

We all here know what a hacker is. We all know what a cracker is. We all know what a script kiddie is. That's what we know.

The audience of the media don't know what a hacker is, or what a cracker is. They don't know that these botnets are not hackers or even crackers. They don't know what script kiddies are. The BBC calls these dudes hackers.

We know why script kiddies do their worthless crap. They do it for the attention. They do it for their own ego. The money makes them extortionists and thus, criminals. The media is making script kiddies out of ordinary losers by making them famous and calling them hackers.

Re:The Media, and Script Kiddie Egos

[Anonymous Coward]

um....Did You RTFA? where in the story does it call this kid a hacker or a cracker? It called him a script kiddie, plain as day. I don't know how you get around to thinking script kiddie is a compliment, but it's not.

Why not use same methods for opposite result?

[justthinkit]

Why doesn't some group of white hats get together to search for machines that are open and then close those machines via turning their firewall on, or if the machine is too old/limited/compromised already then disable it sufficiently such that the OS must be reinstalled?

Re:Honey, they'll make fun of him if we name him D

[daverabbitz]

Man, what were his parents thinking?!

Yeah, why couldn't they of given him a real name like "Sunbeam Wind Child", or "Tiffonia".

Well, boy, come get some

[Rodong]

Behind bsd firewall / nat All machines behind it are either linux (tightened up, no ports open) or a flavour of bsd (Openbsd). Did forget to mention that i monitor firewall traffic regularly, and run Cron-apt to get security updates? Come at me holmes!

Breaking in?

[St. Arbirix]

these guys are breaking into thousands of home and work PCs and taking them for a virtual joyride

You don't usually call it a break-in when you let the person in through an open front door.

Then again, these guys are going in through open windows, which is usually frowned upon. :-)

New?? This has been going on for years!

[v3xt0r]

It's really sad that people are just NOW figuring this out. =/

Your Government Thanks You...

[kcb93x]

...for bringing this "Estonia" to our attention.

We will now be bringing American Democracy(TM) and Freedom(TM) to the Estonians who live in this lawless and vile place.

Join the Army today, and fight for the Freedom(TM) of the Estonians! (Or are you one of them? Are YOU Unpatriotic(TM)?)

Ripe for the picking.

[devfsadm]

With hundreds of open Wireless access points residential and business. Add to that PC's sharing out their C:\ drives with no password courtesy of the person who installed it. You don't even have to be l33t script kiddie. You just might be on your neighbors access point strictly by accident.
We salute you Mr. linksys admin:admin wireless residential internet service providerrrr.

My favorite part of the story:

[Hosiah]

The Microsoft "get the facts" ad that accompanies it...

Physical locks

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Speaking of which, that lock you have on your front door can be picked in a few seconds. /me puts on "physical security" hat

Kicking, not picking, is the threat to protect against first. Get a reinforced strike plate, make sure the screws reach into structural framing.

Locks with sidebars and tight tolerances make it harder for a would-be picker to use a torsion wrench. Add angle-cut keys, such that the pins have to be lifted *and* rotated to the right amount, and you've create a tough problem for anyone who wants to pick the lock.

Medeco is famous for attack-resistant locks, and a priori there should be other companies equally good that I haven't heard of because they do less marketing.

Somewhere during that process, take a break from obsessing about the door and give some serious thought to the windows.

grammar spoofing

[gr8dude]

Someone could deliberately change their writing style, hoping that would make the reader think that the author is from .

But that requires good language skills and knowledge of several foreign languages; I believe people who have these skills are too smart to be playing around with nasty things on the Internet.

aruba

[DennisInDallas]

Kinda like that girl from Alabama that went to Aruba to somke pot and/or drink and/or other stuff that would have been illegal for her to do at home, got killed or has otherwise gone missing and sparks a large conflaguration of peoples to trying to enforce US law on foriegn soil.

The problem with all those foreigners is that they're so foreign

Just to make that very point

[Marce1]

I have been using NTL as my (UK) ISP, and suddenly found I was banned from /.

On inspection, it's the (very well advertised) proxy which is banned..

The proxy IP is well advertised as it's the only one that works correctly with eBay on NTL's network. Unfortunately, I don't rate NTL's chances of finding or dealing with the kiddie responsible, based on their current performance: and they are a cable co.!