Man Gets 3 Years for Botnet Attack

Vobbo writes "Weeks after NANOG subscribers argued whether or not mitigating botnet command and control systems was a worthwhile endeavor, the LA Times reports that the old fashioned method of arresting and prosecuting criminals still works. Prosecutors successfully prosecuted a 21 year old who had conspired to create botnets that attacked the Department of Defense, a California school district, and a Seattle hospital before being arrested. He plead guilty and was sentenced to 3 years of 'supervised release.'"

Comments

Re:More sensationalism

[Anonymous Coward]

"Man Gets 3 Years' Probation for Botnet Attack

"Editors", feel free to cut and paste."

FTA: "A man was sentenced to three years in prison Friday for launching a computer attack that hit tens of thousands of computers, including some belonging to the Department of Defense, a Seattle hospital and a California school district.

Christopher Maxwell, 21, of Vacaville, Calif., was also sentenced to three years of supervised release. "

I would say the 3 years in prison is more significant than the probation afterwards. Perhaps you should be informed before you start criticizing.

Re:Remind me again, why do we need all these new l

[Bert64]

Disabling raw sockets in the OS won't get you anywhere, not so long as users are running with full privileges.
If you disable raw sockets, the backdoors will just start re-enabling them, sending raw ethernet frame instead of raw tcp, or even installing a replacement tcp stack which supports raw sockets properly.