Botnet Mafia in Online Turf War

An anonymous reader writes " The kind of turf war seen in the real world by drug gangs is being replicated by the criminal gangs behind spamming botnets, and things are turning nasty."

Comments

ISPs have to be the solution

[sherriw]

Time for ISPs to stop being so nicey-nice about this.

1) Send an email to all customers saying that the ISP will begin choosing a random day (say every 3 months or so) to scan for infected computers churning out email.
2) On that random day (random so the spam bots won't be programmed to be silent on that day) the ISP shuts down outgoing mail for all infected computers on their network.
3) Customer who can't send mail is irate and calls ISP tech support hotline.
4) Tech support says: we warned you... please follow these virus removal instructions and install/update your anti virus software.

Bam problem solved. People who keep getting blocked every 3 months will quickly learn to take better care of their computers. Along with the customer's invoice the ISP could send an information sheet with prevention and removal instructions.

Maybe governments can give ISPs a little financial help for doing this?

Unfortunately I don't see any other solution other than tough-love.

Re:ISPs have to be the solution

[tomstdenis]

Can't have that. People can't be held responsible for what goes on in their computers. After all they're big magical boxes and the public is just so stupid.

I think this is a problem only MSFT can solve.

Tom

Re:ISPs have to be the solution

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the UK ISPs routinely cut off people if their machines are spewing spam (or other malware). The first thing most users know is when any web page they try and visit takes them to an ISP page telling them to run some malware scanning software.

Rich.

Re:ISPs have to be the solution

[TeXMaster]

Oh I'll just love it when my ISP blocks my internet connection because I just sent a patchset by email to a *-devel list for peer review.

I know the good intentions and all that, but seriously, I'm already pissed enough at my ISP (Tiscali.it) that doesn't allow me to send more than 3 consecutive emails.

So either implement this kind of stuff with a proper way to tell spam sending from acceptable mass mailing, or be ready to handle hordes of very angry customers.

Re:ISPs have to be the solution

[powermacx]

Well, here in Argentina the first answer when you call tech support to complain your connection isn't working is: "You've got spyware. Reinstall Windows and install an up to date antivirus+antyspyware".

Of course, when I answer: "Er... I have a Mac" the answer is "Uh... I don't know... did you try restarting?"

Re:ISPs have to be the solution

[asninn]

I'm not so sure about that. Yes, people are lazy, but switching to a different ISP is more of a hassle than running a virus/malware scanner; even if you're really computer-unsavvy, you'll probably have a child, sibling, cousin or friend who knows a bit more about computers and can do it for you.

And I still haven't seen any mail protocol proposals that would both cut down on spam in an effective fashion as well as not interfere with legitimate mail and not violating non-technical requirements like privacy etc.

Seriously, spam is a semantic problem, in a way; something that is spam for one person or in one situation need not be spam for someone else or in another situation. I'm signed up for a handful of company newsletters informing me about special offers etc., for example, and those aren't spam (since I signed up for them), but if I received them without having signed up, I'd definitely consider them spam. How is a mail delivery protocol supposed to be able to distinguish between these situations?

Botnet Mafia warnings

[marto]

You could wake up with an ascii horses head in your inbox http://www.virtualhorses.com/graphics/asciiart.htm

Let's have ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... Botnet Wars! They can infect systems and fight it out in the process table.
"Watch out! They just spawned a thread that has access to your virtual address space! Protect your data registers!"

Where will there HQs be?

[master5o1]

Will they be in the typical Pizza shop website? something like www.donluigi-pizza.com (and donluigi-pizza.org for eGangster login)

We're doomed

[giafly]

The really organised criminals will be using exactly the same techniques to evade capture and to protect the business of criminality as is seen in the drugs war. You can be sure that while sacrificial lambs get jail time, the gang bosses and the real botnet builders will continue to prosper. Until, that is, law enforcement, the judiciary and governments around the world start to take the spam problem as seriously as they do the drugs one.

We're doomed

Re:Trying to care

[Oligonicella]

Wow! What the hell were you doing/where were you going that you got so much? I look at tits and ass online and still only get some 10-20 a day on a heavy day. Wow.

Re:Somehow...

[Rob T Firefly]

*ominously clicking together Jolt COla bottles stuck on fingertips*

Botnets... come out to play-ayyyyy!

aren't you special?

[ClioCJS]

You come off as an asshole. Just letting you know.

P.S. Some of us need personal email and have relied on it heavily for 15 years.

PGP is your friend

[oliverthered]

If people actually started using the tools that have been available for years and signed their emails it would be a lot easier to spot the ones sent out by spam bots.

It's amazing how hard it is to get a company to send you a signed email to prove who they are and even harder to send an encrypted email containing personal information to them even though everyone knows how insecure email it.

Lazy Government,
Lazy Companies,
Lazy Consumers.
The tools are there for free and have been for years.

Re:Trying to care

[inviolet]

As someone who doesn't have an email address anymore, I really don't care about spam in the slightest, or the battle they go over to spam people.

You do realize that the costs of spam mitigation are all passed on to you, in the form of higher prices for gadgets, for professional and financial services, and eventually for everything else? Or do you not care about that either?

By the way, now that we are out of the Grunge era, it is no longer automatically cool to not care about such things.

Re:Somehow...

[billcopc]

I'm still waiting to be cast in an XXX Hackers spoof, where copying a garbage file sends the female lead on a dirty, dirty quest to get out of trouble with the sleazy fat ugly cops that pursue her.

Might as well spoof Takedown as well, where a fugitive hacker leads his asian arch nemesis on a cross-country chase through every brothel in the USA, all over a dick-length argument. They finally settle their feud in a stomach-churning scene where they both anally violate a journalist named John Warkoff.

Oh come on! When have you ever seen pr0n with a good story ?

No, not really

[Dachannien]

The kind of turf war seen in the real world by drug gangs

Until I actually RTFA, I thought they meant that botnet gangs were finding the people running opposing botnets and killing them.

Or maybe I was just secretly hoping.