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FBI's Bot Roast II Sees Great Success
coondoggie passed us another Network World link, this one discussing the FBI's newest offensive against botnets. They're calling it Operation Bot Roast II. Apparently it's already been quite successful, leading to indictments, search warrants, and the uncovering of some '$20 million in economic loss. writes "Today, botnets are the weapon of choice of cyber criminals. They seek to conceal their criminal activities by using third party computers as vehicles for their crimes. In Bot Roast II, we see the diverse and complex nature of crimes that are being committed through the use of botnets," said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. "Despite this enormous challenge, we will continue to be aggressive in finding those responsible for attempting to exploit unknowing Internet users." I can't help but think, though: how many more of these things are out there that this 'sting' didn't touch?
This past week or two, the SPAM level on my servers has been running about half of what iut had been last month. I chalked it up to the holidays, but now I wonder if the arrests had anything to do with the reduced level?
Isn't this what many of us romanticized about back in the late 80s/early 90s? The Cyberpunks, with their l33t hacking skills, breaking into corporate dataspace, stealing intel, selling it to the highest bidder? Yeah, some innocent "civvies" get caught in the crossfire, but here it is. Except not.
:/
Where are the grizzled, thick russian accented, boots wearing, crusty hackers in their survival-style grey-market Russian SUVs decked out with a hodgepodge of the sweetest, cutting edge tech and an old C-64 for shits and giggles online in the back? Where are the dark, smoke-filled bars where suits and data cowboys secretly meet up to exchange USB keys and microdrives for cold, hard cash?
The future is here, but it's certainly not sexy. Geeks are still geeks.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai