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Confessed Botnet Master Is a Security Professional
An anonymous reader writes "John Schiefer, the Los Angeles security consultant who in last 2007 admitted wielding a 250,000-node botnet to steal bank passwords, sometimes from work, says he's spent the past 15 months working as a professional in the security scene while awaiting sentencing. Prosecutors are pushing for a five-year sentence, noting the exceptional threat he represented to society."
Needs to be clarified is that this is 15 months he spent waiting for punishment, not 15 years. And the lenient sentencing is because he ultimately did not cause much damage.
I am in the field, and I'm not ashamed for, but fuckin' angry at him.
I keep talking 'til I turn blue to squelch the rumors that AV researchers spread malware themselves to have a reason to exist, we get that crap anyway. We try to hunt down asshats like that guy. And then, usually when you finally got at least part of the population to believe that you're actually out to help them, someone like him comes along and ruins it. For all of us. Try to build up trust when you hear that the person that claimed to help you actually was the one that infected you!
I am, quite bluntly, insanely pissed at the guy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.