FTC Shuts Down Calif. ISP For Botnets, Child Porn

An anonymous reader writes "The Federal Trade Commission has convinced a federal judge to pull the plug on a 3FN.net, a.k.a. 'Pricewert LLC,' a Northern California based hosting provider. The FTC alleges that 3FN/Pricewert was directly involved in setting up spam-spewing botnets, among other illegal activities, the Washington Post's Security Fix Blog writes. From the story: 'Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.' The story quotes a former Justice Dept. expert saying the FTC action may be a smoke screen for a larger criminal investigation by the federal government in 3FN's activities."

Comments

Paging all "first posters"...

[Anonymous Coward]

...with their links which are suddenly broken.

Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[eldavojohn]

Christopher Barton, lead research scientist at McAfee, said a number of 3FN domain name servers already have popped up at new locations online.

"The rats are running," Barton said.

Oh, that's a shame, maybe next time we should hand this matter over to the USAF or at least the FBI. You know, someone capable of exterminating or prosecuting the 'rats'?

Leibowitz said his agency would continue to pursue other ISPs that "provide a haven for Internet criminals."

"This is a signal that we're going to go after you, and you're not going to be able to hide behind the shroud of the Internet and be immune from enforcement action," Leibowitz said.

A signed copy of the FTC's complaint is available here (PDF).

Ahahah, is that a joke?

FTC Chairman Leibowitz: Let this very strongly worded complaint be a clear message to those that escaped yet again! We will not falter until we have lodged very strongly worded complaints against each and every one of you at least four times!
Botnet Leader: Jesus Christ, I think I just shit myself! My god, you just shut down one of like 50 ISPs we use! We might even have to go to another country to run our lucrative operations! Oh the horror of operating out of the Cayman Islands! Laying on the beach, raking in cash! Will you show us no mercy?!

So tell me, when will all the court cases be launched from the data you collected from the servers you confiscated in this coup de grace? They were operating out of Northern California, surely you contacted the appropriate law enforcement agencies, gathered a massive stack of warrants and cunningly orchestrated a perfect storming of all facilities to capture servers with juicy financial, IP, personal and foreign data? And then surely you froze the assets in these accounts and entered all this as evidence in a mounting trial against business and individuals foreign and domestic? Oh you didn't? Oh, you just warned their ISPs and strutted around waving a complaint and acting like you saved the day? Well done.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[epiphani]

Oh, that's a shame, maybe next time we should hand this matter over to the USAF or at least the FBI. You know, someone capable of exterminating or prosecuting the 'rats'?

And this is what I was thinking. I'm very confused, but I'm also not an American. What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article? Where are the criminal charges here?

Or is this a bit like the Environmental Protection Agency investigating a murder because... they feel like it....

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the body was found in a park ...

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[lordofthechia]

"What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with..."

From the article, they were dealing with (among other things):

"illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams"

and:
"the FTC's authority gives it the power to shut down companies that appear to be engaged in unfair and deceptive practices"

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[harryandthehenderson]

It's got to be a joke, there are plenty of sections of the law that make ISP's not liable for such things.

Sure if they were unaware of the activity, but that is not the alleged case here. In this case the company gone after is alleged to be directly involved in the illegal activity.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[jollyreaper]

and:
"the FTC's authority gives it the power to shut down companies that appear to be engaged in unfair and deceptive practices"

Deceptive practices? Well, we've all heard about the crackwhore complaining to the cops about being sold bogus rocks. I can just imagine how this went.

perv: Dude, I paid mad money for this CP and it turns out the girl was 18. They ripped me off!

ftc: Gee, how awful. What was that url again? We'll look into this immediately.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Curunir_wolf]

but it comes as no surprise to me that a seemingly unrelated government agency is going after these guys.

The FTC has the authoring to go after people running "illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams". That's part of their mission.

Looks like somebody at the FTC found out that those penis enlargement pills don't work at all.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[Coolfish]

Or is this a bit like the Environmental Protection Agency investigating a murder because... they feel like it....

Funnily enough, for crimes like negligent homicide committed by a corporation, they usually face insignificant penalties. So instead, the government might use the EPA and those various laws to go after the company. Frontline had a great episode on this with regards to a foundry that was polluting like crazy, and also killed a few employees by having extremely lax safety standards and negligent management. The death of the employee? Punishable by like a $7000 fine. Dumping crap in the nearby river? Millions.

Watch the program online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[harryandthehenderson]

They overstepped their bounds in regulating companies here in that they shut down an ISP.

They didn't shut down an ISP. They shut down a hosting company of these websites that is alleged to be directly involved in helping set up these illegal operations.

'Pricewert LLC,' a Northern California based hosting provider.

An ISP that was NOT behaving irresponsibly to its customers.

Sure, only if they aren't directly involved in helping to setup the illegal activity which is what is alleged in this case. Did you even read the summary?

The fact that their customer's customers were involved in criminal activities is NOT their problem beyond complying with legal orders.

Of course it's not. It becomes their problem because it's alleged that "3FN/Pricewert was directly involved in setting up spam-spewing botnets, among other illegal activities". Do you happen to see a difference?

They are NOT responsible.

If they were directly involved as it is alleged they are responsible.

Certainly you could go after the programmer here-but that would require evidence in a court of law with proper jurisdiction. Shutting down the entire ISP goes way beyond the authority of the FTC.

Again, they didn't shut down an ISP. They shut down a hosting company that was directly involved in helping to set up a whole host of illegal operations including illegal pharmacies and investment scams (which would fall under the FTC's regulating authority).

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[DragonWriter]

What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article?

Well, the answer to that is found in the FTC's Memorandum of Points and Authorities in this case (available, here, along with other related documents):

Plaintiff, FTC, is an independent agency of the United States government created by the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 41-58 (2006). The FTC is charged with, among other things, enforcement of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 45(a), which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce. The FTC is authorized to initiate federal district court proceedings, by its own attorneys, to enjoin violations of the FTC Act, and to secure such equitable relief as may be appropriate in each case, including restitution and disgorgement. 15 U.S.C. 53(b) (2006).

What does the Federal Trade Commission have to do with acting on illegal material such as the crazy stuff suggested by the article?

If the conduct charged wasn't against the law (which is all that "illegal" means), neither the FTC nor any other government agency could bring a case to stop it. You may be mistakenly using "illegal" to mean "criminal" (which some of the conduct alleged would also be), in which case I will note that an act can be simultaneously a violation of civil and criminal provisions of the law, and move on to...

Where are the criminal charges here?

Again, from the FTC's Memorandum of Points and Authorities:

It is the Commission's understanding that a parallel criminal investigation of the Defendant is underway. Although the Commission is not privy to the details of that investigation, the Commission is informed that a search warrant will be executed at the Defendant's data center on or about Wednesday, June 3, 2009. The Commission respectfully requests that this Court rule on the Commission's Ex Parte Motion for Temporary Restraining Order prior to June 3, 2009, so that - if the Commission's Motion is granted - service of the TRO can be effected at the same time the search warrant is executed.

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[DragonWriter]

It's got to be a joke, there are plenty of sections of the law that make ISP's not liable for such things.

There are safe harbor provisions that protect ISPs from liability for some of those things when the acts are committed by the ISPs users (not the ISP itself), and the ISP complies with certain other rules (including, as a general rule, taking effective action when they become aware of -- on their own or by notification -- the violation being perpetrated via their network.)

But this isn't about things Pricewert's users were doing without the knowledge of the ISP; from the complaint which resulted in the order here:

14. Pricewert is fully aware that it is hosting huge volumes of illegal, malicious, and harmful content. Moreover, Pricewert actively shields its criminal clientele by either ignoring take-down requests issued by the online security community or shifting its criminal clients to other Internet Protocol addresses controlled by Pricewert so that they may evade detection.
15. In addition to hosting illegal, malicious, and harmful content, Pricewert actively colludes with its criminal clientele in several areas, including the maintenance and deployment of bot nets.
.
.
.
22. Pricewert's involvement in botnet activity is detailed in several Internet ICQ chat logs obtained by the FTC. In these logs, Pricewert's senior staff, including its Head of Programming, are observed directly participating in the creation and configuration of a botnet.
23. In one of the chats obtained by the FTC, Pricewert's Head of Programming is engaged in a conversation with a customer regarding the number of compromised computers the customer controls. The customer informs Pricewert that he controls 200,000 bots and needs assistance configuring the botnet. The head of Pricewert's Programming Department agrees to assist, but complains upon learning of the size of the botnet that it will require a lot of work.
24. In a second chat, a Senior Project Manager for Pricewert is told by a customer
that the customer controls a massive and rapidly growing network ofbots. Pricewert's Sales Director reassures the customer that "[w]ell, we know how to manage it."

Re:Hand It Over to Someone More Capable

[QuantumRiff]

and along the lines.. how is

and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest

illegal? I know they mentioned other things that are, but throwing things that many people are opposed to in with things that are actually illegal is a slippery slope towards censorship. Just think of the children..

What the article leaves out

[MillionthMonkey]

'Pricewert hosts very little legitimate content and vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.'

Yes but how much were they charging per month? It doesn't say. You probably get all this stuff with the "premium" package.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the Slashdot clowns are "targeting" all browsers. Everything sucks.

Their Web 2.0 hard-on must be draining the blood from their brains. Slashdot is now slow, bloated, and fucked up.

Just try getting that asinine slide-bar to show ALL posts. No can do, because the script kiddies coding it up are too stupid to handle boundary conditions properly.

Props to NASA too, for this!

[AMuse]

Yet another thing that NASA has done to help society, that people don't know. NASA's Inspector General (IG) played a large role in helping shut this den of crap down.

"including child pornography..."

[Evets]

Anytime I see something referencing child pornography, I immediately think it's a smear campaign.

I don't know anything about 3FN.net, but generally...

ISPs don't host porn, they host websites. Some people put up websites that have porn or other content that someone might object to. Some websites have illegal content.

Sometimes people get frustrated because it's difficult to stop whatever activity it is they are trying to stop. Because an ISP provides its customers with anonymity, or because it doesn't log certain things, or because they are not cooperative with whatever branch of the government wants their cooperation does not make them bad. There are plenty of legitimate, good, positive-for-society reasons that anonymity or partial anonymity is necessary. There are ways of enforcing the law and bettering society that don't strip rights away from free people doing ordinary things.

Re:OT: Which browser is slashdot supposed to work

[Red Flayer]

Read between the lines.

Slashdot doesn't render properly on ANY browser.

The reason for this is because slashdot doesn't have a proper webdev writing their site. The may have a webdev, but obviously the person they have is not capable of meeting their needs.

Since the corporate overlords are cutting back on expenses, there is no room in the budget to hire a proper webdev. So the slashdot team has decided to purposely bork the site, keeping it just-good-enough-for-content-to-be-available, in the hope that some skilled webdev will offer their services for free to fix the site.

Or, possibly, the slashdot editors are playing passive-aggressive with the corporate overlord's demands that slashdot become more like a social networking site, and less like a news aggregator with comments. I think this has been hinted at by Rob & Jamie in the past.

Finally, the third possibility -- it's summer, which is kind of like the Septembers of yore on usenet. Maybe they're hoping to preserve the community by driving off the shambling hordes of idiots who belong on Fark or 4chan instead of here, while the slashdot core sticks around, knowing that things will simmer down in October. But that's probably wishful thinking.