Suspected Mariposa Botnet Creator Arrested

mehemiah writes "The writer of the Mariposa Botnet has been arrested through international effort. The FBI said this arrest and the arrests of three alleged operators in February were the result of a two-year joint investigation into the Mariposa Botnet, which may have infected as many as eight million to 12 million computers around the world."

Comments

Re:Two years?

[derrickh]

You're an idiot.
The good guys do something good and you sit there and call them inept because they didn't do it in a timeframe you find acceptable? You think that they could just type in 'tracert' and show up at an address to arrest someone? How about congratulating them on bringing in a criminal instead of backseat quarterbacking.

D

Re:Two years?

[mandelbr0t]

It took two years and a task force of how many, costing how much, to bring down three people?

Much less than it would have cost to let them run amok.

That sure says a lot about the state of network security, and law enforcement's ineptitude for technology.

While it says a lot about the state of network security, the fact that 8 to 12 million people were infected with a virus they didn't know about says more about the computer literacy of the average individual. And, despite the fact that the botnet was millions of machines large, providing nearly impenetrable anonymity, law enforcement was still able to find the people behind the whole thing. That is actually one of the rare cases where law enforcement has proven they are not technically inept. Maybe this is a sign of better things to come.

Don't get me wrong. I share your cynicism in general about the state of the Internet and all of the security holes you could pilot a starship through, but I don't think that mocking law enforcement when they actually catch somebody is the way to go. The people behind this botnet were responsible for creating international tensions that could have led to violence. They stole credit cards and banking information with no care for who they were harming, all to fuel their own egotistical ambitions. These were not good people, or hacker heroes, or anything of the sort. Sorry, but I'm siding with the FBI on this one.