Microsoft Conducts Massive Botnet Takedown Action

h4rm0ny writes "Microsoft, in cooperation with Federal agents, conducted what the Wall Street Journal described as 'sweeping legal attacks' as they entered facilities in Kansas City, Scranton, Pa, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio to seize alleged 'command and control' machines for the Rustock botnet — described as the largest source of spam in the world. The operation is intended to 'decapitate' the botnet, preventing the seized machines from sending orders to suborned PCs around the world."

Comments

Re:Who "entered" the facilities?

[Attila Dimedici]

The summary is actually reasonably worded for a change (although not entirely accurate). This raid happened as part of a civil lawsuit filed by Microsoft againt the operators of this botnet. Microsoft obtained a court order for the seizure of certain computers within these various facilities. They sent out a taskforce who were accompanied by U.S. Marshalls. This appears to be a perfectly legitimate action where Microsoft presented sufficient evidence in court to seize these assets and then worked with law enforcement to do so.

No

[Kupfernigk]

It was under 90 years ago, and in any case the point there was that corporations were part of the State. In this case, the corporation applied to the Government for authorisation and the police supervised it. Under Fascism, the Government would have instructed Microsoft to carry out the raid. See the difference?

Perhaps you should upgrade your nick to a more modern CPU.