BBC Visits 'Hated and Hunted' Ransomware Expert (bbc.co.uk)

In "Hated and hunted," a BBC reporter describes visiting a ransomware expert "who has devoted himself, at huge personal cost, to helping victims of ransomware around the world." They hate him so much that they leave him angry threats buried deep inside the code of their own viruses... "I was shocked but I also felt a real sense of pride," says Fabian. "Almost like, a little bit cocky. I'm not going to lie, yeah, it was nice...." He works remotely for a cyber security company, often sitting for hours at a time working with colleagues in different countries. When he's "in the zone", the outside world becomes even less important and his entire existence focuses on the code on his screen. He once woke up with keyboard imprints all over his face after falling asleep during a 35-hour session.

All of this to create anti-ransomware programs that he and his company usually give away free. Victims simply download the tools he makes for each virus, follow the instructions and get their files back... According to research from Emsisoft, the cyber security company Fabian works for, a computer is attacked every two seconds. Their network has managed to prevent 2,584,105 infections in the past 60 days -- and that's just one anti-virus firm of dozens around the world.... "It's pretty much an arms race," says Fabian. "They release a new ransomware virus, I find a flaw in its code and build the decryption tool to reverse it so people can get their files back. Then the criminals release a new version which they hope I can't break... It escalates with them getting more and more angry with me...."

Fabian accepts that moving around and restricting his life and circle of friends is just a part of the sacrifice for his hobby-turned-profession... He earns a very good salary but looking around his home and at his life it's hard to see how he spends it.
He estimates that he's "upset or angered" 100 different ransomware gangs (based on his analysis of the Bitcoin wallets where they collect their ransoms.) One group had collected about $250,000 (£191,000) in three months -- until Fabian created a countering anti-ransomware program -- which is one reason he carefully hids his identity.

"I know how much money they make and it would be literally nothing for them to drop 10 or 20,000 for like some Russian dude to turn up to my house and beat the living hell out of me."

Comments

Hmm

[Ryanrule]

I like to see the national breakdown. I know a few e Europe groups that are permanently butt hurt.

Re:Hmm

[Toth]

I remember when the Bulgarians were the best hackers. They would include the names of viruses they had written on their resumes when applying for a computer job. Many firsts. Are they still in the game I wonder?

Re:Hmm

[Aryeh Goretsky]

Hello,

While Bulgaria was once a hot-bed of virus activity in the DOS era, the focus on malicious software has spread throughout Russia, Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, to the extent that it has crowded out Bulgaria as being a well-known source of malware. Of course, today malware is a global phenomenon, and you find clusters of development throughout the world, including regional specializations in both Asia and Latin America for targeting domestic banking, for example.

Vesselin Bontchev, one of the first people to document the Bulgarian virus scene via his seminal work, The Bulgarian and Soviet Virus Factories, remains active in the field and would probably be the best source for current information on Bulgaria's position in the threat economy. He can also be found on Twitter, where his tendency towards logorrhea is somewhat tempered by the 280-character limit.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

someone send a Russian to kick apk ass

[Anonymous Coward]

it will probably just cost a ruble or two

Re:someone send a Russian to kick apk ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the promise of a license plate with a '7' in it.

Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[goombah99]

Ironically silk road had a solution for this problem. Just create an etherium payable contract that pays when the ransom where evil doer is killed, as measure by whatever method the contract specified as satisfactory proof the right person received the right result.

Of course this is also a terrible idea. Paying mercs to kill people is going to result in incompetent mercs and dead innocents. Not to mention the whole idea of murder.

Still given human nature if this option were offerend anonymously but widely available I'm also sure the go fund me kitty would swell.

THe only thing one can say is that in the end you'd be both remorseful and gratified and possibly incarcerated

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[piojo]

Just create an etherium payable contract that pays when the ransom where evil doer is killed, as measure by whatever method the contract specified as satisfactory proof the right person received the right result.

Setting aside for now the fact that that's horrible, how would it be implemented? Say it's not about killing someone but about buying a puppy. What is the oracle which tells the system that the requirements have been met?

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

1 vote per dollar contributed. Quorum of 75% of contributors with a 2/3 majority vote. Monthly polls.
Self nomination for polls by submission of a request to transfer funds that includes signed evidence.

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Solandri]

That's not new, and it has a simple solution. You know the "Wanted Dead or Alive" posters you see in westerns? They were only reserved for the worst criminals. The standard wanted poster was for capturing the criminal alive - as in you wouldn't get the reward if the criminal was killed. So all you have to do is give out the reward for information leading to the ransomware author's capture, no reward if he's killed.

Re: Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's use a computer system to put ransoms on people who are experts on hacking computer systems and ransoms.

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[JaredOfEuropa]

In case of buying a puppy, you could submit a picture of the puppy and the receipt as proof. In case of an open contract on a person, proving the person was killed is trivial, but it might be hard proving that it was you who killed him.

Re: Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Cmdln Daco]

They are experts on unleashing, not defeating, ransoms.

And that assumes they are even experts, and not script kiddies.

Re: Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Cederic]

No, he was suggesting targeting the criminals.

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad snowflake gaffot ... some byteboi bitches need to die ... splat.

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[rastos1]

Ask Jim Bell.

Re:Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah. The Assassination Politics game in full swing, with the upside of actually doing good.

Re: Live by the bitcoin, die by the bitcoin

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. Print your public key on a small card, put it on the body at the scene, and take a picture.

killstarter?

[goombah99]

When they go low, we aim high

Re:killstarter?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're lucky, the contract will get picked up by a LEA who will quietly alert the target, then stage high-quality fakes with help from a professional FX artist.

Re:killstarter?

[Cmdln Daco]

Oh, I think more positive proofs can be provided, in the form of DNA samples from the grease spot where the former ransomware distributor was standing.

Re: killstarter?

[Anonymous Coward]

How are you going to convert that to something (i.e. script) a miner can automatically verify when processing a block?

Re:killstarter?

[kaatochacha]

I saw that movie too!

aka

[phantomfive]

alternate headline: "Assassins pay BBC to find address of ransomware expert."

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

"He once woke up with keyboard imprints all over his face after falling asleep during a 35-hour session." Cue Kendall saying he's done that 4 times this week, BFD, why can't incel experts be famous too?

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

actual headline: Ransomware Creator who distributes ransomware helps some clean it up. Leaves his own name in code, Scotland Yard baffled.

Re:aka

[jellomizer]

The BBC is one of the worlds most respected media outlet. Normally when there is a polarizing debate, where I find both side to be exaggerated (which is easy to get on American News, and flipping sources to weed out the truth from hyperbole) I find that the BBC give a much more level headed explanation on the topic.

Now the BBC could be banking on its good Karma, and work with the ransomware makers, but you can burn good Karma much faster then you can build it up. Besides Ransomware really doesn't bring in that much money.

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC is one of the worlds most respected media outlet.

They were, at one point, but certainly not since #PanoDrama.

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the BBC could be banking on its good Karma, and work with the ransomware makers, but you can burn good Karma much faster then you can build it up. Besides Ransomware really doesn't bring in that much money.

Trust is earned by the tea spoon and lost by the bucket.

Re:aka

[phantomfive]

Normally when there is a polarizing debate, where I find both side to be exaggerated (which is easy to get on American News, and flipping sources to weed out the truth from hyperbole)

That's the distance giving them perspective. The BBC can be completely biased when it comes to British news.

The first murderer.

[Anonymous Coward]

They hate him so much that they leave him angry threats buried deep inside the code of their own viruses...

So in other words evil people do bad things to good people. Since Cain and Abel, some things never change.

Re:The first murderer.

[phantomfive]

How do you know Abel was good?

Re: The first murderer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, in that story, the guy who made up the rules defining "good" said so.

Re:The first murderer.

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't, necessarily. But for some reason things went better for him. As a kid in Sunday school I was told that it was because Cain didn't offer a burnt sacrifice, but the story says nothing about what the offerings were. All it says is that God liked Abel's offering and didn't like Cain's, because shit happens. Killing Abel doesn't fix that, and the story says nothing about what would.

Re:The first murderer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Evil people taunt morons by leaving their own name in the malware they're so expertly able to clean up for you, for a price...

Re:The first murderer.

[Terwin]

Cain was a farmer and offered up fresh, moist fruits and vegetables while Able was a rancher/herder and offered up the carcasses of animals rich in fat.
Both were offering their best products, but the flames were bigger and brighter when consuming the fat bone and fur than they were when consuming the fresh, moist, vegetables, so it was assumed that God was more pleased by the one that burned better than the other.

Due to that assumption, Cain became jealous and killed his brother.

As far as I am aware, God was happy with both, at least until Cain committed murder.

Re:The first murderer.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Old Testament God is a bloodthirsty god. He demands animal sacrifices, and there are instructions for how to perform the sacrifices.

Re:The first murderer.

[Anonymous Coward]

We've had debate after debate on this topic. It is easy to excuse Cain bringing an unacceptable sacrifice, but not the murder.

Wanted alive.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure bad guys could try to thwart payments buy buying shares and voting no or not voting, but that's transient. They would be effectively having to match 25% of the growing kitty and thus funding their own wanted-poster-reward.

I note that one doesn't have to make this a wanted-dead reward. I just phrased it that way for the drama. A bounty for bringing them to justice would be much better and more wholesome.

Building a decrypter?

[quantaman]

“It’s pretty much an arms race,” says Fabian. "They release a new ransomware virus, I find a flaw in its code and build the decryption tool to reverse it so people can get their files back.”

How does this work? There's probably some government agencies with the ability to crack various encryption schemes, but a dev at some anti-virus company?

I'm sure he's pretty good at what he does, and there's probably a handful of instances where the ransomware folk did something dumb. But file encryption is pretty standard stuff, and I can't imagine it's too hard to generate a unique decrpytion key for each victim and to stop that key from persisting on the victims machine.

So is the story mostly hype and the guy just cracked a couple crappy tools? Are the ransomware folk really that incompetent? Or am I missing something?

Re:Building a decrypter?

[AHuxley]

Look at an average PC CPU and storage media on an average laptop/desktop computer.
How fast can all the contents be encrypted to keep it secure from any/all expected decryption efforts?
Then have it revert back to a working computer with the correct code?
The idea is that the speed of CPU needed and that a lot of people use the same often used code set/example.
The other idea is to detect a rapid, understood and unexpected for the users system code use of all CPU power.
The spin up of CPU use for encryption by code that's very different to average users OS/software.
That the OS encryption acts in a set way and its start can be detected in CPU by advanced AV software .

Re "government agencies with the ability to crack various encryption schemes"
1. Thats is done with design weakness in every generation of software shipped under a support role offered by a "brand" to a gov.
The software/OS crypto sold/offered is junk as the staff like/have to support the gov/mil.
A gov/mil weakness is created by design over all generations of that code.
Junk crypto over decades of OS and software.
2. By installing a key logger first and then waiting for the next use of encryption by the user. Networked software to get the next use of a password.
Hope the user has the same long password again and again.
Find out if the password is created with software on the same computer thats doing the encryption. Copy out the password as its used.
3. After arrest a legal offer to decrypt is suggested. With many more years if deception is not done.
Depending on the part of the world and the legal system. Concurrent and consecutive reduced years when decrypted.
4. The use of informants to get near a person and place key logging software.
5. The use of a super computer given the junk brand/OS crypto. The crypto is not that good but its still trusted. A gov/mil weakness is found over all generations of that code.
ie the gov/mil works to get decryption for free and in real time over decades of OS/network users/use of informants.
Gov methods don't help much if the encryption used is not common, not well understood and is not OS/commercial weak as sold.

Re:Building a decrypter?

[quantaman]

That the OS encryption acts in a set way and its start can be detected in CPU by advanced AV software .

Which would be a method for blocking a ransomware attack in progress. This article is about something completely different. Decrpyting a ransomware attack that was already completed.

Gov methods don't help much if the encryption used is not common, not well understood and is not OS/commercial weak as sold.

Whether or not some major government agencies can crack encryption doesn't really matter to this story. An AV researcher isn't going to be able to crack commonly available encryption algorithms. If he's releasing decryption tools he's doing it through other mechanisms.

Re: Building a decrypter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ransomware is very badly coded. There are some 'good' ones where decryption is possible.

Re:Building a decrypter?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to remove the key from the victim's machine, then you have to store it somewhere else until the ransom is paid. You can make a distributed solution for that, but that's complicated, because your network is constantly changing due to systems being wiped and reinstalled. Or you can make a centralized solution, but that makes it easy to attack and/or gives your opponents clues to your identity. Criminals are not the kind of people who put in the work to do things properly. So the key stays on the victim's machine.

Re:Building a decrypter?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty simple. If the attackers are 'honest', than a decryption key actually exists. In that case, it is the malware authors who are playing 'defence' for once, and all the regular 'attack' vectors apply:

1) The malware authors could have bugs in the implementation of the encryption just like every other program.
2) They could store the keys on the client's machine, like many bad programs do.
3) They could store the keys on a central server, which could get compromised just like any normal server.
4) They could use the same key, in which case eavesdropping on one client who paid ransom would find it.

In short, a malware is just a program in the end, and malware authors aren't better than normal programmers. Normal programs are full of bugs. Why do you expect malware authors to do better?

Re:Building a decrypter?

[Anonymous Coward]

An AV researcher isn't going to be able to crack commonly available encryption algorithms.

He knows how to crack it because he wrote it himself, and even left his own name in the code pretending to be mad at himself to inflate his notoriety. He charges to remove the malware. Seems like a saint.

"I see some thugs roughed you up. You want I should keep that from happening again? Call it, paying for protection..."

Re:Building a decrypter?

[The-Ixian]

One angle you are perhaps missing is that this guy works for an AV company. Which means that he probably has access to some pretty good telemetry from several different systems attacked by the same malware. You can imagine that if something is seen once and reports it back to the mothership, the second, third, etc, instances are each delivering behavioral metrics on how the malware operates.

Also, I am sure that because AV runs at such a low level in a system, it is able to do things like analyze all system RAM and other caches for things that don't get cleaned up quickly enough. The keys need to be put into memory at some point in order to do the encryption, which means they can be read from memory....

Re:Building a decrypter?

[fwosar]

Obviously, I can't crack all ransomware out there and I never made that claim (and neither made the article). However, a lot of ransomware has flaws that can be abused just like a lot of other software has bad crypto. The flaws are usually just what you would also find in production code: Bad key generation, improper key sizes, inappropriate key re-use, server vulnerabilities.

There are also some real "WTF?!" moments as well. For example, the first iterations of Cryptowall left the generated private key on the system by accident, because they copied sample code on how to use the CryptoAPI from the MSDN documentation without understanding what some of the parameters meant. Cryptowall later went on to become one of the most profitable ransomware campaigns in history with estimated revenues within the 300 million US dollar range. Bottom line is: As with many things, ransomware doesn't have to be perfect to cause a lot of damage.

You can obviously dismiss it as a "guy cracked a couple crappy tools", but ultimately we broke over hundreds of different ransomware families and major revisions within said families.

Re:Building a decrypter?

[CohibaVancouver]

So the key stays on the victim's machine.

Only if the criminal's intention is to actually permit the machine to be decrypted after the ransom is paid.

If all their intention is is to take the ransom, then say "So long sucker!" and disappear, then there's no need to store a key anywhere.

Re:Building a decrypter?

[SomePoorSchmuck]

So the key stays on the victim's machine.

Only if the criminal's intention is to actually permit the machine to be decrypted after the ransom is paid.

If all their intention is is to take the ransom, then say "So long sucker!" and disappear, then there's no need to store a key anywhere.

But there's some basic game theory logic at work here.
If ransomware folks want to make a lot of money quickly, then don't actually bother with decryption methods, just take the money and "so long sucker!".

But if ransomware folks want to make any more money after three weeks from now, they have to provide the data decryption. If they don't, then after a few weeks news spreads around the world that ransomware is a total scam and your data is gone no matter what. People then stop paying the ransoms at all and just move on from a backup or start over from scratch. (Which is the proper response in any case.)

Re:Building a decrypter?

[pr0fessor]

The weakest link in security is usually the user and as such they are the best point to exploit. This is why the majority of stuff like this doesn't need to be well written, of course throw in a security researcher that keeps giving away removal tools and they are annoyed that they actually need to spend some time on code.

Re:Building a decrypter?

[AHuxley]

Re "Which would be a method for blocking a ransomware attack in progress. "
Have look at "monitoring the file-system for the creation of encrypted files by suspicious processes"
https://objective-see.com/prod...

You're a moron Huxster

[Anonymous Coward]

Who reads this drivel lol?

Re:You're a moron Huxster

[Cmdln Daco]

Obviously it confuses you. So that's one who doesn't.

Quite a second career

[93 Escort Wagon]

Years ago, Fabian was a teen heartthrob back during my mother’s youth... and now, here in his twilight years, he’s helping ransomware victims recover their data? That’s seriously impressive.

Thank You

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you sir, for doing what you do!

Best Regards,
Everyone except the crooks.

Backups backups backups!

[cormandy]

Backup people!

labelling

[Anonymous Coward]

So.... labelling that "some Russian" = murderer is ok; but if we written that about any location in Africa this would become racial slur?
Your US/UK politicall correctness is so silly.

Russian Dude

[pacija]

Ah, the "subtlety" of Western propaganda. The dude who turns up and beats the living hell out of the good guy can't be just Dude. Quite often it has to be Russian Dude. Malice or stupidity? Or just plain old xenophobia?

Re:Russian Dude

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the people for hire at the location in question are mostly russian?

Re:Russian Dude

[Ryanrule]

You think he isnt aware who he is pissing off? Its not the italians.

Re:Russian Dude

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more worried about pissing off the Triads. They're heavily involved in tech crime and I for one certainly wouldn't want to be disappeared and tortured in a fish van.

Re:Russian Dude

[fwosar]

I can see why someone may think that, but there was an aspect to the interview, that was cut out. I used to live in one of the big German Baltic Sea harbour cities. The local shipyard was/is essentially a money laundering operation for the Russian mob. So obviously, when I started to get threats from Russian groups, in particular, that makes you feel rather uneasy. Especially given that ransomware campaigns often have trouble turning the bitcoins back into "clean" money and the go-to people for money laundering in the former USSR regions is the Russian mafia.

People are also not aware of Germany's mandatory IDs and registrations. Essentially, if you want someone's address, you can go to the local municipality. As long as you provide enough information that allows them to uniquely identify a person in their records, you can obtain their address for a small fee (~$10). If you can make a valid claim (like they owe you money), you can get a lot more information than that. The amount of information you need to provide varies a bit. But usually, the full name is enough, provided there isn't another person with the same name in the same region. In that case, you may have to add in the birthday or an old address as well.

So yeah, not really xenophobia. Just the local organised crime in the area I used to live with given with the fact that the groups with the most credible threats were from former USSR countries.

Re:Russian Dude

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if he is pissing off the Russians, the dude that the Russians hire might be any number of nationalities. Or genders for that matter.

What a load

[Anonymous Coward]

Either these malware authors are absolutely useless or this guy is the author of the malware he's saving people from, or he's just a total bullshit artist looking for some free publicity. Did anyone verify his claims?

Now you are being silly

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't backup people... yet!

Re:Now you are being silly

[Anonymous Coward]

When yo momma backs up there is a noise going beep beep beep.

^^^ Mod Parent UP ^^^

[Anonymous Coward]

Lest we forget the difference between reality and xenophobia.

Slapping the label of racism on something doesn't change the reality of it. The labeling is just propaganda to forward an agenda.

Re:^^^ Mod Parent UP ^^^

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes except in this case there are really two countries who are notorious for ransomware: North Korea and Russia.

North Korea tends to not employ their own assassins and instead employ those of other friendly nations, or use other tricks to accomplish the task.

My guess is there is a shared dislike of this guy between NK and RU and lets admit it, FSB is far better at this stuff than RGB, especially in mostly white London.

Also my guess is he knows his own enemies far better than the troll posting the above attack on 'xenophobia'.

A BS story

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been hacking things all my life and I became a professional software developer in 1983. Virus writers are not going to leave peoples names in code. Your purpose of writing a virus is to keep the code as simple and as small as possible. Well that is unless you are developing it in JavaScript than anyone can reverse engineer it. But anyone stupid enough to send out source code with the virus is asking for it anyway. Reverse engineering the binary does not produce pretty source code in a language that you choose and more than likely does not ever contain messages to the person trying to undo what the virus does.

And again, no. a virus writer does not know who is infected and not infected and how if he does get an infection to occur how it became un-infected. For all the virus writer know is that maybe the computer is unplugged or an operating system reinstall occurred.

Nathan

Re:A BS story

[The-Ixian]

But a virus writer would certainly be aware of a free fix for their virus being distributed on a public web site....

Re:A BS story

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously suggesting that modern virus writers are so obsessed with making the smallest virus possible that they wouldn't possibly put in a few strings to insult someone they know would be reverse engineering it?

Re:A BS story

[Aryeh Goretsky]

Hello,

Computer virus writers, since back in the day of writing DOS viruses, did often put message directed at anti-virus companies and even individual employees, as well as shout-outs to other virus writers and virus-writing groups. Song lyrics and poems would occasionally be included as well, sometimes to be displayed as part of a payload, otherwise just in there for, one presumes, the curious. The Stoned boot sector/MBR virus' "Legalise marijauana. Your PC is now stoned" message comes to immediate mind.

Of course, these days, computer viruses are almost extinct. There are about two or three families of viruses which are still active (Sality, Virut, ...). Everything else is just various kinds of non-replicating malware, like the ransomware this article discusses. Replicating ransomware like Petya and WannaCry are still comparatively rare.

Today, there is little concern from most developers about the size of their code, at least in the same way it was back in the mini-computer and dawn of the PC era where RAM might have been measured in kilobytes. When you have malware which is hundreds of KB long, or even over a megabyte like Stuxnet, the need to optimize code for size becomes something of a non-issue.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Location of Ransomers, Fabian's Methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked with Fabian and an agent of the FBI at one of my client locations. I had the ransomer "John Smith" sympathetic and talking back and forth through email, convinced that the situation was about to cost a computer tech ("Tim") who had not set backups up correctly his job - and that the ransom money paid was his personal money, not that of the intended victim company. And I managed to convince him that the decryption code we paid for didn't work properly on all of the files. (I opened several in Notepad, deleted a portion from the bottom of each, and then saved the versions I sent him to look at - which he actually asked to do to try to help: better customer support than a lot of legal outfits, to be honest. ;) ) He actually sent money *back* to the fictional tech's Paypal account (and offered to get him a job doing what he was doing!) - which resulted in both Paypal accounts getting locked and the ransomer losing access to a much larger sum that he had in that account. (Part of the reason I'm posting this anonymously is that I had a feeling he was just the equivalent of a CSR, and I *might* have pissed of some Russian mob that day.) During the conversations, he gave away information that led us to believe that he was in Belarus, based on time zones.

Fabian's methods, at least when I worked with him that time and on one other occasion after that, did not attempt to hack the encryption or anything so impossible as that. They relied on finding traces left behind on the system - files including deleted files, things in memory if the system hadn't been rebooted, etc - from the original encryption process that could be used to recover the key to decrypt with. I almost feel reluctant to share that, but at the same time, anyone who reads the message board he works with victims on would know that, because he doesn't exactly keep it a secret, and surely the ransomers would read it.

Learn a lesson I've learned... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: When you get threats or attacked? YOU ARE EFFECTIVE vs. those doing wrong - period.

* Care to debate that?

APK

P.S.=> I know that's "how it is", I go thru it since a very SIMPLE WARE I've created IS EFFECTIVE vs. threats galore (& who does the attacking?? Those adversely affected by my efforts - they make me laugh)... apk

Re:To backup what I said? Proof galore... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a LEGENDary SPAMMER.

No, I stop the BIGGEST SPAMMERS (advertisers)

[Anonymous Coward]

See my subject: I stop advertisers (biggest spammers) who infect, track & slow us (w/ botherders & malwaremakers) - do you? No.

* I've never seen YOU (or "your kind" that STALKS me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous posts like the LAZY unskilled WEEZIL wastes you are) ever be useful OR produce anything YOURSELF (especially of code of your own, not stolen "OpenSORES") that's any good either, lol - I do (see below next)!

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APK

P.S.=> You are a LEGENDary FAILURE do-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie", lol... apk

To backup what I said? Proof galore... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Hosts efficacy recently vs. threats & results in https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://linux.slashdot.org/com... https://news.slashdot.org/comm... https://apple.slashdot.org/com... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://search.slashdot.org/co... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://apple.slashdot.org/com... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://science.slashdot.org/c... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://it.slashdot.org/commen... https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

* That's only recently while I've been on Linux (July 2018) & 100's of times vs. MANY other botnets/malwares etc. in the past circa 2006-early 2018 while I was on Windows: CONCRETE VERIFIABLE UNDENIABLE REALITY (see those links 4 proof). ... & that's ONLY what /. reported on (there were FAR more /. OMITTED reporting on).

APK

P.S.=> "It's working: Neville... it's working!" - "I AM LEGEND" + HOSTNAME USE IS DOWN IN MALWARE https://unit42.paloaltonetwork... (my ACT OF