All this means is that the Democrats rely on campaign contributions from the giant telecom companies too. To vote to indict them without Republican support would result in them losing millions for the next election.
Criminal Investigations are all about prosecution. They all have too many cases as it is, all of which they hope to get prosecuted. There's no way an agent will waste their time on an unprosecutable intrusion.
I suppose that's one point of view I hadn't given much consideration towards. But the fact is, I'll make a call to report an intrusion. If I get a response at all it's usually just "Fax us details". No one ever responds to the fax.
Now I suppose they might not respond because they don't think a single system or DMZ compromise is worth investigating, but honestly it never even gets to that point. I've seen credit card numbers being traded between folks in the US and Russia, I've seen IRC proxies that could be used to track back the sources of a 1000+ server bot net, but no one even bothers to investigate.
As a former hacker myself I'm loathe to exaggerate damages like the FBI encourages folks to do. I'm not going to claim a hack incident that the company could only afford to pay me 5 hours to investigate actually caused $500,000 in damages. My hourly rates aren't that high and the hackers shouldn't have to fight off spurious claims like that. The point is, no matter how inconsequential it may seem that a single bank DMZ was hacked and a few CC#'s were stolen.. it can very well lead to a giant cartel that has hacked 100 banks around the world. I don't have the authority to investigate to that extent, and no one in the FBI or the SS bothers to get the details.
As someone who works in the security field and comes across hacked systems all the time, I'll believe they give a damn when they start returning my calls. Sounds like PR to get someone more funding.
Trying to get someone at the FBI to care when you come across bot networks at an ISP, bank, or even a power company is next to impossible.
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All this means is that the Democrats rely on campaign contributions from the giant telecom companies too. To vote to indict them without Republican support would result in them losing millions for the next election.
Criminal Investigations are all about prosecution. They all have too many cases as it is, all of which they hope to get prosecuted. There's no way an agent will waste their time on an unprosecutable intrusion.
I suppose that's one point of view I hadn't given much consideration towards. But the fact is, I'll make a call to report an intrusion. If I get a response at all it's usually just "Fax us details". No one ever responds to the fax.
Now I suppose they might not respond because they don't think a single system or DMZ compromise is worth investigating, but honestly it never even gets to that point. I've seen credit card numbers being traded between folks in the US and Russia, I've seen IRC proxies that could be used to track back the sources of a 1000+ server bot net, but no one even bothers to investigate.
As a former hacker myself I'm loathe to exaggerate damages like the FBI encourages folks to do. I'm not going to claim a hack incident that the company could only afford to pay me 5 hours to investigate actually caused $500,000 in damages. My hourly rates aren't that high and the hackers shouldn't have to fight off spurious claims like that. The point is, no matter how inconsequential it may seem that a single bank DMZ was hacked and a few CC#'s were stolen.. it can very well lead to a giant cartel that has hacked 100 banks around the world. I don't have the authority to investigate to that extent, and no one in the FBI or the SS bothers to get the details.
As someone who works in the security field and comes across hacked systems all the time, I'll believe they give a damn when they start returning my calls. Sounds like PR to get someone more funding. Trying to get someone at the FBI to care when you come across bot networks at an ISP, bank, or even a power company is next to impossible.