It is a legal term from the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.
A protected computer is:
(A) exclusively for the use of a financial institution or the United States Government, or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, used by or for a financial institution or the United States Government and the conduct constituting the offense affects that use by or for the financial institution or the Government; or (B) which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States.
Since it was a web server, it falls under the interstate or foreign commerce or communication definition.
There are a couple things that you are missing that make this particular scheme work.
The first detail is that these guys don't ask for much to unlock your files. I have read they typically ask for $100 or $200. These amounts are is too small for most law enforcement to notice typically.
Another detail here is the lack of reporting. I am sure that some folks just cough up the money to get stuff unencrypted and never report it to law enforcement.
Another big detail is that they are in Russia. If the person making the transaction is in the U.S. for example, there is not much any bank or law enforcement agency can do to recover that money once it lands in a Russian bank, especially when you consider that it is only $100 - $200.
This goes back to the cooperation between the Russian govt. and organized crime that others have pointed out. When you have that kind of setup, money tracing is pretty ineffective as a crime fighting tool.
Agreed. The difference between large and small companies was exactly what I referring to when I said 'a lot of IT jobs' as opposed to saying 'all IT jobs'. I guess it is a matter of perspective as I have been at a lot of small shops and it sounds like you may have the opposite history.
I now work for a large company and fully understand the point you make.
Since you only have 2 - 4 years of verifiable employment at each company, I would question your abilities as well. 2 - 4 years is just enough to get a job and for the company to find out you are totally incompetent and then fire you. If you had said 6 - 8 years per company, then you might have a case.
I would have to disagree with this for a lot of IT jobs. Two to four years at an IT job is a long time due to the flux that our industry has. Hell, two to four years is longer than some companies stay in business. I knew a guy that had LITERALLY 27 jobs in 24 years, now that's a red flag.
Some of us started out just like this guy. Some of us are 'self taught'. Some of us might acually say that going to school for this stuff is weak.
I personally reserve judgement for this guy and anyone else. I have run into a million dudes that had 'training' who lacked severely. I have also run into a fair amount of dudes that really shouldn't have been able to get the job done, but did, in spades.
It is easy to talk shit, it is harder to help. I make it a rule to help anyone who asks, up until the point they stop helping themselves.
I would call your local data recovery service as they sometimes are interested in buying old drives of no particular size to use the controller cards on them.
Apparently, a lot of failed hard drives are not bad because of their physical platters, but because of the drive logic. These places need old drives for replacement controllers that you probably can't buy from the manufacturer.
There's another word for those cars and that's boring, especially the VWs.
And not all 50's and 60's cars were purely about form. That era produced some of the biggest innovations in cars ever. Fuel injection was spotted, overhead valves were common, overhead cams were being considered and used on some race motors (that the public could buy), the start of the smaller econoboxes, automatic chokes, etc. All these things happened from 1950-1969.
I will admit that there were a lot of gawdy cars back then too. Fins should have never gotten as big as they did, but they were also tastefully done as well. There were a lot of big cars, but they also had some smaller ones like the Nova or the Falcon. Even the pony cars (Mustang, Camaro) were tiny compared to some of the bigger cars.
I do agree with you about the G series Infiniti though. Those are cool cars.
What they are doing is different from old alcohol injection that merely mixed the injected fuel with ethanol before it went past the intake valve.
This method is using directly injecting ethanol similar to a diesel motor. The advantage seems to be the same effect but with way less ethanol. The article quoted having the ethanol refilled on the order of months.
While the effects of alcohol injection are well known and are not new, this method seems to make it way more practical, which is new.
gamy also gamey Pronunciation (gm) adj. gamier, gamiest 1.a. Having the flavor or odor of game, especially game that is slightly spoiled. b. Ill-smelling; rank.
2. Showing an unyielding spirit; plucky: a gamy little mare that loved to run.
3.a. Corrupt; tainted: "those considerable forces in America that appear to be tired of the old politics (particularly the gamy municipal variety)" Tom Wicker. b. Sordid; seamy. c. Sexually suggestive; racy.
Right. Because Al-Qaeda is the only and last terrorist group to ever exist. And because they instituted this thing only to fuck with terrorists.
Communications in a war or whatever they want to call blowing shit up this week is fairly important.
Not having an a plan in place to disrupt your enemy's and protect your own communications would be irresponsible, even if there is no official war.
I do agree with your comment about protecting other things first, but there's no reason to not to this just because other things aren't being done. I am sure there's someone out there trying to get those things done too.
Slashdot Mirror
It is a legal term from the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996.
A protected computer is:
(A) exclusively for the use of a financial institution or the United States Government, or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, used by or for a financial institution or the United States Government and the conduct constituting the offense affects that use by or for the financial institution or the Government; or
(B) which is used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication, including a computer located outside the United States that is used in a manner that affects interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the United States.
Since it was a web server, it falls under the interstate or foreign commerce or communication definition.
Definition lifted from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Computer
-ft
There are a couple things that you are missing that make this particular scheme work.
The first detail is that these guys don't ask for much to unlock your files. I have read they typically ask for $100 or $200. These amounts are is too small for most law enforcement to notice typically.
Another detail here is the lack of reporting. I am sure that some folks just cough up the money to get stuff unencrypted and never report it to law enforcement.
Another big detail is that they are in Russia. If the person making the transaction is in the U.S. for example, there is not much any bank or law enforcement agency can do to recover that money once it lands in a Russian bank, especially when you consider that it is only $100 - $200.
This goes back to the cooperation between the Russian govt. and organized crime that others have pointed out. When you have that kind of setup, money tracing is pretty ineffective as a crime fighting tool.
Here is a pretty good writeup about gpcode:
http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/2008/06/whos-behind-gpcode-ransomware.html
ft
How is it you have a five digit user id and not know who CTS is?
He writes in lower case, he has for as long as I know and probably will as long as he can type.
ft
That makes sense most of the time.
Except when you are looking for a job.
ft
Agreed. The difference between large and small companies was exactly what I referring to when I said 'a lot of IT jobs' as opposed to saying 'all IT jobs'. I guess it is a matter of perspective as I have been at a lot of small shops and it sounds like you may have the opposite history.
I now work for a large company and fully understand the point you make.
ft
I would have to disagree with this for a lot of IT jobs. Two to four years at an IT job is a long time due to the flux that our industry has. Hell, two to four years is longer than some companies stay in business. I knew a guy that had LITERALLY 27 jobs in 24 years, now that's a red flag.
ft
No, we didn't.
Some of us started out just like this guy. Some of us are 'self taught'. Some of us might acually say that going to school for this stuff is weak.
I personally reserve judgement for this guy and anyone else. I have run into a million dudes that had 'training' who lacked severely. I have also run into a fair amount of dudes that really shouldn't have been able to get the job done, but did, in spades.
It is easy to talk shit, it is harder to help. I make it a rule to help anyone who asks, up until the point they stop helping themselves.
ft
I did the same thing when I was trying to go from w2k to something besides XP. Don't ask my why, I just was.
Anyway, I downloaded some drivers for my laptop and the install denied me with a specific message that the drivers did not support 2003 on a Laptop.
Has anyone else had this happen?
Browsing through the section on drivers on his site does not mention this for 2008. Perhaps it is a non issue now-a-days.
ft
When you get to tell all these lies to the same person, you know you are doing something right. ft
I would call your local data recovery service as they sometimes are interested in buying old drives of no particular size to use the controller cards on them.
Apparently, a lot of failed hard drives are not bad because of their physical platters, but because of the drive logic. These places need old drives for replacement controllers that you probably can't buy from the manufacturer.
ft
If you cannot reuse the current chassis, I would take a look at these guys:
www.plinkusa.net
They have about the dirt cheapest bare rackmount chassis and accessories that I have run across.
ft
Thanks, I did not know about that.
It looks like there are some tricks to get the full 900mhz back.
I have an EEE and I am glad you brought it up so I can go try to 'fix' mine.
ft
The EEE has a 900mhz Celeron.
Is there a such thing as a non-ridiculous online name?
Most of the ones I run across are pretty silly.
ft
Umm, he meant as opposed to 'oriental' not 'Chinese'.
ft
Let's say you lost your job. I would like to see you try that with a possible new employer.
Then when you are unemployed no one will believe you anymore because you are not "working in Computer Security Management" anymore.
In a perfect world no one would expect a doc file. This isn't a perfect world.
ft
200x VWs and the Acura Legend are pretty?
There's another word for those cars and that's boring, especially the VWs.
And not all 50's and 60's cars were purely about form. That era produced some of the biggest innovations in cars ever. Fuel injection was spotted, overhead valves were common, overhead cams were being considered and used on some race motors (that the public could buy), the start of the smaller econoboxes, automatic chokes, etc. All these things happened from 1950-1969.
I will admit that there were a lot of gawdy cars back then too. Fins should have never gotten as big as they did, but they were also tastefully done as well. There were a lot of big cars, but they also had some smaller ones like the Nova or the Falcon. Even the pony cars (Mustang, Camaro) were tiny compared to some of the bigger cars.
I do agree with you about the G series Infiniti though. Those are cool cars.
This actually is somewhat new.
What they are doing is different from old alcohol injection that merely mixed the injected fuel with ethanol before it went past the intake valve.
This method is using directly injecting ethanol similar to a diesel motor. The advantage seems to be the same effect but with way less ethanol. The article quoted having the ethanol refilled on the order of months.
While the effects of alcohol injection are well known and are not new, this method seems to make it way more practical, which is new.
FWIW "I know what it's like to live in the real world" sense is otherwise known as the willing suspension of disbelief:
i ef
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbel
ft
I was unaware.
Thanks.
I would like to know the purpose of the pepper as well.
ft
Tell that to BMW, Mercedes and Ferrari.
More technical version:
http://www.lurhq.com/mocbot-spam.html
There are more interesting papers on lurhq's site:
http://www.lurhq.com/research_threat.html
-ft
...did the submitter have in mind?
gamy also gamey Pronunciation (gm)
adj. gamier, gamiest
1.a. Having the flavor or odor of game, especially game that is slightly spoiled.
b. Ill-smelling; rank.
2. Showing an unyielding spirit; plucky: a gamy little mare that loved to run.
3.a. Corrupt; tainted: "those considerable forces in America that appear to be tired of the old politics (particularly the gamy municipal variety)" Tom Wicker.
b. Sordid; seamy.
c. Sexually suggestive; racy.
Right. Because Al-Qaeda is the only and last terrorist group to ever exist. And because they instituted this thing only to fuck with terrorists.
Communications in a war or whatever they want to call blowing shit up this week is fairly important.
Not having an a plan in place to disrupt your enemy's and protect your own communications would be irresponsible, even if there is no official war.
I do agree with your comment about protecting other things first, but there's no reason to not to this just because other things aren't being done. I am sure there's someone out there trying to get those things done too.