US charges 'Botmaster' in unique computer crime

[Wordie]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2005-11-03T235315Z_01_MOL385869_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-BOTMASTER.xml
<snip>
US charges 'Botmaster' in unique computer crime
Thu Nov 3, 2005 6:53 PM ET
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 20-year-old man accused of using thousands of hijacked computers, or "bot nets," to damage systems and send massive amounts of spam across the Internet was arrested on Thursday in what authorities called the first such prosecution of its kind.

Jeanson James Ancheta, who prosecutors say was a well-known member of the "Botmaster Underground" -- or the secret network of computer hackers skilled at bot attacks -- was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles, said U.S. Attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek.

A bot is a program that surreptitiously installs itself on a computer and allows the hacker to control the computer. A bot net is a network of such robot computers, which can harness their collective power to do considerable damage or send out huge quantities of spam.

Mrozek said the prosecution was unique because, unlike in previous cases, Ancheta was accused of profiting from his attacks -- by selling access to his "bot nets" to other hackers and planting adware -- software that causes ads to pop up -- into infected computers.

[TacticalPeek]

1. They busted Gates?!

:evilgrin:

[expatriot]

2. I just hope our Grovelbot isn't involved in this mess. nt

[henslee]

3. Hahahahah.

:rofl:

[ikri]

4. Excellent news

I really hope that there are some investigations going on into all of the spam gangs who have created these tools. They are highly sophisticated viruses, professionally designed and totally different to the usual script kiddie nonsense.

I think a new form of punishment should be created for these cretins, designing tools to take control of people's computers and profiting very well from the abuse, something along the lines of being hacked to death with a rusty spoon would suffice.

[Crayson]

5. You mean like the secretly installed Sony Spyware

It's always the same with criminals.
There are those with suits that do the same criminal things and get away with it!

Which gets installed secretly onto your computer core as soon as you play one of Sony's copy protected CD's on your computers CD-ROM ?

That they are illegaly installing software onto your computer without your consent?
That they are altering your computers basic functions and in some cases endangering it to not work properly anymore?
And that if you attempt to remove it without highly sophisticated knowledge your computers CD-ROM drive is broken and the only help is to reinstall your operation system (with all those OEM preinstalled recovery disk people out there who don't know how to REALLY install an OS.. good luck)


<http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,123362,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp>

Installing a bot and taking control of your computer is much the same as Sony installing a spyware and taking control of your CD-ROM

[ikri]

6. I agree

Though Sony's rootkit isn't really spyware, it's a rootkit.

In theory, what Sony has done is far worse. The rootkit works at the system level and replaces the drivers for CD and DVD readers and writers which means removing the malware will prevent you from reading any CD or DVD unless you know how to replace the drivers manually. The rootkit may allow Sony to take control of your PC remotely or install other potentially hostile code on your machine and if this is the case then, since the rootkit was bought from a 3rd party, there's a chance the software and ability to access infected PCs could be obtained by people with even less scruples than Sony.

Sony's attitude to this has been bizarre. Tackle piracy by punishing the very people who have purchased the CD. I genuinely hope that Sony is sued for millions for this abuse to show other companies that it is never OK to harm other people's property because there's a chance they might copy a CD.

[Wordie]

9. That is outrageous! What could they have been thinking? eom

[Wordie]

8. Gee, I never heard of something like that. Hope it is stopped.

[ErisFiveFingers]

7. Use RICO

Take him down, and take all of his clients down.

Edit: Spulling.