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Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

zdnet.com

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Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#31

Post by archi42 »

zaarn wrote: post #26
ErikHuisman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is NOT mandatory. This is courtesy of the press but there are no laws or regulations.

It's mandatory if the newspaper want to continue being a respected newspaper. So for all intents and purposes it's mandatory.

I can second this. You don't read the full names of suspects (!) in a newspaper in Germany. I believe this is actually due to the law here (e.g. if they're innocent, their name is not ruined). That is somewhat relaxed, as long as they're not a public figure (e.g. no one would say "Angela M. is suspected to be a physicist" if it's about the German Chancellor) and as long as it's clear from the article that they're not (yet) convicted.

Can't speak for the rest of Europe of course.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#32

Post by krageon »

avar wrote: post #10
krageon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs 2.50 to check the names of the owners of these companies at the chamber of commerce if that makes you doubt whether or not it's actually the name. This means that the owners were effectively outed by the publication anyway.

Not really, the point of Dutch privacy law (and similar EU laws) in this context is not to deter a dedicated investigator, but to merely put enough of a hurdle in place that everyone reading the article won't see the names of suspects, and they won't show up in web searches etc.

If the bar for being a "dedicated investigator" is copy-pasting a string and paying 2.50, I think we just have different views on this. Your views about the intent of specific laws aren't relevant, as there are AFAIK no laws about news publications that apply to what we are talking about.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#33

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

philprx wrote: post #30
Kaotique wrote: post #25

I was in elementary school with one of the suspects. He was always a troubled kid. Very sad how that turned out.

This is not bidirectional though,.. many troubled kids become great people.

Many "normal" kids become troubled adults, too.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#34

Post by Fnoord »

xaitv wrote: post #16
avar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, the point of Dutch privacy law (and similar EU laws) in this context is not to deter a dedicated investigator, but to merely put enough of a hurdle in place that everyone reading the article won't see the names of suspects, and they won't show up in web searches etc.

Iirc it's not even an actual law, more of an agreement between all news organizations to not publish names like that. I seem to recall Geenstijl(Dutch "news" site) publishing full names and not getting in trouble over it.

Geenstijl doesn't have high journalist standards.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#35

Post by vanderZwan »

asymptotically2 wrote: post #13
saag4dinner wrote: post #6

"hosting all sorts of badies, from phishing pages to vulnerability scanners, and from crypto-mining operations to malware repositories." Is crypto-mining now a bad thing or is this article leaving out some details that I'm missing?

People mine on systems that they do not own. Try leaving SSH open with weak credentials, or use any software with a recently disclosed RCE. It won't be long until somebody drops a Monero miner.

I mean, I've seen ad-block filters for scripts that try to crypto-mine via peoples browsers through ads on websites, so this is hardly surprising.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#36

Post by systemtest »

rolfvandekrol wrote: post #2

I love how they don't tell the full name of Marco B. and Angelo K., but do tell that they companies were called "Bos IT Holding BV" and "Kreikamp IT Holding BV".

I remember articles in the style of: "Dennis B., son of Jan Bredewold". I believe it was the Telegraaf newspaper.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#37

Post by systemtest »

krageon wrote: post #8
Ligrev wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bos means a forest, likely nothing to do with his name

It costs 2.50 to check the names of the owners of these companies at the chamber of commerce if that makes you doubt whether or not it's actually the name. This means that the owners were effectively outed by the publication anyway.

Especially with the UBO-register* it will be very easy to see which (natural) persons are tied to a company.

* Ultimate Beneficial Owner

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#38

Post by grepthisab »

silviot wrote: post #28

I thought the initial `D` in DDOS sttod for "distributed". The article reports about "DDoS botnets operating on KV's infrastructure". Wouldn't "DDoS botnets operated from KV's infrastructure" be a better description?

I run a distributed system on AWS infrastructure. It's still distributed by all common usage of the word.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#39

Post by giancarlostoro »

silviot wrote: post #28

I thought the initial `D` in DDOS sttod for "distributed". The article reports about "DDoS botnets operating on KV's infrastructure". Wouldn't "DDoS botnets operated from KV's infrastructure" be a better description?

The server that commands the zombies has to run from somewhere. So it's likely the host was used as the Command and Control hub.

Re: Dutch police take down hornets' nest of DDoS botnets

#40

Post by wwwhizz »

Fnoord wrote: post #34
xaitv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc it's not even an actual law, more of an agreement between all news organizations to not publish names like that. I seem to recall Geenstijl(Dutch "news" site) publishing full names and not getting in trouble over it.

Geenstijl doesn't have high journalist standards.

But they do have to follow the law, which is his point.
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