Looks like the OP is doing a hack - he is trying to achieve his goal [of destroying parts of the botnet] by hacking legal system, since he can not do this on his own...
Resourceful!
Please do not take down the Sality botnet
61–70 of 148 posts
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#62The guy takes all the time to put this together, write this up, and is perfectly ok with the outcome, but instead of going to a coffee shop and doing this himself, he spends a lengthy amount of time writing up instructions and giving the criminals a chance to fix their injection problems before someone can take down the botnet. Baffling. Not only that, but this guy seems to know what he's doing and instead of someone…
Who should he tell?
If any of the victims are in the UK he could try the Police Central e-crime Unit. (It's all 'cyber', a word which feels strangely quaint.)
(http://www.met.police.uk/pceu/)
Or he could try Microsofts digital crime unit.
(http://www.microsoft.com/government/ww/safety-defense/initia...)
Any other contact addresses?
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actual lawyer. He's generally right, in the U.S. at least. Suggesting that someone commit an illegal act does not rise to the level of conspiracy. You have to actually do something meaningful to support the criminal effort to be charged with conspiracy. In certain circumstances, incitement can be a crime, but the threshold for that crime is very high.
He did provide the tools and instructions, to be fair. I'm not sure if that counts as 'something meaningful', but it's something more than just suggesting, anyway.
He's provided some tools and instructions but he seems to have been fairly careful not to provide everything you'd need - there would still need to be a not inconsiderable application of skill and effort from someone.
Essentially he's not loading the gun, putting it in someone's hand and pointing it just waiting for them to squeeze the trigger. My reading is it's closer to him saying where you might find someone you want to shoot and pointing out the gun store.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#64Does anyone know exactly why it's illegal to take down Sality?
Messing with other people's computers in any form without their information and consent is usually prohibited by law. A slightly broken analogy would be breaking into a house to remove a hornets nest. Even if you do it carefully and not do any damage and what you do is beneficial for the community as a whole, it's contrary to the law.
"A slightly broken analogy would be breaking into a house to remove a hornets nest. Even if you do it carefully and not do any damage and what you do is beneficial for the community as a whole, it's contrary to the law."
On the other hand, you can't give a choking person the heimlich maneuver, or perform CPR on someone, without physical contact that could be construed as assault (or battery? not sure) in any other context.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
If my neighbours hornets nest had killer hornets that were biting all the children in the neighbourhood and the police / council refused to do anything; then it'd be a damned shame if someone neatly removed the hornets nest. Of course that wouldn't make it any more legal; but your defence would have a field day with the prosecution I'd imagine. IANAL but I've watched the first double episode of The Firm, and I reckon…
I'm curious now. What if my neighbours house was on fire? That fire threatens the whole neighbourhood. Surely I can protect my property by attempting to put out the fire. Do firefighters have indeminty for attempting to put out fires? What about volunteer firefighters? Obviously I consider a house on fire to be analagous to an infected computer, but I do have some protection putting out a fire right? Nobody would sue…
With a house on fire you're taking reasonable action to protect life.
In general, when you do something you then take responsibility for the consequences of that action. Thus, if there was a tiny fire and you flooded the house with water and foam and caused considerable water damage you may find the home owner suing for damage caused. You could counter by saying you prevented much more damage, but they'd say that a competent fire-fighter would have done that and avoided all the water damage.
The analogy fails (as they always do) because there are specific criminal laws around computer misuse / unauthorised use. Running software on someone's machine without their permission is unlawful.
You may have mitigation if you can claim that the harm from the botnet was more severe than the harm caused by the clean-up-hacking.
It is frustrating. I used to say "Don't fight abuse with abuse", but it's pretty hard to keep that attitude in the face of so much malware and spam.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#66The guy takes all the time to put this together, write this up, and is perfectly ok with the outcome, but instead of going to a coffee shop and doing this himself, he spends a lengthy amount of time writing up instructions and giving the criminals a chance to fix their injection problems before someone can take down the botnet. Baffling. Not only that, but this guy seems to know what he's doing and instead of someone…
I apologize in advance for the tone, but as a Russian I have a question - are you racist? Since Sergey Brin and Mila Yovovich are "russians", do you imply that Google and Hollywood are part of this botnet? The most famous hacker is Kevin Mitnick [american] and most recent hackers charged/arrested by FBI are also american citizens. Why don't you change "russians" to "americans"? Or may be "new_zealanders" [Kim dot com…
Indeed. The word criminals would be more accurate and less pejorative.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#67The guy takes all the time to put this together, write this up, and is perfectly ok with the outcome, but instead of going to a coffee shop and doing this himself, he spends a lengthy amount of time writing up instructions and giving the criminals a chance to fix their injection problems before someone can take down the botnet. Baffling. Not only that, but this guy seems to know what he's doing and instead of someone…
I apologize in advance for the tone, but as a Russian I have a question - are you racist? Since Sergey Brin and Mila Yovovich are "russians", do you imply that Google and Hollywood are part of this botnet? The most famous hacker is Kevin Mitnick [american] and most recent hackers charged/arrested by FBI are also american citizens. Why don't you change "russians" to "americans"? Or may be "new_zealanders" [Kim dot com…
I agree that it is a prejudice and should be avoided, but it's not completely groundless:
According to industry analyses, Russia accounts for about 35 percent of
global cybercrime revenue, or between $2.5 and $3.7 billion. That’s wildly
out of proportion with the country’s share of the global information
technology market (which is around 1 percent).
It's not that Russians are inherently cybercriminals, but the country does seem to be currently suffering from conditions that help it foster.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#68The guy takes all the time to put this together, write this up, and is perfectly ok with the outcome, but instead of going to a coffee shop and doing this himself, he spends a lengthy amount of time writing up instructions and giving the criminals a chance to fix their injection problems before someone can take down the botnet. Baffling. Not only that, but this guy seems to know what he's doing and instead of someone…
I apologize in advance for the tone, but as a Russian I have a question - are you racist? Since Sergey Brin and Mila Yovovich are "russians", do you imply that Google and Hollywood are part of this botnet? The most famous hacker is Kevin Mitnick [american] and most recent hackers charged/arrested by FBI are also american citizens. Why don't you change "russians" to "americans"? Or may be "new_zealanders" [Kim dot com…
I think you're playing the race card and ignoring the facts. Which is pretty lame.
As a brit, I fully appreciate and understand why some people in the world hate all britons. We've done some bad things as a nation in recent years and people have a right to tar us all with the same brush. I understand why it would be unsafe for me to walk the streets of Kabul or Baghdad. If any brit has a problem with the way other people look at them, it's their job as a citizen in a democracy to affect the change they want to see in people's attitude towards this country and it's people.
Except when it's the French. There's no pleasing those cheese eating surrender monkeys.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#69The guy takes all the time to put this together, write this up, and is perfectly ok with the outcome, but instead of going to a coffee shop and doing this himself, he spends a lengthy amount of time writing up instructions and giving the criminals a chance to fix their injection problems before someone can take down the botnet. Baffling. Not only that, but this guy seems to know what he's doing and instead of someone…
Not really baffling, just obviously sarcasm + he couldn't legally say for anyone to use the tools.
Re: Please do not take down the Sality botnet
#70Does anyone know exactly why it's illegal to take down Sality?
Messing with other people's computers in any form without their information and consent is usually prohibited by law. A slightly broken analogy would be breaking into a house to remove a hornets nest. Even if you do it carefully and not do any damage and what you do is beneficial for the community as a whole, it's contrary to the law.
But what if I genuinely wanted to see if I had registered a user by the name of "' or 1=1 --"? Oh well, hopefully someone else did it too, since it was posted here.
"Messing with" is very subjective.