[cousinlucky]

This week I was exposed to the story of Jeanson James Ancheta and his exploits of using botnets. To me this stuff is quite troubling. It makes me wonder how many other creations exist on the Internet to victimize us lowly home computer users.

[fingal]

I just deleted my original message: the one that asked, 'What's all that about?' Since then I've done a bit of reading up. I suppose there must be a few more spammers out there like that chap.

Apparently, they can drum up a fair bit of income by creating 'zombie' networks. A lot of it comes from pop-up advertising banners and blackmailing rackets run by network crackers. This guy had a BMW and a few other goodies from his criminal activities - But I don't suppose he'll get a job in IT when he gets out of the nick.

[TheAngelsOwl]

Ok

When you own a botnet yourself, you feel kinda powerful. ( This is from a script kiddies point of view ) If you have 100k bots under your control, thats 100,000 computers that you can control and make attack a target on the internet.

OR

You can make money out of the botnet....

I am not a script kiddie myself, I write all my own code. I have met plenty of script kiddies who have there own botnet of up to 250 thousand bots.

Its too easy to gain an exploit from a very popular exploit listing site ( You can find them in google ) you then implement the exploit into the bot and send it off. Depending on how " pro " the bot is they usaully spread fairly fast.

There is a solution, but its too big to comprehend. - Datacenters. Dedicated servers... The majority of bots are rooted servers in Datacenters such as ev1servers.net, theplanet.com who provide dedicated servers to the public for a price. However, these users are not implementing enough security into the system and it is easily rooted.

But, i guess it is an overall security problem. Home users not installing any security etc on a dsl/cable connection is one of the most popular bot targets.

anyways enough of my ranting

[cousinlucky]

The story i read at: http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8FAPCJ80.html

was a complete suprise to me. Here I had been mostly blaming Microsoft for all of the problems I had encountered while using Windows XP on the Internet.

Besides the bots, are there any other widespead infections in major use at this time?

[fingal]

Originally Posted by cousinlucky

The story i read at: http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8FAPCJ80.html

was a complete suprise to me. Here I had been mostly blaming Microsoft for all of the problems I had encountered while using Windows XP on the Internet.

Besides the bots, are there any other widespead infections in major use at this time?

You might visit http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/defau...us/default.asp for that information. The situation with viruses and security threats is always very fluid and changes from week to week.

Many viruses depend on public ignorance though ... In most cases, if you delete them straight away they don't seem to do much damage (I got rid of a Bagle virus email at work the other week).

Some viruses are written accidentally (the Morris Worm being a famous example) others contain their own email client software so that they can disseminate themselves without using Outlook etc.

[cousinlucky]

Thank you for the links Fingal. Again I feel out of place. It just seems a shame to me that something with the potential to enhance humanity so greatly is being used so freely just to exploit others. It is just so very sad!!

[fingal]

Originally Posted by cousinlucky

Thank you for the links Fingal. Again I feel out of place. It just seems a shame to me that something with the potential to enhance humanity so greatly is being used so freely just to exploit others. It is just so very sad!!

Thanks for creating an interesting discussion. Yes, it's very sad. On the other hand although these things happen it's media driven. There's always a good story in whipping up a bit of paranoia about viruses (even if it's a true story!)

The media don't tell us about all the positive stuff though. Like how great it feels to contribute something to a community. About the scientific advances made - with the aid of our favourite technology.

I suppose there's a dark side to everything!?

[cousinlucky]

The media also does not mention ongoing criminal enterprises like America on Line or the many other corrupt Internet Service Providers. The media also ignores the suffering ordinary people must daily endure for the crime of being alive and law-abiding. Reality is just not pretty.

[fingal]

Originally Posted by cousinlucky

The media also does not mention ongoing criminal enterprises like America on Line or the many other corrupt Internet Service Providers. The media also ignores the suffering ordinary people must daily endure for the crime of being alive and law-abiding. Reality is just not pretty.

Yes I agree 100% . I've reached the conclusion that the media doesn't just try to report the news, it tries to create it as well. It has a huge and unhealthy influence on all of us ...

It's all too easy to become a victim in our world isn't it?

[smartebiz]

Interesting thread. I am new to marketing online and just read an article called "The Silent Epidemic of Botnets" by Jim Hedger. It looked at different botnet cases that were prosecuted. It's quite disturbing that this kind of activity is going on.

The media also does not mention ongoing criminal enterprises like America on Line or the many other corrupt Internet Service Providers

.
I had no idea about them, I'll check that out further.