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Ask HN: Is it illegal to combat DDOS with a virus?
We have the source for the botnet that seems to have caused yesterday's internet outage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12766950
Is it illegal to use this same code to go clean up infected devices, and also change their passwords to something more secure? I imagine the changing of the password would be illegal. Is there some action such a virus could take that would fix the problem legally?
- dozzie 10y agoIllegal in which country? Botnet's span is unlikely to be limited to USA only.
- christophilus 10y agoGood point. USA, specifically, as that's where I live. I wonder if I'd be prosecuted if I tried to help combat this by creating a white-hat version of the software.
- wayn3 10y agoUusually, crime is prosecuted based on where it happened, not where the perceived victim is located. If you alter other peoples devices FROM the US, US law applies.
- dragonbonheur 10y agoYou're essentially appropriating other people's computing resources for your own agenda, even if it's a good one, without the owner's permission. That's a crime. I'd just suggest using the scanning portion to identify unsecured connections that should be added to a firewall's blacklist. Maybe that could be a good SAAS service that would provide a blacklist of all unsecured IOT devices and printers to everyone interested for blacklisting purposes.
- AznHisoka 10y agoDon't most of these devices send an unique user agent indicating what type of device it's from? If so why not block based on that?
- RandomlyGen 10y agoYou'd still need to parse the UA, which takes resources. Plus the attackers have root. What's preventing them from spoofing the UA?