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sounds fascinating, and fraught with peril. I'd be worried that either I'd make myself a target for these hackers/scammers, or law enforcement. Granted most o

sounds fascinating, and fraught with peril. I'd be worried that either I'd make myself a target for these hackers/scammers, or law enforcement. Granted most of the hackers/scammers probably aren't very skilled, but if you crossed one that really knew what they were doing... yikes! I'd also be worried the FBI would eventually come knocking. I'm not so sure the FBI would distinguish between someone "liberating" a botnet and turning it against the original hacker, and the hackers/scammers themselves.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago
It's not that risky. Most people over-estimate both the criminals and law enforcement. In general, the FBI aren't looking for you. Somebody has to lose a lot of money and report you, or rat you out, or make up some bullshit about terrorism (like SWATing for black hats). It's also not hard to hide your connections from them. The people who get caught are ratted out by their friends and are very predictable. In terms of "crossing someone"... these are script kiddies who paid for some malware on a forum, or paid for someone to build them a botnet. Most takeovers happen via social engineering... these people aren't very smart. Even if a criminal gang wanted to track someone down, it would be pretty hard if you did the least amount of covering yourself and didn't tell anyone. But hackers can be lazy and have big mouths, so...