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Microsoft, FBI Take Down 'Citadel' Botnet Targeting Bank Info
- ambiate 13y agoIf I had penetrated the bot net, provided full documentation on the incident and cleansed the drones or controller I would be placed in jail for 30+ years.
- jonknee 13y agoIf you raided a business and confiscated all their files/servers you would also be facing charges. There are a lot of things the FBI can do that you cannot do.
- adrr 13y agoIf you do it under a business entity and for profit, you don't goto jail. Just get a fine. Good example was the sony rootkit or all toolbars/spyware that use browser exploits to install their software. Even though these are clearly a violation of unauthorized access laws.
- greenyoda 13y agoAgreed, but your business entity probably has to be big enough to afford very good lawyers (and maybe have political connections) to avoid criminal charges. I doubt that a small startup could get away with what Sony did.
- bhauer 13y agoI admit this has nothing to do with the content: I have never seen a longer list of domain names to reject or authorize in Noscript. I gave up and navigated away in disgust.
- null_ptr 13y agoHonestly I whitelist every site in NoScript (but keep it for its click jacking protection and other things that apply to all websites), and use Ghostery and AdBlock Plus to block the irrelevant ads and widgets that are everywhere. It's a nice compromise between blocking evil things and still being able to use most of the web.
- ihsw 13y agoTheir advocacy of public-private partnerships is interesting: > Creating successful public-private relationships—in which tools, knowledge, and intelligence are shared—is the ultimate key to success in addressing cyber threats and is among the highest priorities of the FBI. It sounds like a page out of the CISPA propaganda handbook, and it seems to indicate that CISPA will eventually pass.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- epoxyhockey 13y agoMicrosoft has supported SOPA, PIPA and CISPA (though later opposed SOPA after community backlash), so I wouldn't go as far to predict the outcome of CISPA based on Microsoft's actions or the words of a hopeful G-man.
- nknighthb 13y agoIt's actually a point against CISPA. Its authoritarian advocates keep whining about how impossible it is for private companies to cooperate with law enforcement on security issues, yet here we are, no CISPA, and yet Microsoft and the FBI are cooperating.
- quackerhacker 13y agoCISPA was just the 'legal ammunition,' that the gov needed to prove what they may already know in court...and to of course release liability (more like bad PR), against the companies who are the sources.
- spoiledtechie 13y agoLove hearing about these takedowns.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sbarre 13y agoThis feels like random speculation. If these alleged backdoors existed, I'm almost certain they would have been exposed by independent researchers by now. It's more likely that these botnets were taken down by analyzing and tracing network traffic (with the collaboration of larger peering points) and finding the C&C machines and taking those out.
- freehunter 13y agoYou mean backdoors such as Microsoft Security Essentials and SmartScreen? The security applications? That doesn't need to be proven in court, it's a well-publicized feature that Microsoft is very proud of. And, like every anti-virus software, it profiles the applications running on your computer and reports their behavior back to Microsoft. That's how Microsoft knows what botnets are controlling the OS. That's how Avast knows, how AVG knows, how Panda knows, how Norton knows, how McAfee knows, how every AV knows. It's not a backdoor, it's a basic security feature.