Vigilante Hacking

http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/se...1319_3327391_2

I'm sure a lot of you have already read the article from AntiOnline's sister website. (I'm suprised no one's started a thread on it already.) Something tells me this company won't be around for long. How can they possibly get away with this legally? Isn't this the equivalanet of "now instead of going to court, you can go hunt down your mugger yourself!"

I think the scariest point of this article is concerning the innocent users who would inevitably get caught in the middle, a point well made. How could they differentiate between actual attackers and infected/hijacked users?

Indeed, if something this far out in left field were to succeed, I'd bet it would worsen matters considerably. You fight fire with fire, you just get a bigger fire.

Anyone have some alternate viewpoints or insights on this?

I brought this up here. I actually was considering doing an interview and review of their product but it's seems to be hugely PR right now. The product doesn't even appear to be beta. I'd still have concerns over legal issues of this product since it potentially could result in innocent victims being attacked. The one problem is that there is a lack of clear information (it's all vague innuendo right now) so if we understood better how it worked then we'd understand better if it really is a new valuable option or more of a legal risk.

:)

"It's like swatting at flies...", and GrandMa's computer merrily keeps spitting out a bunch of packets with spoofed source IP's. I say, blast the box and let the grandson fix it.................

"GrandMa, your computer is infected with a virus, thats why it doesn't work anymore. We'll need to get you ZoneAlarm"

"Whats that, kid?"

"Uuhhh, just something to keep you protected, while I'm playing with my toys..."

Well, if we wait long enough, maybe IPv6 will come to the rescue.

g8way2u

Yay, the great MsMittens posted to one of my threads! ;) Thanks for the thread link.

Well, this should be a most fascinating story to follow, plenty of juicy controversy in the works it seems...

Let's make it a party :) [negging done]

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This hardly even counts as vigilante hacking in my opinion, it's more like random fireback. I mean we might get to the point where there are so many packets that entire ISPs will crumble. Think of two computers running this program, one of which is compromised. It send the DoS and receives back a packet that seems to try to DoS it, so a war is waged by machines against machines, to the point that only by pluging the system out might one stop it. Think of DoS attacks that come from within a network [smurf, for example] that will cause the netwrok to crumble in a matter of minutes [even seconds, maybe]

Anyway I hope this does not go through.

P.S. I know this is an older topic but since it resurfaced...

Quote:

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Think of DoS attacks that come from within a network [smurf, for example] that will cause the netwrok to crumble in a matter of minutes [even seconds, maybe]

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I doubt that will happen that fast. It is possible though, to eventually crumble the network...but not that fast. With the resource available today, ISPs have plenty of more juice to pass around. Also, if they detect (Which they probably will) a HUMONGUOUS amount of packets going back and forth....they will kill the connection. I'm sure simple DDOS attacks these days go unseen by many ISPs...but with the possibility of having to machines go at each other's throat, they will most likely implement a packet monitor and measure the ammount of packets going from one place to the other. If they reach a particular number, Kill the switch.