The case of the rent-a-zombies

Vast networks of home computers are being rented out without their owners' knowledge to spammers, fraudsters and digital saboteurs, security experts said on Wednesday.

The terminals have been infected by a computer virus, turning them into "zombies"--slaves to the commands of a malicious and unseen controller. Connect them all up, and the result is a powerful network of zombie PCs that security experts call a "botnet."

The programming crooks--often teenage bedroom hackers--are hiring out these networks to anyone who wants to commit Internet mischief.

"Small groups of young people creating a resource out of a 10,000- to 30,000-strong computer network are renting them out to anybody who has the money," a source in Scotland Yard's computer crime unit told Reuters.

There may be millions of such PCs around the world doing the bidding of crime gangs, experts say, and they can be rented for as little as $100 per hour.

Read Article

sounds like an attempt to create more FUD to me, no doubt there is some brand spanking new piece of software that you can buy for $50 to fix this.

Also, the Scotland yard computer crime unit is about as useful as a condom machine in the vatican, so lets not get too afraid just yet.

FUD, FUD, and more FUD

When will it end..??

/edit -- [Comment removed to save Angelic from further self-inflicted embarrassment :D]

Wait, hold on. I'm confused (maybe it's cuz I just woke up). Why are you guy's negging him?

Hmmm,

Quote:

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Also, the Scotland yard computer crime unit is about as useful as a condom machine in the vatican

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Whatever happened to firewalls? and how much can you get for an infrequently turned on zombie at 56.6K?

My money is on the condom machine :D

Honey traps............to catch the little crapheads at it...........

FBI = Federal Bureau of Incompetents?

USSS = Unconvincingly secretive stupid scumbags


Judge for yourself?

my thoughts :cool:

Notice anything a little "advertisingish" about that post? It tells us about the presence of zombies (as if we of all people didn't already know) and then conveniently provides the signature for a spyware/AV company. Suspicious, hmm?

In all fairness, if he proves me wrong, I'll rescind my comments. But so far, I see spam.

Conveniently? It's in the dude's signature. LOL, he's oblidged to have it in there as many people have link's to their site's in their signature. So yeh, no reason to neg him.

Well, given he's "NeonWizard" with the signature for the company "NeonComputing" and starting a thread about a common problem that the company in question fixes looks suspicious.

Ok, maybe I'm just jumping the gun. If so, don't take it personally dude, it just came off that way. We're just used to that kinda thing around here.

Angelic~

Chill out man...........................you can rent these for as little as $100 per hour..............so we give him $10 "finders fee" and that gives us $45 each per hour.............you have been coming into some older ones, maybe we could charge $150 for my ones over 1.5GHz?...........OK I would let them cool for 4 hours per day?, and work on an average of $100? We must have over 40 between us?

20x90x365=$657,000 x40boxes =$26,280,000........................which island in the carribean should we purchase?..............do you like sea food :)

Or something like that

:eek:

Quote:

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Originally posted here by Spyder32
Wait, hold on. I'm confused (maybe it's cuz I just woke up). Why are you guy's negging him?

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because they are *****ing morons

Ah, geez, now ya'll are making me feel guilty! Ok, ok, if Neon comes back and says he's ligit, I'll green him next time around to balance out. Geez. Stinkin' conscience.

So Nihil, I have no clue what you're talking about...What are we renting? We definately need to go with that AO Nihil Translator idea... Or have a "How to speak Nihilish" tutorial. ;)

And lumpy, I'll have you know I'm not a f'ing moron. I just...um...have occasional ID-10-T errors...yeah...

Oddly enough, talking to him on PM a couple time's and reading alot of his post's, I've learned nihilian (official language). Nihilian in english is Nihilish but still ;) I learned his "language"? See.. ;) :D

Quote:

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because they are *****ing morons

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Yeh, true! haha

Angelic~

I was referring to the idea that it would cost you $100 per hour to rent a zombie............I felt that we could offer a better dedicated service, and just costed it.

And if you can rent 30,000 zombies for $100/hr that is patently crap.............you could not control them from a bedroom punk machine!

I am sorry, I respond to nonsense in like kind...........

:D

Ooooooh ok.

Quote:

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I am sorry, I respond to nonsense in like kind...........

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Yeah, you got me...so every once in a decade I make a mistake or two. :D *waves white flag* Besides, my turn was up to be a cranky senior member.

Angelic~

My comments were on the economics :)

At $100 per hour, per machine............it is obviously ridiculous............

At $100 per hour for 30,000 machines............it isn't worth doing the time for, throwing trash for the rest of your life for, going to the big house for?

Anyway, would you try to manage 30,000 computers across the globe?............the best I have heard is a few hundred per punk? OK I am sure that there are those that claim to have "owned" more, but things are different now?

You would immediately attract the attention of the FBI, USSS, and a lot of others..............not a good idea I would have thought.

Cheers

Indeed, that is a bit odd there. Hmm...so we could go get that island...AO Island... ;)

You guys confuse the *CENSOR* out of me. Anyways... the defenition of nihil is "nothing"....literally it means nothing, nil, nada, zilch...so you learned nothinglish?

Anyways...I can't understand for **** what nihil talks about half the time :D....but its all good, Compared to learning about networks and forensics....its not that bad.

Anyways...i've noticed that the people who are the most triggerhappy with negs are the newer members...as soon as they get 11 dots..they'll chill :)...kinda like reaching puberty or neutering a dog...they'll stop humping your leg


And no they're not *****ing morons, they're just...."happy".:D

Heh heh, yeah I guess you're right. I'm usually the one defending noobs against the trigger happy folks, so this turned out a little backwards for once...Ah well, my bad. *voice cracks*

I want to rent some zombies. There is this one, "security site" I want to DDOS. :D

LOL Don't worry about it. The site is just something I do for security and that kind of thing, it's on a free server. It's only info and links, i don't sell anything.

Quote:

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There is this one, "security site" I want to DDOS

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Not a problem. I just need your user name and password...
:cool:

??? Don't understand what you guys are talking about, Nilih makes perfect sense to me. I don't have a bit of trouble understanding where he is coming from ( or even going to.)

Johnno, I think your humor just goes right over their heads.....LOL

Thankyou Mox~

I guess that I am rather old and have had to deal with beancounters, marketing types, and engineers in the weapons of mass destruction industry.

You cannot tell a director/EVP "no", but you can make a point without directly opposing him.

So, my point to Angelic was, if you rent one of these boxes at $100 per hour, between us we have enough to net $26million a year? now that does not quite add up to me.

On the other hand, if you can rent 10,000 to 30,000 for $100 per hour that seems cool, until they( the FBI and Secret Service) jump through the windows at 03.00 hrs with their flak jackets and MP5's............anyone remember Waco?...........you would be such big business, and doing it for commercial gain, you would be caught...............this is not crap run out of skiddies' bedrooms folks.......THAT is the CRAP! I personally doubt if a single skiddie has much more than 300 zombies these days.

So both scenarios are logically ridiculous........and I am expected to respond in a serious manner? and the hypothetical EVP will see that neither case can be so, and hopefully butt out............until the next time, of course :D

In no way am I trying to run down younger people, hey maybe you can learn a few cute tricks from some of of us older types who have encountered these problems?

I am not accusing anyone of marketing anything..............it won't protect me against DDoS as much as 10 in the big house will? and I am quite able to look after my own box, otherwise send me the FREE software because it is to protect YOU not ME, from someone using my machine to attack you............now you possibly realise one of my reasons for using WinME on a PII/266?

They would just walk away, even if they did get in

:D

My translation/overview of this thread:

1. In the first place Angelic was right . Neon was spreading FUD to hawk his wares.
2. Some people weren't as quick as Angelic to pick up on the subtleties and gave him a bit of a hard time.
3. Nihil piped up in his inimitable way and confused Angelic.
4. Angelic, not understanding Nihil, began a process of "withdrawal".
5. Nihil, again in his inimitable way, tried to explain... Which further confused Angelic and threw him into AO despair.
6. Neon came back and claimed not to be hawking, (I haven't even checked)
7. SexyBad threw in his usual "diversion"
8. Mox came into the fray and claims to understand "everything" Nihil comes up with indicating that either they are both messed up or that he enjoys as much of the better wines as Nihil does.... ;)
9. Nihil came back and explained, in as close to normal terms as he ever does, what the hell his point was.....

Now, I'm wondering how many other people have "got" this thread from the start, how many have found it informative and how many have found it as hilariously funny as I have...... :D

did he really mean $100 per hour per machine, or is it $100 for the whole zombie net per hour?

Also, having a net of PCs wouldn't be scary to me. I'd be more afraid of an un-documented zombie-able (if that's a word) flaw in consumer-level routing hardware.

Quote:

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The Linksys Wireless Router has just surpassed one-million units sold in less than 18 months and has surpassed monthly sales of its wired 4-port cousin- Linksys EtherFast 4-Port Router BEFSR41. Linksys is currently the nationwide leader within the U.S. wireless router retail arena with a 60-percent year to date market share, according to market tracking firm NPD Techworld. The network equipment provider is also the worldwide business leader in wireless router sales, as indicated by market research group In-Stat/MDR, with a 22 percent overall portion of unit sales through the first half of 2002.

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source: http://www.linksys.com/press/press.a...=97&cyear=2002

and these numbers are a year old...

My point is, IF the router mentioned in this article [BEFW11S4] had a flaw found by some black-hat that linksys didn't know about, then how much trouble would we be in? The routers are meant to be left on 24/7 and most are. Generate a small backdoor app that installs to the flash memory, create a virus that effects only the router, and you have a huge potential for hijinx. How many people check on their routers? For the most part i hardly think about it until a new firmware is released or i see something on bugtraq. Not to mention that these routers are locked from user-interaction aside from an html interface.

Not trying to create a scare of any kind, just my thoughts.

Quote:

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8. Mox came into the fray and claims to understand "everything" Nihil comes up with indicating that either they are both messed up or that he enjoys as much of the better wines as Nihil does....

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Waiter Waiter.....more wine over here (except I prefer Jack Danials myself).

Must be an age thingy, huh Johnno. Tiger is close but still a generation or two behind us.

No mox~

Tiger is real cool..................he should go fishin, and drinkin.........I am having one day on Saturday Tiger...........sea fishing out of Bridlington Bay...........maybe some wreck stuff................hey there are conger eels in there that would make a politician tell the truth :D ...............we are taking the mayor.......incidentally........of course............but "accidents do happen"

Actually Mox I think that Tiger's wine is a generation or two behind ours?

Cheers

EDIT:

A-G............I do not seriously believe any of the numbers. I could, for $100 per hour supply boxes to get it done in most of Asia, and they wold do what I said.................given the penalties, leasing a 10,000-30,000 net of zombies does not make sense either??????????

I was actually supporting Angelic's take on this, but from the finance angle..............hell now I have to post serious in plain English?

I'm still confused could someone translate this into Dummy Language??

Nihil:

Ahhhh... The ocean.... I never knew how much I liked it until _after_ I got settled here in bloody Detroit..... :(

I'm off to north Wisconsin for a week to get myself a bit of Muskie, (like a Pike but rather more aggressive and big....), I'm going to try fly fishing for them while I'm there..... Should be fun..... I managed to leave enough room for some clothes after all the tackle, beer and food was packed...... ;)

Congers.... Ahh.... yes. Ever been chased round a boat by a pissy 4 1/2' conger? It's far from fun. The Captains way of dealing with them was to lift them into a big plastic dustbin with the "turn to lock" lid, cut the line and lock the lid. Seemed sensible to me....... The first conger came over the side and into the dustbin it went..... All rather too easy..... Well, it was a tad choppy that day and we are all fishing away when there's this dull thud behind us.... followed by a shriek..... I looked round to see the lid off the dustbin and a steely eyed conger scooting around the deck showing off that rather impressive smile. I didn't have much choice and jumped up onto the 4" wide rail.... Being choppy it was all I could do to stay there but the decision had already been made....... If I lose my balance I'm jumping to the wet side...... Luckily the Captain snagged the little bugger with the gaff again and returned him to the dustbin. It was funny though, after that you could see everyone taking furtive glances at the dustbin on a regular basis..... :D

Well I have to admit, this has been the most entertaining thread all week. ;) So the moral of this thread is that James spends a great deal of time simply being confused. :D But that's ok, you folks need the comedy relief!

Thanks for being a good sport Neon. Heh heh, and thanks Tiger for finally making everything crystal clear...I can come ouf of my AO dispair now... ;) And I learned some more Nihilian.

Anyway, so that this post isn't as worthless as my last few, to say something on topic -- Yeah, I agree with Nihil, that does seem just outright financially wacko, especially since it's so easy to create zombies yourself. You'd have to be pretty gullible to "rent" them out, you'd think?