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RE: BBC responds to botnet illegality claims

steve_jonesuk@... 17th Mar 2009

I take it that no-one who's commented here has
actually seen the programme - www.bbc.co.uk/click
jirving: "at the end of the experiment, they should
have had their 'bots reveal themselves to the host
computer owners and advise them to get protection".
They did exactly that, and shut the botnet down
afterwards, removing the control software.
rpmyers: "DDOSing a company? No, sorry. The previous
two are enough to show the problem." You should be
aware that this was an online security company which
helped to make the programme and got some great
publicity out of it, and *agreed* to let the BBC take
down its backup website. I'm not sure how their
hosting company felt about this - being a security
company I suspect they have their own servers and use
this "spare" website to demonstrate dangers to
potential customers; but that's just my own
conjecture.
As for BBC money going to criminals, well it was only
$2500 (so it seemed from the programme), and from the
awareness raised, they've certainly stopped more than
that going to spammers in the future.
BUT one thing about the programme is concerning - they
kept on saying how easy it was to control a botnet,
and how much easy money could be made from doing so.
They even said that, faced with a DDOS threat, most
companies will simply pay a ransom. So I wonder how
many new cyber-criminals were born when watching.
It was a remarkable programme, however, and I was
rivetted to it.