FBI Fights Zombie Hordes

FBI Fights Zombie Hordes

news.bbc.co.uk

The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.

The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.

The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.

The agency said the zombies or bots were "a growing threat to national security".

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
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Well, it wasn't what I thought it was when I first clicked the link on the BBC, but it was interesting none the less.

It does highlight the woefully poor security many people employ on their home PC's, especially when the same people use these machines for such things as Internet banking and shopping with their credit cards.

Those same people will be the first to complain when they have their identities "stolen" and criminals run up debt in their name.

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

It's slowly but surely coming under control. Soon the net will be as policed as the streets in any city.

I'm not saying thats a bad thing.

Ten years ago it was really wild. I had a teenage son who did stuff that amazed me. (He got me banned from AOL for life.)

With any new frontier the outlaws run amok and then the sheriff arrives and slowly but surely creates order out of chaos.

I just hope the WWW never becomes an extension of the police state.

Well this is not new, that is why anti spyware and security is needed, not the government to monitor our personal computers.

Very soon the fear mongering will start so people will be willing to give away the rights to privacy on the net and the rights to the government to monitor personal computers.

figues that im one of the people who thought dude zombies! heck yeah!!! i was about ready to whip out the shotgun and katana's. but on to the main topic ive had this very problem before and a simple solution is to NOT download from sites like esnips or limewire and keep up with your spyware/virus control.
its about as simple as that and dont do anything that requires giving out personal information.

-the king

The net needs policing though as a huge amount of crime takes place.

I'm all for freedom of expression etc etc, but with the level of fraud and other criminal activity, some sort of policing activity is required.

Just begs the question though, just how much?

Originally posted by marg6043
Very soon the fear mongering will start so people will be willing to give away the rights to privacy on the net and the rights to the government to monitor personal computers.

Marg, I love you my friend. I've known you for years now on our beloved ATS, But if you think there is such a thing as privacy on the net than you are sadly mistaken.

Your every keystroke is logged, every site you have ever visited is stored in some giant databank somewhere, every transaction is monitored and recorded. There is no privacy on the WWW.

With Echelon the government already monitors your computer. They just won't dig into the details unless you , for some reason, become a person of interest.

I'm all for securing the information super highway. I just don't want them to deny me the right to go where I want, when I want.

wupy

Originally posted by mrwupy

Marg, I love you my friend. I've known you for years now on our beloved ATS,

Thanks for that!!!!!!!!

But if you think there is such a thing as privacy on the net than you are sadly mistaken.

It doesn't hurt to keep the illusion.

I'm all for securing the information super highway. I just don't want them to deny me the right to go where I want, when I want.
wupy

They already control what sites we can and can not get in, and you know that any side that is "not in the best interest for the nation" is banned from the net.

We actually may think that the net is open and free but actually is not.

yes wupy I know.

Your every keystroke is logged, every site you have ever visited is stored in some giant databank somewhere, every transaction is monitored and recorded.

i hope your joking, that is the most absurd absolutely untrue paranoid comment I've ever heard. As a certified systems engineer with my specialty in data security and cryptography I would be out of a job if even half that statement was true. I wont really go into it for the sake of keeping those technically un-savy from freaking out from information overload, but for starters just the amount of storage that would take is a barrier... we're not even talking computing power yet.

Originally posted by bokinsmowlI wont really go into it for the sake of keeping those technically un-savy from freaking out from information overload, but for starters just the amount of storage that would take is a barrier... we're not even talking computing power yet.

you assume 'they' are using the same tech as 'us'.
a good paranoid assumes 'they' are at least twenty years ahead of 'us' in tech. apply moore's law to twenty years, and then.......

......JOIN 'US'.......

lol I have a idea,

Everyone should just all at once turn their computers off and change their Ip addies. hehe

Then use a router. Or run your operating system off a usb HIGH OCTANE mem card.

like to see em get thru that. lol

you assume 'they' are using the same tech as 'us'.

dont you think if they had it they would use it? whats the point of datalogging everything and not doing anything with it. "they" could just go out and catch every kiddie porn ring, every dvd pirate, secretly remove every anti-gov blog...surly ATS would be gone... but they dont and the FBI, CIA, NSA still come and contracts outside companies. i guess they like to waste money on "old school" tech just for the fun of it. you have to play by the rules (protocols) in the arena. last i heard, 20 years from now IP based networking will be obsolete, so how is their advanced technology going to mesh with our obsolete crap? Yeah, they might have some bigger harddrives or faster equipment, but it doesn't change the rules... IP based networking is a defined protocol. you can only do so much inside those sets of rules.

So... I can leave my gun vulcan in my basement? I don't need it?

And here I thought we had to fight zombies.

But anyways, yeah Computers will go on the fritz if people aren't careful, I've had some problems before, but since have restored my computer to near full functionality through a lot of hard work and research. The thing is that it is impossible to get rid of every bit of spyware software or hacked thing, because quite frankly it's going to happen no matter what. So I just fight viruses and let the corporations take my email and send me junk email because I have no problem sticking spam in a spam folder and mass deleting.

People over react on spyware because mostly all spyware does is really just take your information and who ever takes it isn't looking to stalk you, they simply sell your email and IP address to companies who are interested in advertising. The only reason I make an effort to get rid of spyware is because it slows my computer down performance wise and I like to game.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by mrwupy


Ten years ago it was really wild. I had a teenage son who did stuff that amazed me. (He got me banned from AOL for life.)

damn..i miss windows 95!

When I was younger I did the same thing like your son..except I got us banned from AOL/MSN/NETZERO/JUNO lol...they also sent a pretty nice fine of $3000 to my father..and after that I wasn't allowed to go online on any computer for a couple years and I forgot how to do everything lol fun times back then

Originally posted by bokinsmowl

last i heard, 20 years from now IP based networking will be obsolete, so how is their advanced technology going to mesh with our obsolete crap?....
.....IP based networking is a defined protocol. you can only do so much inside those sets of rules.

Whilst i agree with your premise overall, I do wonder what your on about.

See, I work in telecoms, specifically within an NMC/NOC environment and if IP based networking is going to be obsolete in 20 years, can you tell me why we're spending billions upgrading our network (and every other telco as well) to bring in network convergence BASED on IP?

Originally posted by mrwupy
It's slowly but surely coming under control. Soon the net will be as policed as the streets in any city.

I'm not saying thats a bad thing.

Ten years ago it was really wild. I had a teenage son who did stuff that amazed me. (He got me banned from AOL for life.)

With any new frontier the outlaws run amok and then the sheriff arrives and slowly but surely creates order out of chaos.

I just hope the WWW never becomes an extension of the police state.

I aquired a lifetime ban from AOL as well... now if I could just get them to stop sending me their installation disks...

Originally posted by mrwupy
It's slowly but surely coming under control. Soon the net will be as policed as the streets in any city.

I'm not saying thats a bad thing.

Ten years ago it was really wild. I had a teenage son who did stuff that amazed me. (He got me banned from AOL for life.)

With any new frontier the outlaws run amok and then the sheriff arrives and slowly but surely creates order out of chaos.

I just hope the WWW never becomes an extension of the police state.

I aquired a lifetime ban from AOL as well... now if I could just get them to stop sending me their installation disks...

can you tell me why we're spending billions upgrading our network (and every other telco as well) to bring in network convergence BASED on IP?

because PSTN is losing business to VoIP and FoIP. T.37/38 type protocols are destroying the analog industries. its worth it for the tel-comm industry to dump money into their infrastructure, make a few bucks for 10-15 years and rebuild again on new protocols. the catch is, they haven't had to do it until now, hence the big deal.

Originally posted by bokinsmowl
because PSTN is losing business to VoIP and FoIP.

Not really. TDM voice as it is better known (PSTN merely stands for Public Switched telephone Network and even a VoIP network would still be a switched public network), still provides more than 50% of the revenues of my company and it's similar across the board.

VoIP is over hyped, the technology doesn't work because of the nature of IP. They have many technological hurdles to overcome that will take 5-10 years to address before VoIP is in anyway a serious challenger to TDM Voice.

Originally posted by bokinsmowl
its worth it for the tel-comm industry to dump money into their infrastructure, make a few bucks for 10-15 years and rebuild again on new protocols. the catch is, they haven't had to do it until now, hence the big deal.

Haha, no way is that the case.

Almost every telco is leaking money left and right with declining revenues and margins. Any infrastructure investment is taken under serious consideration. They wouldn't, after the 2000 telco bubble burst, invest billions in a network that only had a shelf life of a decade. IP convergence is a big thing and it's not just about VoIP. It wouldn't be a big thing if it was expected to die a death in a decade or so.

TDM Voice still has at almost 10 years left in it itself. Nortel will cease making spares for the DMS family of switches in around the 2015 timeframe, maybe sooner, but will continue to support the products as best they can. Even so, with IP gateways and a little ingenuity, my own firm plans to have a mix of IP telephony merging into the TDM switch network.

when i say PSTN is losing business to IP technologies what im saying is X amount of the amount of billable revenue that was made with standard phone or fax is now being routed over IP. Such is the case in using fax servers and remote document transfer servers when companies are based across billable long distances and inter-connected by VLan. Not to mention the greater usage of email and the internet over phones. All types of IP based connections take away from standard analog networks.