Anonymous, Conmen Creating Botnets To Sell To Criminals/Governments?

I read this article in the Guardian today that got me thinking

Botnets are exceedingly valuable tools for criminal enterprise. Among other things, they can be used to efficiently distribute malware, to steal private information from otherwise secure websites or computers, to assist in fraudulent schemes, or to launch Dedicated Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks – overwhelming a targeted server with a flood of requests for response. If you control even a minor botnet, one with, say, 20,000 computers, you own enough computing power to shut down most business networks. The creator of an effective botnet, one with a wide range and the staying power to defeat security measures, can use it himself for one of the above scams, or he can sell or lease it to people who will. Botnets are traded in underground markets online.

guardian.co.uk

Could anonymous be one big bunch of conmen who are using the current social economics, political discourse and other issues to con people into giving up "control" of their computers in order to "fight the system" however creating a netbot of huge proportions in order to sell to the highest bidders??

Or

Are the creators of the most used operating systems worried about losing their own "netbot?"

Your thoughts?

reply to post by EvanB


Dude... The Russians have been doing that for YEARS!!!

reply to post by Mandrakerealmz

I think its more than just the Russians

Between government and private enterprises its hard to tell who the real good guys are anymore

reply to post by EvanB


Yeah im sure many people are involved now. But I mean back in the day the Russian government kinda allowed the criminal enterprises in the cyber security world to flourish.

Many of those hackers and botnet affiliated individuals were also in the "Red Alliance" in the MMORPG "Eve Online"
lol

Damn Russians even play games with military precision....... I lost many Megathrons :'(

from like 2000 ish to 2007 if you wanted a botnet... You went to the Russians.

well...after some years the letter agencies learnd how to google and found out that they can buy these botnets on "every" fraud forum...

people need to learn that FUD is evil and so on....

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
reply to post by EvanB

 

Dude... The Russians have been doing that for YEARS!!!

And the americans,europeans,africans etc etc etc
It is how spam is being sent out unless one is inclined to believe someone with a single computer in a dusty attic does that.


See what companies send you spam and you will see which countries have and use botnets.
Every country that has internet has them and uses them.

Dont spread FUD.

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
reply to post by EvanB

 

Yeah im sure many people are involved now. But I mean back in the day the Russian government kinda allowed the criminal enterprises in the cyber security world to flourish.

Many of those hackers and botnet affiliated individuals were also in the "Red Alliance" in the MMORPG "Eve Online"
lol

Damn Russians even play games with military precision....... I lost many Megathrons :'(

from like 2000 ish to 2007 if you wanted a botnet... You went to the Russians.

edit on 19-2-2012 by Mandrakerealmz because: (no reason given)

aah yes the russian overlords in supercap battle online ...whoops eve-online

Botnets are not good as commodities, because they are highly unstable. The larger the botnet, the faster someone in it discovers the bot and sends it in to the anti-virus companies. Generally, the bot executable has to be crypted and updated approximately once a week to keep a botnet going, otherwise an anti-virus update will wipe out a large chunk of the botnet in a single day.

In practice, when botnets are sold, they are usually sold at a fraction of a cost of what it takes to put them together.

Anonymous is not a group, a person, or an organization - it is an idea. As an idea, Anonymous is not interested in profit. As an idea, Anonymous can be anyone. So someone that wants to make a botnet and sell it can be Anonymous, but it's just not a profitable activity. A slightly more profitable activity is using web exploits to put computers into someone else's botnet, but people that do that barely break even.

The whole hacking-for-profit thing is getting harder every day and less profitable. Like many other criminal enterprises, there are a few individuals("1337") that are making the most money, who are themselves only marginally involved, while most hackers("script-kiddies") are using the tools produced by the former to try to turn a profit. Even though as an "industry" they turn over a relatively large amount of cash, considering how much of them are located in the "third-world", the money they get is small-time considering to what the "intelligence agencies" of the western world get supposedly to fight in the "cyber-war". In reality, that money is simply pocketed by the conmen with badges and security clearances.

Hacktivism is becoming increasingly more powerful, however, and that is one of the strong points of Anonymous.

The whole point about anonymous is they act like a bot net, collectively. Everyone in ATS could create an immensely powerful network and lend it too seti for processing power if they liked. Or we DDOS a bank. Up to you!

Funny the MSM has caught on to something thats been happening for decades and are mostly used for the purposes of organised crime, something Anonymous has never really been party too. But lets just blame them anyway lol.