Friday, April 15, 2011

End of the criminal botnet?

With Wednesday's Register story about the U.S. government seizure a criminal organization's IP addresses to shut down the Coreflood botnet (2.3 million infected computers, 1.8 million of them in the U.S.), the question arises: "Is this the end of the criminal botnet?"

My answer:  "Definitely not." The cyber criminals of the world will just come up with better command-and-control mechanisms. Besides, Coreflood has been around since 2002. Which means it's taken our geniuses almost 10 years to take this action. In contrast, a savvy group of cyber privateers could probably have done this in 10 days, not to mention looting some very big criminal and rogue government bank accounts in the process.

So which scenario appeals more? Inconveniencing the bad guys like the feds have just done? Or costing them more money and freedom than they could ever imagine by having a licensed and bonded cyber privateering organization levy a vastly disproportionate response against them and the governments that protect them? Take a peek at the Cyber Privateer code (here or printed out on the cyberprivateer.com website), and then make a decision. After which you may want to send a note to your favorite D.C. political representative.

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Implementation suggestions for THE MORGAN DOCTRINE are most welcome. What are the "Got'chas!"? What questions would some future Cyber Privateering Czar have to answer about this in a Senate confirmation hearing?