NY Times On Spam Zombies

A discreetly valorous slashdotter writes "The NY Times is featuring a story about the growing armies of spam zombies. It focuses on New Jersey teen spammer Jasmine Singh. Choice quote: 'Hacking in its purest form is not about compensation or about wrecking a Web site. Hacking in its pure form is to show what you can do.'"

discreetly valorous slashdotter

[Anonymous Coward]

"A discreetly valorous slashdotter writes"

From dictionary.com: valorous - Marked by or possessing great personal bravery; valiant

From the same: discreetly - Marked by, exercising, or showing prudence and wise self-restraint in speech and behavior; circumspect.

Meaning an anonymous coward?

Don't you love sales/marketing speak?

Register?

[comzen]

Today, a pure form of hacking would be to read the article without actually being a registered user.

Never, ever say

[geekoid]

'crackery' again.

I'm not trying to be mean or anything...

[caudron]

...but "Jasmine" is a dude? Really?

I'm sure it's a cultural thing, but seriously, when I was in school (cue old-timey phonograph and creaky rocking chair sound) he'd have been hating life if he had the balls to show up to school with a name like Jasmine!

The times they are a changin'. (That's a good thing, I think)

Re:Why can't this be stopped ?

[NextGaurd]

>>
Eventually it will be a lot harder for a 17-year-old to command an army of zombie PCs. In the 1970s, it was incredibly easy to hack into sites via a modem, using easily guessed passwords (guest/guest) because it was such a rare thing even to have a computer and a modem. The teen hackers of that era would be clueless today, just as these punks will be clueless 5-10 years from now.

Are you kidding? They are probably tomorrow's managers. :)

Re:discreetly valorous slashdotter

[bitflip]

Reminded me of a D Adams quote:

"just as discretion was the better part of valor, so was cowardice the better part of discretion, he valiantly hid himself in a closet"

Irregardless, it's not like anyone cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno why people make a big deal out of what you say anyway. Using words the "right" way doesn't make you any smarter. Like when I want to download my pictures to gmail, and someone says "you mean upload." Who cares?

And when I email people and say ur instead of "you are" or cul8r instead of "see you later" and they give me shit about it.

Re:Irregardless, it's not like anyone cares

[TheOtherChimeraTwin]

Using words the "right" way doesn't make you any smarter. Like when I want to download my pictures to gmail, and someone says "you mean upload." Who cares?

Sarflicks! I couldn't agree with you mosby! Why haggleby when the low-rider don't know blatz about the snoozer?

Crisis scenario?

[vaith]

Next: NYTimes advises that zombie-spammers can be dealt with by "removing the head or destroying the brain".

Re:Why can't this be stopped ?

[Anonymous Coward]

ISP's should be held accountable if their users are using windows and using no firewalls.

Fine. Just give me the right to enter your house and kick the shit out of you if you're not using a firewall.

And if you think Linux is so secure, I urge you to subscibe to the SANS newsletter and check out the ratio of new Windows to Linux exploits that appear each week.

--Your ISP