McColo Briefly Returns, Hands Off Botnet Control 242
A week ago we discussed the takedown of McColo (and the morality of that action). McColo was reportedly the source of anywhere from 50% to 75% of the world's spam. On Saturday the malware network briefly returned to life in order to hand over command and control channels to a Russian network. "The rogue network provider regained connectivity for about 12 hours on Saturday by making use of a backup arrangement it had with Swedish internet service provider TeliaSonera. During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia, according to ... Trend Micro. The brief resurrection allowed miscreants who rely on McColo to update a portion of the massive botnets they use to push spam and malware. Researchers from FireEye saw PCs infected by the Rustock botnet being updated so they'd report to a new server located at abilena.podolsk-mo.ru for instructions. That means the sharp drop in spam levels reported immediately after McColo's demise isn't likely to last."
Alas... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an example of the old saying "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it".
Unfortunately, this is happening for the bad guys as well as us.
Final Solution: (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:2, Insightful)
People want drugs.
No one wants spam.
Your comparison of the two doesn't make any sense.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have "malware" on your computer, your private data is already being exposed. It could just as well be a bot net operator whose combing through your data. Who'd you rather have digging through your infected computer?
Besides, the guys used possibly ill-gotten information that was true to convince the upstream provider to shut down the ISP. The experts didn't run into the data center, pulling plugs in a rage...though that might make a neat comic book. In truth, you should blame the upstream providers. Seriously, this isn't Governments running around meting out justice. This is companies listening to private organizations.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you smoking? Or rather, are you someone arguing a point without a clue.
Whether they had any legit customers is suspect. If they did, I'm sure they would have come to light very quickly.
No, your ISP will be notified about spam originating from its networks and they'll either deal with the user who is undoubtedly violating their TOS or the ISP's IP range will be entered into mail blackhole lists. Nothing new there.
Unlikely, and sadly you probably won't get punted off the net like you should. Instead, your computer will continue to be abused for the purposes of these criminals.
Your efforts to compare this to the drug war are completely irrational, as their causes and symptoms are wildly different. On top of that, there was no government involvement here.
Re:Epic Fail (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, yes you did epic fail.
"legitimate commercial enterprise"
If you are so keen on this "enterprise", post your email address and we will see how you feel about getting a thousand spam emails a day.
Frankly, it is time that Russia was pulled into line on this matter. An international incident might be just the thing to do this.
If you allow your PC to be infected by trojans, your privacy just went out the door anyway. Why would you care if researchers looked at your stuff when criminals already can????
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, frankly, yes. An ISP that turns a blind eye to such activities as accused, is just as good as helping the bad guys. And guess what... this is a war where almost anyone is willing to take casualties to end it. Now the innocent bystanders know they were dealing with shit for an ISP and have a big sign in front of their face to move to someone more reputable. It is a win for everyone, except the nefarious spammers/botnet operators that were put out by it. There is no sympathy for these folks.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, are we talking about the same "legitimate commercial enterprise" mentioned in this story, the one that apparently came back from the dead just long enough to pass off control of a botnet? If anything, this followup story proves that McColo's death wasn't just justified, it was long overdue.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how all those security researchers feel after destroying a legitimate commercial enterprise and affecting a lot of people who weren't spammers.
RTFA. They reported TOS violations to upstream providers. It's not like they firebombed the data center. Furthermore, the presence of legitimate clients isn't that great a defense - lots of criminal enterprises have "fronts" that do legit business to mask the illegal activities.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
And if the police do nothing?
Re:Let's turn TeliaSonera into a smoking crater ne (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, you can't communicate with a botnet with a harddrive, you know.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why your comparison doesn't make any sense. Drugs are a demand driven problem; attacking supply centers simply leads to more supply popping up. Spam is a supply driven problem; attacking supply centers leads to less spam.
If you really think that ISPs will continue to operate with gray customers, I guess you might think this is wack-a-mole, but ISPs have plenty of legitimate business and will have no problem ceasing doing business with spammers. This ISP didn't do that and learned a hard lesson. They were not a good-actor here.
Re:So what's YOUR solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. I don't have a solution, I'm just considering the ethical aspect.
What is unethical about pointing out MASSIVE violation of terms of service by an ISP to their provider? The ISP has a duty to obey the terms they agreed to, and if it can't or won't it gets cut off. Just like you or I would get cut off by our upstream for violating whatever agreement we may have in place.
2. I'd rather deal with spam, malware, and con artists clogging the internet than vigilantes blowing holes in it.
Considering the sheer cost of cleaning up this bullshit, I doubt many share the same opinion. And the intenet was designed to route around holes in it. Theoretically at least.
3. As to who's protecting them -- it's not a question of who but what. In this case, economics.
No. There are definately quite a few "who"s in this mix. Like the greedy bastards who look the other way while their customers commit felonies. They are accessories to the crimes of their clients if they don't cut them off for their criminal bullshit.
4. It has taken this long because until now people were restrained by ethical considerations prevalent within the community. However, a certain moral flexibility seems to be developing now out of frustration. This can only end badly.
Are you kidding? People have been black-holed for decades on the internet for stuff like this.
WHERE IS THE ETHICAL ISSUE WITH TELLING A PROVIDER THAT THEIR CLIENTS ARE IN GROSS VIOLATION OF THEIR ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY????
Or worse.
Either they need to act on it when its pointed out or they will find themselves having to screen their traffic for content because of some cockamamy law passed because they were KNOWINGLY looking the other way while the sold space to kiddy-porn traders after numerous people pointed it out.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's to prevent them from doing this every few months and leaving a trail of dead service providers in the wake of our new definition of "justice" as the botnet owners simply hop from one provider to the next?
That's simple - ISPs that value their continued existence will enforce their anti-spam/botnet policies rather than look the other way and take money from anyone who can pay. This isn't vigilantism, it's the upstream ISP dropping connectivity for contract violations when informed of the situation at one of their downstreams.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh
Way to ignore the obvious facts here.
The ISP had the option of blocking off the spammers.
They did not. Eventually, ISP who do not stop spam will be disconnected. The ISP that supported this botnet SHOULD be a shambles, they became that when they decided not to stop their clients spamming.
What will prevent them from going to new ISP is that ISP probably dont like being put out of business completely.
This should be a salutory lesson for the next ISP that is told they are sending spam.
I see no ethical issues, unless you are a spammer.
But I suspect troll is closer to the mark.
Re:Let's turn TeliaSonera into a smoking crater ne (Score:4, Insightful)
During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia
The massive amounts of data they were talking about were being pushed to other servers, so they could have done that work with a hard drive. However, it also says that the botnet was updated. Assuming that the botnet couldn't have been updated from those same russian servers, they could have done any number of things, including any number of regular internet connections to buildings nearby or satellite/cellular internet service.
I doubt, however, that the data center was a single point of failure for them. The idea that the malware builders can build massive botnets with distributed architecture that elude understanding by security researchers, but they can't figure out how to make it so that they can run it from a backup data center, seems unlikely to me.
Re:Uncongested Relief! (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish I could have one pointed out and slap them up side the head
While we're having wild fantasies, I wish I had a time machine to go slap the idealistic hippies who originally designed the fledgeling network with practically no verification or security ON PURPOSE.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
if spam wasn't profitable nobody would be doing it
Not necessarily. Spam may not be profitable, spamming may be. If you convince someone to pay you to spam for them, whether or not the spam itself generates any profit, you hustled them out of the money.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:2, Insightful)
They obviously aren't a legitimate commercial enterprise, though - their actions in attempting to transfer control of the botnet on Saturday prove this.
To use your 'war on drugs' analogy, they are like a bunch of dealers operating under cover of a pizza delivery service.
They get shut down, and people like you whinge because you liked their pizza, even though you never bought their drugs.
Get over it and choose a different pizza joint.
Russian C&C is Actually Less Desirable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you missed the point -- often times, a system can become infected without the user taking any action. It can't be the user's fault 100% of the time unless the technology is perfect, flawless, and that isn't true. Neither of which addresses the issue of whether it's okay for someone to enter my system just because they flashed a "researcher" badge.
Re:Uncongested Relief! (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking of wild fantasies about idealist notions... Ever wanted to be paid for work that wasn't asked for or justified at the time?
Reinventing government? (Score:3, Insightful)
In order to govern the net (and to coin another useless buzzword) we need Government 2.0.
Reinventing government? Let me guess...
1) Without that pesky Bill of Rights.
2) Online (where malware authors can take it over).
Thanks but no thanks.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, once you give the government jurisdiction to decide who can and cannot use the Internet, they will use that power to further their own interests rather than yours.
No politician will ever vote to decrease his own power.
Re:So what's YOUR solution? (Score:2, Insightful)
The upstream provider's customer was McColo, dumbshit. It was McColo is the one that had contracts with customers and it was McColo that broke the contracts by getting itself disconnected from it's ISPs. The people at fault are McColo's management and the spammers, malware hosters, and other evil, criminal fucks.
The solution is to report bad behavior that violates Terms of Service, which is part of the contract between the parties in question. You know, that legal document that governs their relationship. It is part of those laws you are talking about.
Did it ever occur to your stupid ass that people fell back upon their recourse of reporting the offending provider to there provider? Oh wait, I forgot, you only care about recourse for the spammers and other assholes.
You are a serious dumb ass.
Re:So what's YOUR solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Canter and Siegel were kicked off their ISPs in decently short order 14 years ago (1994) after starting to spam. See:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Canter_and_siegel
Anyone familiar with the history of spamfighting will be able to point to numerous examples every year since then, of escalating size and complexity.
Vigilantism is acting extrajudicially AND illegally as a community group to right a wrong or combat a criminal. It's an inappropriate model here - the response was entirely legal. It was done by people who, contrary to your assertion, were openly identified and stood and stand by their information.
If people were assassinating botnet operators or burning McColo datacenters down, THAT would be vigilantism. This is just community response.
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the words of Wikipedia, cite please. Because you're talking out of your ass.
You then claim that people are legally obligated to report ISPs to their upstream providers. I'm laughing, now.
Again, cite please.
It is also not anyone but McColo and their immediate upstream provider and the civil court system to mediate contract disputes, not anyone else. In fact, there's a concept you might want to learn about, "tortious interference", relating to third parties interfering in contracts between a first and second party.
Re:So what's YOUR solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem comes when the upstream provider violated their contract with the customers
They haven't violated their contract to their customers, they violated their contract with thier upstream provider. Completely different things.
that may have been using the service in accordance with the TOS but lost their service due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I can sympathize but if you want to be a customer of an ISP that behaves so poorly that its own providers tell it to go to hell than I can't have much sympathy. You do know that the offenders are limiting YOUR bandwidth too right?
Which, if you want to split hairs, is principally the fault of the provider and possibly to a lesser extent the person reporting the problem because they provided false information. I say possibly because I don't know what information was provided.
No, the fault is ENTIRELY that of the ISP failing to police its customers' behaviour. The upstream provider has ZERO blame for enforcing its terms of service, and the reporting party doesn't either. Everything done was entirely legal.
Reporting party: "Hey I've notice a crapton of SPAM, viruses and malware coming from your IP block"
Upstream provider: "Holy Crap! Yeah that is way outside acceptable use"
Upstream cuts of the offender for violating their agreement.
What's wrong with that?
I am glad, then, that the decision is not theirs to make. Besides, most people think they're above average drivers too...
Actually the decision IS mine to make in places where I manage the network. I have numerous blacklisted IP blocks of known hostile networks and SPAM/malware sites. I protect my clients at the level I am governing. Higher up the chain, other net admins will be doing the same whenever an ISP doesn't smack down its malicious users.
Incidently, infecting systems with botnet crap is a felony. Has been for years.
You can't say they shouldn't help RIAA enforce their copyright by booting you off your connection for P2P, then turn around and say they should police people for spam. They're common carriers; It means they're not responsible, nor should they be. If we start down this road, the internet as we know it ends.
1) I never mentioned P2P or any of that crap but if I violate my ISP's terms of use they are free to cut me off
2) ISPs are NOT common carriers, educate yourself
3) They ARE responsible insofar as their provider's acceptible use policy is concerned. Violate it and get cut off.
Citation needed.
Wow, how long HAVE you been on the internet anyway?
Look, the solution here is laws not vigilantism...
Law: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (among others) makes infecting systems to be part of a botnet a felony. Also things like the CAN-SPAM Act have criminalized SPAM. There are laws, but getting anyone caught and prosecuted when the are sitting in the middle of the Ukraine is kindof difficult.
Because the simple truth is no matter how good you are sooner or later you're going to fuck it up.
Not if all you are doing is telling a provider to "look over there" and they check it out and only act on it if what you say true.
The law ensures that when this happens, there's recourse. A vigilante will just disappear into the night with the words "I'm sorry" on his/her lips. And not only that, but the entire tone of your response rather underscores the need to get emotion out of this situation and the justice system is far better suited to this than your "Let's get a posse together and ride" solution.
The law does no such thing when the perpetrators are outside its jurisdiction. And there are no vigilantes as everything was done within the bounds of the law. Your ignorance is astounding. The tone of my respons
Re:Epic Fail. (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. And here I was going to say that this latest development (if the previous ones weren't enough) seemed to be rock-solid evidence that the people who run McColo knew exactly what they were hosting, and should go to prison for a long, long time.
Re:So what's YOUR solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, the solution here is laws not vigilantism... Because the simple truth is no matter how good you are sooner or later you're going to fuck it up. The law ensures that when this happens, there's recourse. A vigilante will just disappear into the night with the words "I'm sorry" on his/her lips.
The problem is that you're confusing this with vigilantism. This wasn't a single vigilante passing judgment and then disappearing in to the night. These were individuals reporting the crime to the upstream host. The upstream host then took that evidence, reviewed it, and acted on it using a very legal mechanism - their contract with the ISP. Law is being upheld.
Re:Uncongested Relief! (Score:3, Insightful)
> I almost forgot what life is SUPPOSED to be
> like without a clogged sinus of an Inbox. Damn
> spammers!
Why are you blaming the spammers?
Spammers will exist and profit until everyone on the Internet starts treating their e-mail addresses with the same privacy and regard that they extend to their home telephone numbers.
If you were to walk around town posting your phone number in every corner shop window with a demographic profile of yourself attached, would you then blame sales drones who called your number?
Re:Let's turn TeliaSonera into a smoking crater ne (Score:3, Insightful)
ISPs at that level don't really work like your home DHCP setup, you know. They probably own their own IP blocks, and can route them through whatever provider they choose.