Man Who Sent GIF of Laughing Mouse To Employer After DDoS Attack Is Now Arrested (bleepingcomputer.com) 75
An anonymous reader writes: The FBI has arrested and charged a man for launching DDoS attacks against a wide range of targets, including his former employer, a Minnesota-based PoS repair shop. The man, who bought access to a VPN but didn't use it all the time, was caught after registering email accounts and sending taunting emails to victims, including his former employer. The taunting emails also included a GIF image of a laughing mouse, which eventually tied the man to the DDoS attacks as well. The guy also uploaded the image on Facebook in a post that asked people to join in DDoS attacks on banks as part of Anonymous' Operation Icarus. The suspect also created the fake email accounts using the name of another former colleague, trying to pin suspicions on him. The FBI was not only able to track the man's real IP address, but they also tied him to attacks without a doubt because he used a DDoS-for-hire service that was hacked and its database was shared with the FBI.
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who is this "for chan"?
Some sort of Mongolian throat singing fan site.
When you read a story like this (Score:3)
It tends to confirm the original sacking was probably justified.
Re:When you read a story like this (Score:5, Interesting)
Or anyone engaging in nefarious activity "...who bought access to a VPN but didn't use it all the time..." I keep my VPN up permanently with a kill switch so that it fails safe. And I'm just a soft-core criminal who likes to download "Last Week Tonight" and "Game of Thrones" without having to deal with subscribing/dropping HBO via Comcast. (If it was easy to drop, I'd spring for it during GoT season, but Comcast makes adding channels easy and removing them a PITA. Requiring me to talk to a live human whose job is to discourage me is more than I'm willing to deal with.)
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I keep my VPN up permanently with a kill switch so that it fails safe.
You'd be in the minority who's so afraid of downloading an episode of GoT that you'd gimp your internet connection to do it.
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...you'd gimp your internet connection to do it.
I use PIA and it's fast enough to be transparent to me. GoT isn't the only reason to run a VPN.
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I use PIA too, it is far slower than 200/40, which is why it isn't even remotely on all the time.
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Maybe I was unclear. By "transparent", I meant it doesn't slow down my typical operations. General surfing, streaming music/video are unaffected. I'm not under the delusion that I'm not gimping my connection, I just prefer the benefits of using a VPN when it's not in my way. If I need bandwidth and I'm not doing something shady, there's always the option to turn it off. But I rarely do.
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I posted that comment with the VPN down (I turned it off to do a bandwidth test). Wanna guess how much time I saved posting that comment with my improved connection? And that 128kbps from Pandora was just FLYING in.
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Dunno, you tell me, how much lag do you get playing games?
"Typical" varies. Which is also why VPN use varies.
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I play Words With Friends (on-line Scrabble). The lag isn't too crippling. If I needed bandwidth I'd claim it, but I rarely do. (Actually the only time my bandwidth is a limit is the same time the VPN is most important.) I don't think I need to preach the virtues of piping your traffic through a VPN here. Different priorities dictate different solutions.
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No you don't. You do need to preach the virtues of piping ALL your traffic through, which is the original stupid point.
I mean wouldn't want your government to know that you're opening SSL connections to www.slashdot.org now would we.
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I could give a rat's ass about the government. I don't like being mined by my ISP.
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Point is the same. You fear all things equally including those inconsequential which are already covered by encryption. But really go your hardest, just know you're in the strange minority who VPNs all your traffic.
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Running your own mail server would leave a more permanent paper trail.
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It tends to confirm the original sacking was probably justified.
Washburn confirmed that Gammell also worked for them, but had left in good terms three years before, to start his own soldering training company.
The funny thing, at least to me, is that while soldering properly is an art form, it is rather easy to learn. A couple of YouTube videos, and a little practice and you are there. I learned to solder many many years ago from a former NASA employee who had worked on the Apollo project.
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...while soldering properly is an art form, it is rather easy to learn. A couple of YouTube videos, and a little practice and you are there.
I found it useful to have a coach. I'd been soldering for years, but a few hours with a stereo microscope and an anal retentive trainer broke me of some bad habits that I wasn't aware of.
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However based on what he did, and how poorly he did it, I seriously doubt he would be the "anal retentive trainer" you described.
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The funny thing, at least to me, is that while soldering properly is an art form, it is rather easy to learn. A couple of YouTube videos, and a little practice and you are there. I learned to solder many many years ago from a former NASA employee who had worked on the Apollo project.
You can't get a certification in soldering from YouTube. Or from a former NASA employee either, unless they're a certified trainer. But if you don't need the cert, I guess YouTube will do.
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It seems like he wanted to be caught as many different ways as possible.
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Not really, seems very much like a psychotic break brought on by age and business failure, revenge on all and sundry to repair a damaged ego in a particularly self destructive fashion, more like just a bit sad. Before pursuing a path of self destructive aggrandisement, consider some mental health counselling first. Ego should be the tool you use to attack others not the tool you use to attack yourself. To set yourself on a path of global reformation, you must first abandon ego and instead develop a wry sens
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Trump level stupid.
He has his name on buildings all over the USA.
He has millions of dollars to his name.
He's the president of the USA.
Trump level stupid doesn't seem all that bad.
You can think he's a sexist, a racist, a pig or just a bad president or even a lout mouth.. But, he's not stupid if he has all of that.
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Trump level stupid.
He has millions of dollars to his name.
Allegedly...
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If he's a lying sack of shit like his Commerce Secretary Ross (claimed to be worth a few billions, Forbes discovered he'd been lying for years and the max he could have is $700 million, and they aren't sure he has that), I doubt Trump is worth as much as his mouth said he was.
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Of course not. If he actually had the amount he was saying then he would claim at least twice that. So it's impossible for him to have the amount he claims, no matter what it is.
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You are confusing marketing with intelligence. There is no correlation between the two.
As attributed to P. T. Barnum [wikipedia.org]
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Sure he is. Money attracts money. If you start out on 3rd base you'll do fine. If you're smart but start out with nothing, you face really tall odds to get anywhere.
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Although I will agree it is Trump level stupid, this particular kind of stupid is actually a fairly common type of dumb criminal stupid.
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Trump level stupid is beyond that, he cannot even recall the lies he's told in the past so he keep stepping on his crank. He cannot read through any of the legislation he supports so he's constantly contradicting the positions in that legislation. That's not just undermining his own interest, that's too stupid to realize he undermining his own interests. Hell, even attributing "interests" to him beyond honking on about himself seems ludicrous.
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His computer's password? Swordfish
Sounds like a classic criminal fail (Score:3)
Justifed DDos (Score:2, Funny)
including his former employer, a Minnesota-based PoS repair shop.
After all, it was a "Piece-of-Shit" repair shop.
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So presumably they could repair one of these [theonion.com].
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From the Article: "The mouse image above is not the same that Gammell used in his emails."
Of course you still have the fact that they're calling their bad example a mouse image...
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You didn't read TFA, they state at the very end:
I think you should blame Catalin Cimpanu, the author of that article, for that gopher image.
Oh I see (Score:3, Interesting)
So we can't have a story about the DDoS attacks on banks and we can only hear the real story mentioned once they have an example of some one they caught for being barely involved?
I'm beginning to wonder if the media isn't one consolidated entity under the control of the banks and if law enforcement isn't similar....
"a Minnesota-based PoS repair shop" (Score:2, Funny)
I don't care if it was a piece of shit repair shop, that still doesn't make it right!
The Tiers Of Suck (Score:2)
First there came hackers, and they were good.
Then came Script Kiddies, who did use the works of the Hackers, and they were kind of lame.
Then did the Script Kiddies monetize the Hacks, and animated gif makers could enter the realm of wonder and system penetration with mere BitCoin, and these assholes made life hell for everyone.
And it was The Suck.
His troubles are only starting (Score:2)
When Disney hears he's been using a cartoon mouse, he'll be in even more trouble.
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-o- (Score:1)
the phrase least likely to appear when there is certainty.