Microsoft's Kelihos kingpin suspect: It wasn't me The Russian man named by Microsoft as the mastermind behind the Kelihos botnet has stepped forward to plead his innocence. Microsoft filed suit in the US last week accusing Andrey Sabelnikov, of St Petersburg, of writing the Kelihos botnet agent and maintaining the network of zombie machines created using the malware to send …
Before we start taking it up for the "little man" I think its important to mention that Microsoft isn't the only party involved here. It seems some divisions with MS know their strengths and weaknesses, thus they sought help from partners Kasperski and Kyrus. So its definitely not the case of "the big bad US company harassing the Russian nerd".
What I also consider peculiar (or remarkable) is the way the whole case proceeds. When it comes to botnets and such we're talking about a serious threat to the Internet. A threat which could seriously harm all of us. I'd think that such threats would justify some swifter action. Note that I'm not saying we should throw away the lawbooks and "go get them". But this whole thing started in September last year, now almost 5 months later.
Yet when it comes to alleged copyright infrictions (Megaupload for example) then all of a sudden people can get arrested right on the spot. Heck; whole arrest teams are easily dispatched to get the "notorious criminals".
Now, I'm not complaining because in the end I think the most important thing here is that no innocent people get involved here. But as said I do think it to be a little peculiar. Especially since botnets pose a far bigger (and /real/) threat than sharing movies or music. IMO of course.
>> A threat which could seriously harm all of us. I'd think that such threats would justify some swifter action.
Well, I do not see how this could harm all of my PCs, my Internet as well as the people that I helped install GNU/Linux on their computers. Unless someone has an account with hotmail and might be getting a lot of spam. MS hotmail's spam filter is as good as their ubiquitous OS, it seems.
For those harmed or being afraid to be harmed: get rid of your preinstalled Windows crap and install GNU/Linux or *BSD instead. Most fears (if not all) will dissipate as a morning haze.
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I wonder if this botnet is any larger than the one created by Microsoft?
Well, count all the PCs preinstalled and post-installed with any version of Microsoft Windows. Hundreds of millions, I reckon. Given the historically poor security aspects of the said OS's, quite a big portion of these hundreds of millions are well prepared to send and receive a first quality spam. Add to that the proverbially poor security practices people tend to have, thanks to the fact most get it while educated on the Microsoft Windows stuff. Hence "the Unix Way" is so entirely dispensed and substituted by "the Dummy .... Windows .... most profitable for Microsoft Way".
The question is, why doesn't M$ get the Grand Pris here?
PS. PC manufacturers should set off the modest "We recommend Windows [789]!" and start boldly to advertise the extra capabilities of the OS: ".... and daily billions of spam mail depend on it!" TO say nothing about the manufacturers of the Viagra pills and such who should also openly join the We-recommend-Windows campaign.
...does anyone REALLY expect him to come out and say, "Sure...I wrote the code, and my friends and I ran the botnet in order to make millions."
And face it kids...Linux is never going to completely replace Windows...especially in the workplace desktop environment. You'll just have to suck it up, and deal with that fact.
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