FBI nabs "Iserdo" the 23-yr-old Slovenian "Botnet" bandit

"To use an analogy here, as opposed to arresting the guy who broke into your home, we've arrested the guy that gave him the crowbar, the map and the best houses in the neighborhood. And that is a huge break in the investigation of cyber crimes."—International authorities have nabbed "Iserdo," the 23-year-old Slovenian hacker believed to have written the "Botnet" code that a network of criminals used to infect 12 million computers, compromising the security of major banks and corporations worldwide.

• [Chevan]

  I didn’t know it was illegal to give someone crowbars.

  Analogies are terrible. Spend the time to critically assess and effectively describe the situation as it is instead of trying to shoehorn something in.

  • [Anonymous]

    lol @ “shoehorn,” nice analogy

• [SamSam]

  Wow. Pretty soon no programmer is going to write any algorithm at all — what if the wrong person uses it for evil?

  Stupid stupid stupid.

• [Anonymous]

  What about the analogy of arresting the company that makes handguns? Wait…that actually doesn’t sound like a bad idea…

• [Flyne]

  Actually, it’s a lot more like arresting the guy who makes lockpicks. Or the people who sell the Anarchist’s Cookbook. Both of which might be considered to be immoral, with few legitimate uses, but neither should be illegal.

• [spill]

  One step closer to precrime prosecution.

• [Brett Myers]

  Even lock picks and Anarchist’s Cookbook are bad analogies, because they (like, but less so than crowbars) may actually have legitimate, practical, legal uses.

• [Anonymous]

  The mariposa botnet that this man is accused of creating has no legitimate uses, because it cannot exist without continuous theft of services from unsuspecting victims. This thing is not folding@home, the people providing the CPU cycles are not volunteers, mariposa can only exist if criminal activity is occuring.

  It is nothing like a crowbar and/or maps and directions. I use crowbars, maps, and directions all the time without committing any crimes.

  Jeffrey Troy (the FBI’s deputy assistant director for the cyber division, source of the quote) is talking out of his ass and should refrain from trying to construct analogies in the future.

• [Nadreck]

  Actually, the major banks and corporations compromised their own security by using hobbyist OS systems like Windows. Iserdo just walked in through the open doors. Ah, for the days when all the ATMs ran OS/2 Warp!

• [agave]

  I say lock him up and trow the key away.

• [sic transit gloria C.F.A.]

  Wow! That’s absolutely brilliant! Now no one will be able to use the code he wrote anymore!

  No…wait a minute…

  • [Anonymous]

    no iserdo has sold the tool to more then 6000 hacker for 900 euro . so the botnet will stay active . and mush more of BFF there is another one danger botnet ( Trojan banker ) called ZEUS which not only infect your computer but mush more is take your money from your bank account so you need to be careful on what you do .

    Assirem
    Virus and Malware analyser