
The FBI Is Arresting People Who Rent DDoS Botnets - Jerry2
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/fbi-arrests-customer-of-xtreme-stresser-ddos-for-hire-service/
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duskwuff
Good.

Next, they need to start going after the operators of these services. While
many botnet operator claim that their sites are for "stress testing" or
"security research" only, those claims are a sham -- these services have no
legitimate use, and their operators are fully aware that their sites are being
used to commit crimes.

(And, of course, Cloudflare needs to stop serving sites that advertise DDOS-
for-hire services. By protecting the operators of these sites, they have
allowed them to escape detection.)

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jaclaz
>Investigators estimate that total damages caused by his attacks at over
$5,000. If found guilty, Sharma faces up to ten years in prison, up to three
years of supervised release, and/or a fine.

Not to condone in any way the behaviour, but "up to ten years" in prison
sounds to me a little bit harsh for the procured damage of US$ 5,000 or so,
maybe it is a typo and the actual damages are much bigger?

~~~
kayfox
News reports the maximum possible sentence for a crime, whereas the crime
would be sentenced under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, so 10 years max is
often 1 year for a first time offender.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentenci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Federal_Sentencing_Guidelines)

Edit: Also see [https://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-
el...](https://popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-
million-years/)

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jagermo
A little misleading headline, it is missing "... to attack other sites."

But yeah, that's what the FBI is supposed to do, is it not? If people use a
tool to commit a crime, you arrest them.

Nobody cares if you use a service like that to test your own site.

~~~
hawkice
A botnet isn't just a fancy name for a distributed system. You're hacking into
people's computers and using them. The FBI might not prioritize more innocuous
usages, but it's a crime either way.

