5-9-06: 21 Yr old Hacker Gets Almost 5 Years In Prison - infected 400,000 PCs with adware including Military machines

[dmcowen674]

Real Hacker gets nailed:

5-9-2006 Hacker, 21, Gets Almost 5 Years in Prison

LOS ANGELES - A 21-year-old computer whiz was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for taking control of 400,000 Internet-connected computers and renting access to them to spammers and fellow hackers.

Among the machines authorities said Jeanson James Ancheta infected in 2004 and 2005 were those at the China Lake Naval Air Facility and the Defense Information System Agency headquartered in Falls Church, Va.

Authorities said he received more than $107,000 for downloading adware ? software that can track a user's Internet browsing habits and deliver pop-up ads ? onto infected computers and selling access to hackers and spammers.

A Web site he maintained included a schedule of prices and guidelines for the technology necessary to bring down a particular type of Web site.

Prosecutors said the case was among the first to target profits derived from use of "botnets," large numbers of computers that hackers commandeer through software and then turn into a "zombie" network that can be controlled by outsiders.

The computers' owners are typically unaware that parasitic programs have been installed on their machines that allow outsiders to operate them.

===================
Another College at it again.

Interesting twist on the cost per bandwidth.

This time it is being used for censorship.

4-23-2006 Texas Community College Bans MySpace.com

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Del Mar College students now have to use computers outside the school's system if they want to visit the popular Web site MySpace.com

The community college has blocked the site in response to complaints about sluggish Internet speed on campus computers.

An investigation found that heavy traffic at MySpace.com was eating up too much bandwidth, said August Alfonso, the school's chief of information and technology. Forty percent of daily Internet traffic at the college involved the site, he said.

"This was more about us being able to offer Web-based instruction, and MySpace.com was slowing everything down," President Carlos Garcia said.

Some though, disagree with Del Mar College's decision.

"We pay for school and the resources that are used," said Zeke Santos, 20. "It's our choice, we're the ones paying for our classes. If we pass or fail, it's up to us."
===================================================
It must cost the Texas school 59 cents a second for bandwidth.

 

[panhead49]

:| will it never end???

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: panhead49
:| will it never end???

Wow. A town 10 minutes from me was in the news. Scary... Bah, I agree with the college though. Students' use the resources of the college at their priviledge, not their right.

 

[panhead49]

For the money they (and there parent's ) spend for college's today....i would think there should be no problem "surfin the net"

 

[networkman]

Although I suspect I'm in the minority, I personally don't have a problem with the college making such a business decision. Those that don't like it can file grievances or whatever other procedures there are for disputing such a policy.

Were I in the IT department there, I'd probably have put a packet shaper into place and limited the amount of bandwidth that traffic to MySpace.com could take up rather than cutting access to it entirely but that's just me.

 

[Fardringle]

Based on past experience, I can certainly see where Dave Cowen's opinion on this is coming from. However, I would have to agree with networkman on this one. If the college can prove (not falsely claim as was the case with Dave's issue with RC5 in Georgia) that traffic to MySpace is having an effect on network bandwidth as was stated in that article then it is totally within their rights to choose to block access to the site. And if that number they quoted that said that 40% of traffic at the school was to MySpace, then I wouldn't hesitate at all to shut the site off completely.

Again, depending on the circumstances I would probably choose to enable packet shaping so that traffic to the site would get last priority behind everything that actually should be accessed by students using the network for school purposes. However, that could cause additional logistics issues and increased calls to the help desk from people complaining because MySpace is slow and it's completely within reason for administration to decide to just disable it completely and avoid that hassle. Of course, then you get people complaining because they can't get to the site at all, but it's much easier to say that a site is blocked completely rather than trying to explain why the site is slow because it's set to the absolute lowest priority on the network.

 

[RaySun2Be]

I'll have to side with Networkman and Fardringle on this one as well. Especially if the college was making use of on-line testing and classes.

"We pay for school and the resources that are used," said Zeke Santos, 20. "It's our choice, we're the ones paying for our classes. If we pass or fail, it's up to us."

Yeah, unless your non-essential surfing is hurting the access to those that are needing to use the schools resources for their education.

 

[ProviaFan]

I'm going to have to agree with networkman et. al. on this one. When I first came to college, I read [a small portion of] the legalese that is shown when you first connect regarding use of the network, and they reserve enough rights that it's pretty much ok for them to do anything. At least at this school the admins aren't idiots, so I've never seen anything unreasonable (even the daily transfer limits are more than enough). Of course, I also would have just used the capability of the high-end routing equipment to limit each computer to a 28.8kbit/sec connection to myspace, because I feel that blocking it is a little extreme, and you're going to have to deal with tech support calls in either case, but I don't have a problem with the other response, assuming that the myspace traffic was causing as much of a problem as they claim it was (I'm sure they had something about disruptive network behavior in their terms of service).

 

[BurntKooshie]

"It's our choice, we're the ones paying for our classes. If we pass or fail, it's up to us."

That's great and all to say, but is a valid argument ONLY if heavy non-academic use by a person affected only themselves. It doesn't. The other students and professors -- some who may actually be there trying to learn -- are affeced. There's an externality associated with one person adding to the bogging-down of the system. If it's in an academic persuit, such system loading is considerably more justifiable than browsing myspace.com (unless someone is doing a sociology report on the effects of myspace???).

If it affected only whoever said that quote, that person'd be right. Instead they're just proving to be an idiot.

EDIT: In the end I generally agree with Fardringle and ray. Except that packet sniffing costs money (if only in additional hardware requirements). I suppose that I should have read the other comments before posting my own ;-)

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: networkman
Although I suspect I'm in the minority, I personally don't have a problem with the college making such a business decision. Those that don't like it can file grievances or whatever other procedures there are for disputing such a policy.

Were I in the IT department there, I'd probably have put a packet shaper into place and limited the amount of bandwidth that traffic to MySpace.com could take up rather than cutting access to it entirely but that's just me.

I don't disagree that since it is a private College that they can "dictate" what the students can and cannot do. Just saying it is a slippery slope that we should not be treading on in the U.S. especially when their is technology such as QOS shaping etc.

Anyway texas has bigger problems than kids surfing Myspace:

4-24-2006 University of Texas Probes Computer Breach

AUSTIN, Texas - Nearly 200,000 electronic records at the University of Texas at Austin's business school have been illegally accessed, the school said Sunday.

It's the school's second major breach in three years.

The university said it learned late Friday that some Social Security numbers and possibly biographical material of students, alumni, faculty and staff might have been accessed.

The university has notified the state attorney general's office and established a call center and Web site for those whose records might have been breached.

Last year, a former UT student received five years probation and was ordered to pay $170,000 in restitution for hacking into the school's computer system in 2003 and accessing almost 40,000 Social Security numbers.

 

[Spacehead]

Can i ask a dumb question?
What's the difference if students are surfing at MySpace or, for example, ATOT? Or any other place on the net?
Wouldn't there be the same amount of traffic?

 

[networkman]

Last I checked.. it's been a LONG time since I've been in ATOT.. it was still just text - albeit LOTS and LOTS of messages and many users, but still just text.

MySpace is like a Blog/Webpage that each person can customize with text, animated graphics, sound, video, etc. Much much more intensive on the bandwidth needs.

 

[Spacehead]

Ahh, OK. Thanks NWM

 

[GeoffS]

Originally posted by: networkman
MySpace is like a Blog/Webpage that each person can customize with text, animated graphics, sound, video, etc. Much much more intensive on the bandwidth needs.

Sounds like CNN.com or ESPN.com

 

[Allio]

To be fair, everyone sticks like 10 megs of uncompressed photos, a couple of crap MP3s and videos on their profiles on that cesspool of a site. I can absolutely believe it was chewing through their bandwidth. I have a 30 gig cap per month and I don't load myspace profiles because they're universally huge.

 

[bluestrobe]

Originally posted by: Spacehead
Can i ask a dumb question?
What's the difference if students are surfing at MySpace or, for example, ATOT? Or any other place on the net?
Wouldn't there be the same amount of traffic?

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
4-23-2006 Texas Community College Bans MySpace.com
An investigation found that heavy traffic at MySpace.com was eating up too much bandwidth, said August Alfonso, the school's chief of information and technology. Forty percent of daily Internet traffic at the college involved the site, he said.

Using the internet for surfing is one thing. However, My Space as previously mentioned is a bandwidth hog. A few friends of mine who have pages on there are averaging 20mb a page after you count the large pictures, streaming video and music. This doesn't count the advertising banners that cover 40% of each page. Not many web pages can compare with that, even cnn or espn.

edited to fix formating.

 

[Amplifier]

It's a college. It's not a place for students to spend hours socializing on myspace at other students expense.

 

[Wiz]

I've banned it from my network, not due to the bandwidth it directly sucks down but for all the effects of the worms, virii & trojans and other malware that come along with it.

When the BDEU (brain dead end users) will take no thought of the crap they load onto the machines and the network they have to have someone "take care of them".

That what a network administrator is there for.

Until everyone takes personal responsibility for their online activities this kind of oversight will be necessary.

 

[RustyNale]

Dudes. it's college, a place to learn a profession. or prepare for the rest of your life..not a social club. I wonder how the parents of the students would feel about their kids wasting their parents money on blog sites instead of studying???

 

[RustyNale]

Course, were I a student at this time instead of a parent, I'd probably be b'tching too.. :shocked:

 

[dmcowen674]

Real Hacker gets nailed:

5-9-2006 Hacker, 21, Gets Almost 5 Years in Prison

LOS ANGELES - A 21-year-old computer whiz was sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for taking control of 400,000 Internet-connected computers and renting access to them to spammers and fellow hackers.

Among the machines authorities said Jeanson James Ancheta infected in 2004 and 2005 were those at the China Lake Naval Air Facility and the Defense Information System Agency headquartered in Falls Church, Va.

Authorities said he received more than $107,000 for downloading adware ? software that can track a user's Internet browsing habits and deliver pop-up ads ? onto infected computers and selling access to hackers and spammers.

A Web site he maintained included a schedule of prices and guidelines for the technology necessary to bring down a particular type of Web site.

Prosecutors said the case was among the first to target profits derived from use of "botnets," large numbers of computers that hackers commandeer through software and then turn into a "zombie" network that can be controlled by outsiders.

The computers' owners are typically unaware that parasitic programs have been installed on their machines that allow outsiders to operate them.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Glad to see they caught one.

One down, 10,000 to go. :|

 

[Spacehead]

Originally posted by: RaySun2Be
Glad to see they caught one.

And actually gave him the sentence he deserves instead of the usual slap on the wrist.