Spammers, Botnets, Child Pornography, Oh My

There have been lots and lots of posts around about the FTC shutting down known spam-botnet- child-pornography-hosting provider Triple Fiber Network (3FN.net), (aka Pricewert LLC, APS Telecom, APX Telecom) yesterday affecting 15,000 websites. The FTC said they were actually advertising their services in the dark underbelly of the internet, hosting vast quantities of illegal, malicious, and harmful content, including child pornography, botnet command and control servers, spyware, viruses, trojans, phishing-related sites, illegal online pharmacies, investment and other Web-based scams, as well as pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest.

While shutting down these sites is great, (the more trouble we can cause these guys the better) what does it really mean to these guys? Downed servers are already popping back online. Many sites are already back up at other providers and 3FN themselves say they will be back online in hours or days. I won’t be long until things are running smoothly for them again. There’s been no noticeable drop-off in spam. While they’ve taken off the head, the body still functions – as far as the spam and botnets go. What is needed is criminal prosecution as mentioned at Security Fix. Mark Rasch, a former cyber crime prosecutor for the Justice Department  stated the following:

“It could be that other law enforcement organizations are using the FTC as a front in order to obtain evidence for later criminal prosecutions,” Rasch said. “What’s interesting about that approach is that in order for these guys to get out from under this court order, they’re going to have to show that they’ve taken steps to clean up their act. But if there is a criminal investigation ongoing against 3FN, then anything their operators say in trying to convince a court to lift the order can and will be used against them later.” Source: FTC Sues, Shuts Down N. Calif. Web Hosting Firm

But how hard would that be? You’re talking tracking them down,  extradition, and lots and lots of work.  What needs to happen is for the FTC to start fining merchants who profit from spam and spyware. They should no longer accept ignorance as an excuse and fine them. After a month or two fine them again at quadruple the rate, until it’s no longer profitable for any of them.

Another possibility would be to fine the networks for allowing the spammers in and promoting them to the merchants. That could be a lawsuit from the merchants after they have been fined heavily. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter how it’s done as long as the money dries up.

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