Invasion of the Computer Snatchers

Story

 

If that was a book....it would be the longest one I have ever read except for Carrie

 

The provided link just forward to http://www.washingtonpost.com

 

Looks like an interesting article, thanks.

@ VaMPiRiC_CRoW, this happens only in FF and Opera, but not in IE.

 

On my system it doesn't work on IE or Opera...

 

Initially it worked great on IE....now it ain't working on it and takes me to the main page. I'll look for it again

 

Thanks Ron....and the link above in the first post now works again.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401342.html

 

Thanks

 

Interview with a Botmaster

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401342.html

Interesting read by itself, however I wanna push on one funny thing:


"The young hacker, who has agreed to be interviewed only if he isn't identified by name or home town.."

Now, what we do is look at the image in the article, and look at it's JPEG Meta Tags
SLUG: mag/hacker DATE: 12/20/2005 PHOTOGRAPHER: Sarah L. Voisin/TWP id#: LOCATION: Roland, OK

Roland Oklahoma:
Population (year 2000): 2,842, Est. population in July 2004: 3,053 (+7.4% change)
Males: 1,347 (47.4%), Females: 1,495 (52.6%)

From the article again:
"The nearest businesses are a used-car lot, a gas station/convenience store and a strip club"

Ok now, how hard is it to trace the bastard down for the gov? You can probably do it yourself with google maps or something

 

Re: Interview with a Botmaster

Your sleuthing made me smile. Thanks.

Edit: From the article. How about this to further ID him.

 

Re: Interview with a Botmaster

TopConverting, Gamma-Cash, Loudcash, 180solutions,... that are some of the companies he works for...
I suppose he will get caught soon..., media attention is always good to find those

 

Re: Interview with a Botmaster

Well, if you go to the Cheyenne Gentlemen's Club, you might be just down the street...., of course that assumes the location provided by the tag is the appropriate one and not something somewhat unrelated but meaningful to the photographer or newspaper (for example, a nearby town which served as a base for the interview/photo shoot trip or is a proxy location to maintain confidentiality). Maybe not, but you never know.

Blue

 

Interesting thread and good Sherlock Holmesing

As you probably know, Australia is now the home of Dale Begg Smith who has won an Olympic Gold in Turin last week.

He is allegedly one of the originators of CPM Media, allegedly one of the worst malware purveyors on the web

some links
http://spamkings.oreilly.com/archives/2006/02/asterisk_on_popup_moguls_gold.html

http://lukewelling.com/2006/02/17/dale-begg-smith-spam-man-wins-gold/

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15508219

http://www.theage.com.au/news/sport...-a-spam-fortune/2006/02/13/1139679533728.html

http://www.stopscum.com/archives/ad...butor_and_olympic_gold_medal_winner.html#more

http://www.stopscum.com/


http://sw.freedom.net/portal/swport...omponent=spyware&spyware=free_scratch_and_win

that link explains how some of the unasked for software. A
keylogger/trojan/rootkit is one of the most feared and reviled applications
on the net you can see why! If it loaded onto your computer just from
visiting a site and without permission then that is a crime




More details:

Originally Posted by Czar
As such, it may not be too long until a savvy reporter stumbles across
this thread and performs a search for the term "AdsCPM" on Geek/Talk, which
will reveal a huge backlog of publisher complaints, reports of non-payment
and claims of the network being friendly towards spyware players.


AdsCPM actually ran and hosted hxxp://www3.adscpm.com/FreeMP3Music.exe which
apparently a good deal of his pops called via a prompted download.
FreeMP3Music.exe comes loaded with one of the nastier AdWares (LOP) which is
difficult to remove http://www.spywareinfoforum.com/articles/lop/.

FreeScratchAndWin also installed lop/rnd and in it's earlier iteration dealt
with xzoomy. It has it's own parasite designation
(http://research.sunbelt-software.com...hreatid =5475) and eadgbe appears to
be correct that it is affiliated with adscpm somehow. Here is an old domain
registration for scratchandwin.com :
http://www.shoalhaven.net.au/sis/tec...ages/8279.html.

Xzoomy.com, which is actively running also has the contact info (Mike Cass)
domains@adscpm.com. Xzoomy.com was apparently involved in some autodownload
via exploit activity (no prompt download). Here is a nice article explaining
what they did : http://www.xeromag.com/vx2.html.
__________________
Scott Ashman - CTO Jaspin Interactive, Inc. est 1997

http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/Spam_Man_wins_Olympic_gold.asp

http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/pest/pest.aspx?id=453073903

Another link to describe the CPM media scumware, this source is recognised
across the web.

http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/003629.html Good links

http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?p=115065#115065


If any of these allegations are true, how much more high profile and Visible can you get??