FTC has U.S. ISP shut down, Distributors of Malware, child porn and spam Options

[Papakid]

This is a little late but we could all use some good news in this area.

A rogue Internet Service Provider that recruits, knowingly hosts, and actively participates in the distribution of spam, child pornography, and other harmful electronic content has been shut down by a district court judge at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. The ISP’s upstream providers and data centers have disconnected its servers from the Internet.

According to the FTC, the defendant, Pricewert LLC, which does business under a variety of names including 3FN and APS Telecom, actively recruits and colludes with criminals seeking to distribute illegal, malicious, and harmful electronic content including child pornography, spyware, viruses, trojan horses, phishing, botnet command and control servers, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest. The FTC alleges that the defendant advertised its services in the darkest corners of the Internet, including a forum established to facilitate communication between criminals.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/06/3fn.shtm

According to InformationWeek, even tho the company was located in the U.S., it was owned and operated by eastern Europeans, where much of the worst malware has originated and where a very large and active criminal network exists. Quoting Vincent Weafer, VP at Symantec Security Response:

"The bad guys like operating out of developed countries like the U.S. because the hosting is reliable and more likely to be accepted to users...But they don't physically need to be there. You can run an awful lot of this remotely."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/securi...cleID=217701956

[garmanma]

Too bad the only thing that will probably happen to them is they lose their hardware

[Layback Bear]

I think public hangings are in order here.