M$
There is another company that installs spyware on millions of computers, when is their day of reckoning?
One rule for us, another for them.
A programmer who wrote and sold software that backdoored PCs so they could be remotely controlled has been jailed for 30 months – and forced to give up his stash of 114 Bitcoins. Colton Grubbs, 21, of Stanford, Kentucky, was sentenced this week after admitting to creating LuminosityLink, a software package he claimed was a …
He's like a gun manufacturer, not the shooter. Why is this poor sap being victimised?
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because the gun makers have the NRA to back them up, this "poor sap" is on his own, IF, however, there IS a NMA - National Malware Association - then he would be quids in and still at liberty to bring down his mayhem on all concerned
If he's selling it in hacker forums, it is pretty obvious the market for which it is intended.
Here are the things it did that no legitimate remote access software would do:
1) installs without notification
2) records keys pressed without notification
3) surveillance using camera & microphone without notification
4) view and download files without notification
5) access names and passwords for websites without...you get the picture
6) mine virtual currencies
7) launch DDoS attacks against other computers
8) prevent anti-malware software from detecting or removing it
On your points
1) installs without notification. Win 10 did this.
2) records keys pressed without notification. Win 10 does this.
3) surveillance using camera & microphone without notification. Cortana listens to you.
4) view and download files without notification. Win 10 scans files to report back to M$.
5) access names and passwords for websites without...you get the picture Yep Win 10.
6) mine virtual currencies. Unknown but I wouldn't hold my breath.
7) launch DDoS attacks against other computers. Unknown if Win 10 does this.
8) prevent anti-malware software from detecting or removing it. If win 10 allowed anti-virus to fix it it would not exist.
9) Uses stealth to stop users blocking communication to the mother ship. Win 10.
Sorry but I fail to see the difference.
"Sorry but I fail to see the difference."
Windows 10 has many more legitimate uses. I may not agree with MS and their policies, but trying to equate windows to something that is deliberately subversive and intended to be used as it was evidently used isn't going to work.
Whether or not he should have been prosecuted for this is a different matter and that comparison would be laughed out of most courts if you tried to prosecute MS on the same charges.
And that is even without the many, many, many millons they spend of lawyers.
With no criminal record (that is an assumption which may be false) and $260k involved 30 months was no deal.
They must have estimated future foreseeable victim costs and built that into the sentencing - meaning they blew up his number. Then they capped restitution at whatever he owned and took it. Or worse yet, because the story doesn't allude to it - he may owe millions more based on that sentencing estimate and the Feds will harass him till the day he dies to take it back sans any actual victim costs.
Crime doesn't pay.
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"People simply have to have confidence in their ability to use these modern instruments to transact their business, privately communicate, and securely maintain their information."
I agree wholeheartedly with this. But, speaking personally, the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Facebook reduce my confidence in these systems more than people like this guy.