[Oni]

A good number of stressers were seized. 3 of the owners are currently charged.
Should reduce the number of issues for gamers over the holidays.

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier today that the FBI has seized domains of 15 "DDoS-for-hire" websites and charged three individuals running some of these services.

DDoS-for-hire, or "Booter" or "Stresser," services rent out access to a network of infected devices, which then can be used by anyone, even the least tech-savvy individual, to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against any website and disrupt its access.

In recent years, multiple hacking groups ruined Christmas Day for millions of gamers by taking down PlayStation, Xbox networks and other gaming servers using massive DDoS attacks.

[...]

The 15 booter domains that were selling access to DDoS attacks under the guise of network stress-testing services and seized by the FBI on Thursday include:

• critical-boot.com
  
• ragebooter.com
  
• anonsecurityteam.com
  
• downthem.org
  
• quantumstress.net
  
• booter.ninja
  
• bullstresser.net
  
• defcon.pro
  
• str3ssed.me
  
• defianceprotocol.com
  
• layer7-stresser.xyz
  
• netstress.org
  
• request.rip
  
• torsecurityteam.org
  
• Vbooter.org
  

Read More: https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/fbi-ch...-hire.html

[mothered]

Nice message on each domain:

Spoiler:

Similar to that of Megaupload, when the Feds took It down In 2012.

[zorrophreak]

Oh shit, vbooter and a bunch of other big ones got screwed. I'm pretty much okay with that as I know several of them used illegal botnets in the past (or present.)

Nice message on each domain:

Spoiler:

Similar to that of Megaupload, when the Feds took It down In 2012.

It just doesn't feel official unless you have that ominous shitty seized image on each site.

[VilePyromancer]

I was devastated when Megaupload went down! As well as Liberty Reserve which was the main online currency when I was active in these things years ago. As far as the sites that were taken down; good riddance! I never really did get into DDOS attacks even though I have done my fair share of research on the matter along with infecting computers with RATS. It was never really my thing. I feel bad for the guys that are probably going to prison but hell from all the money they made off of those botnets they will be eating good in prison!

[FreightTrain]

I don't disagree with this decision, but I don't really approve of it either. Yeah, DDoS isn't cool by any means, especially when you're targeting individuals. My issue lies in the charges against the website owners. While I'm sure many users used the sites for malicious intent, many others used the sites to stress-test their own sites and servers. They don't charge, say the owner of Coinbase, because users bought btc through their medium and used it to purchase illegal goods. You should be allowed to set up a medium between market demand and user needs without being charged because some users chose to use the medium for malicious deeds, rather than as intended.

As for botnets, a similar issue. It's one thing to hack into devices and gain entry illegally, but when most infected devices are on open networks, I don't see the issue. If I'm walking through a neighborhood and someone has an open wifi, I can connect to it without it being deemed illegal. Same issue here. If the owners of those devices chose to not secure them, along with the networks they're connected to, then I say fair game. The internet is supposed to be open; It's up to you to secure your devices if you don't want others using them. If you're allowing open access to your computing devices, you can't complain when others use it for their own needs. It's almost 2019, you can't play stupid forever. If you use the internet, you're aware that unsecured devices can easily be targeted by others. Just because someone is making money off the product doesn't mean it's illegal, when literally anyone can connect to those same devices if they chose to.

[VilePyromancer]

I'm almost positive that the botnet that these "website owners" were renting out were not all users with absolutely no security. They were probably compromised through all kinds of attacks including Social Engineering, RATS, Metasploit, and many others. The way I look at it owning a botnet is illegal. And renting it out for people to use against their own network or not is illegal. If the website owners don't have permission from each individual user in the botnet then it is illegal. It's that simple for me. That's like saying I left my door unlocked so it's not illegal for someone to break in and take my stuff... As far as I'm concerned they got what was coming to them.

[mothered]

Oh shit, vbooter and a bunch of other big ones got screwed. I'm pretty much okay with that as I know several of them used illegal botnets in the past (or present.)

Nice message on each domain:

Spoiler:

Similar to that of Megaupload, when the Feds took It down In 2012.

It just doesn't feel official unless you have that ominous shitty seized image on each site.

My thoughts exactly.

I'll never forget that sign. I had a software website running and every download link was with Megaupload (legit premium account). One morning, that sign was up on their site and I lost over 400GB of files. That was the demise of Mega as well as my site.

[O9A]

It was only a matter of time before this happened, I'm convinced they've infiltrated HF and are collecting information for big takedowns every so often.

[rower]

It 's a timely decision. DDoS attacks have led to the loss of a lot of money and even more data.

[mothered]

It 's a timely decision. DDoS attacks have led to the loss of a lot of money

Fast forward to the 16:20 minute mark In this video. Watch It for a few minutes until It reaches the financial loss.