SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Some may have heard of scambaiting spammers to waste their time and resources. There are many sites like 419eater which concentrate on it. However, Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story which takes things a step further. A French security researcher says he managed to turn the tables on a cyber-scammer by sending him malware. Whether or not that is ethical is left as an exercise for the readership.
But Ivan Kwiatkowski played along with the scheme until he was asked to send credit card details. He instead sent an attachment containing ransomware.
[...] When Mr Kwiatkowski's parents stumbled across one such website, he decided to telephone the company and pretend he had been fooled.
The "assistant" on the telephone tried to bamboozle him with technical jargon and encouraged him to buy a "tech protection subscription" costing 300 euros (£260).
Mr Kwiatkowski told the assistant that he could not see his credit card details clearly and offered to send a photograph of the information.
But he instead sent a copy of Locky ransomware disguised as a compressed photograph, which the assistant said he had opened.
"He says nothing for a short while, and then... 'I tried opening your photo, nothing happens.' I do my best not to burst out laughing," Mr Kwiatkowski wrote in his blog.
[...] Mr Kwiatkowski said he could not be absolutely certain whether the ransomware had infected the scammer's computer, but there was a fair chance it had.
"He did not let on that something had happened to his computer, so my attempt is best represented as an unconfirmed kill," said Mr Kwiatkowski.
"But encrypting a whole file system does take some time."
He acknowledged that some people may have found his retaliation unethical, but said responses had been "mostly positive".
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16 2016, @05:54PM
Is it unethical to stop a scammer from scamming you and scamming others who understand the nature of the scam less than you do?
If you saw a bank robbery in progress and put a knife in the get away car's tires, flattening them, would that be unethical? But you damaged their property!
What if you tripped the robbers as they ran out of the bank? Is that unethical?
I could, and I'm sure others here could contrive many more examples.
What if that tire you knifed was an innocent bystander's you picked because you made a mistake?
Or you have examples like a person so set on saving souls of innocent babies that he firebombs an abortion clinic? Or you have examples like a good meaning ecologist so worried about overfishing that they sink fishing boats.
What this person did is a classic example of vigilante action. I could talk more about the pros and cons of vigilantism, but I'm sure others here can look up both themselves and come to their own conclusions.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 16 2016, @08:57PM
> What if that tire you knifed was an innocent bystander's
In another post I mentioned, it's not the best analogy, but focus on the Unethical question. What if there was no doubt about whose car and tires? Is it unethical?
> a good meaning ecologist so worried about overfishing that they sink fishing boats
That is a far more interesting question. It's not about the fish. It's about the much larger whole population affected by overfishing vs the selfish over fisher. A lot harder to ponder that one.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 16 2016, @09:23PM
Except there was literally no chance that it was the 'right car' and there was no ambiguity about what he was doing being a crime.
If the dummy made the mistake of somehow getting caught, the police would certainly take the computer with no concern for the theoretical invalid mother and if they ever got around to returning it, it would likely be broken (perhaps physically).