FTC shuts down a rogue Internet service provider

// added June 05, 2009 // 15 comments //
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31112842/

The federal government has severed the Internet connection of a company accused of helping criminals serve up a "witches' brew" of nasty content online, from computer viruses to child pornography.

It's likely to be just a short-lived victory in the fight against cybercrime, though, since bad guys are very good at getting back online quickly.

The Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it has ordered the shutdown of a company called Pricewert LLC, described in a complaint filed in San Jose, Calif., federal court as an Oregon-based shell company run by "overseas criminals," operating out of Belize and running many of its illegal operations out of servers in Silicon Valley.

Pricewert, which operated the "Triple Fiber Network" or "3FN," wasn't the type of Internet service that average consumers would see or sign up for. Instead, the service was advertised "in the darkest corners of the Internet" and was targeted at criminals who want to put malicious Web sites online, but need the servers and bandwidth to do it, according to the complaint.

Technicians working for 3FN even helped criminals maintain the armies of personal computers that they had infected with viruses, according to the complaint. Those armies are known as "botnets," and they require some sophistication to manage.

The FTC says the case marks the first time the agency has ordered the shuttering of an Internet provider. The agency has usually focused on taking out harmful Web sites individually. Companies that host malicious Web sites are usually forced offline under pressure from the FBI or computer security researchers, but without a formal government order — which is what makes Thursday's announcement significant.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the agency decided to move on 3FN after getting information about the company's behavior that made it "so clear this was a rogue (Internet service provider)" that the agency had a strong case against it.

"This is very, very important because rather than go after the individual spammers, in one action we can shut down a host of bad actors," Leibowitz said in an interview. "There's always a whack-a-mole problem in cases like this, but at the very least we've put a meaningful wrench in their gears."

The FTC's complaint draws a link between 3FN and a notorious Internet provider called McColo Corp., which was also operating out of a data center in Silicon Valley.

McColo was believed responsible for half of the world's spam before it was shut down in November. Spam dropped precipitously after McColo's Internet providers pulled the plug on McColo, but it has since rebounded.

When investigators from NASA looked into intrusions into some of its computers, they traced them back to McColo's servers. A search warrant later revealed those servers were also routing instant message conversations between 3FN employees and customers that formed the basis of some of the FTC's allegations.

A man who picked up the phone at one of 3FN's offices Thursday night said the company wasn't commenting and hung up...
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15 comments // FTC shuts down a rogue Internet service provider

  • Mikeysfake1
  • Johann1356
    • 0
      Johann1356  

    • Rick, you have a good point. But it is nice to see the government looking out for us for once. Sadly once the "computer czar" is in position, he or she would be allowed to do too much without our permission. If they can stop a company overseas, then something here will be a cinch.

      This I'm happy that it happened because more of these sites should be put down.

    • 8 months ago
  • Hunnter
    • 0
      Hunnter  

    • lol yes, let's shut them down!
      That'll tell them nasty pedos and virus makers...

      God, these guys are clueless.
      1 point to the "bad guys", since, you know, this will just drive them deeper into the net.
      Good luck finding them now, idiots.

    • 8 months ago
  • RickDemocracy
    • 0
      RickDemocracy  

    • Let's be careful not to pay too much attention to this...

      What it's really about is propagating the idea that internet is bad and the authorities need to be given more power to intervene. Hence giving the President dictatorial powers whereby he can shut down the whole internet if he so pleases...

    • 8 months ago
  • 23485768934756
  • 23485768934756
  • ddhboy
  • Hunnter
    • 0
      Hunnter  
    • RickDemocracy:

      Technically they can shut down a section of it.
      The US root servers can be turned off, effectively killing the Internet for (most) of USA.

      But yes, they cannot just turn off the Internet for everyone.

      They could "attack" by setting up new rules in the routing tables, which are pretty insecure from this form of attack.
      It is why Youtube was cut from 2/3s of the Internet last year, and why the whole Internet was "zero'd" when someone created a global route to 0.0.0.0 or something along that line.
      But these things are fairly trivial to fix.

    • 8 months ago
  • RickDemocracy
    • 0
      RickDemocracy  
    • RickDemocracy:

      The cyber czar bill will make it possible, don't you worry.

      I think if the govt wants to stop off the internet, they'll be able to. How many providers are there? Send some guys in suits to tell them "you shut it down now or you're going to jail for 20 years" and i'm sure they'll get some cooperation. Just claim it's for National Security or against some terrorist threat and you can do anything you like.
      If it's legal to torture children and to lock anyone up without a trial or even an accusation i'm pretty sure turning off a few servers won't cause the govt too much remorse.

    • 8 months ago
  • dvelop
    • 0
      dvelop  
    • RickDemocracy:

      sounds about right Rick. This the the plan of action at the moment, watch Noam chomsky Manufacturing consent for an idea about the total scheme of things.

      Special interests own our supposedly *elected officials, and those special interests are having serious problems with the net, and it cutting into their profits, so they are all on a mission to stifle it and it's current growth in the realms of freedom of individual created content, and so much more. The corperations hate having this level playing field where joe smoe can have just as many viewers as a billion dollar company, they can only allow this for so long.

      Thus is why we are starting to see the beginning phase of how they will take control of it, WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!

      Why is it that in the business world they sell us this crap about free markets,to protect themselves, but in the digital world to gain control, we now need rules and them to protect us. Buy a virus buster, leave the kiddie porn search to the proper authorities that handle that. I wouldn't put it past them to have just used this a a test to see if they could get away with shutting down an internet provider who didn't do as they like. and then sell it through the media as oh how great of a bust this was. Do you or I know for sure? Where is the proof? Then like stated before they use it to sell the czar even more. Basically folks kiss your internet freedom away, it is going to happen.

      Freedom is only for those in control, and the rest of us have to live by those rules.

    • 8 months ago
  • AsanDanny
  • EmperorThan
    • 0
      EmperorThan  

    • Really though if there was a conspiracy and this a a political move think about it all they'd have to say is "oh the site was uhh... making virus'.... and kiddie porn."

    • 8 months ago
  • 23485768934756
  • wayseeker
    • 0
      wayseeker  

    • Good for the FTC. Some government agencies like the FCC are afraid to take action against rogue media because of free speech issues. The FTC has served the public as they are meant to do..

    • 8 months ago
  • tommytripper
  • 23485768934756
    • 0
      23485768934756  

    • http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31072773/
      “The United States currently is facing a grave national security challenge in the form of exploitation of our government and private-sector networks and information," said Steven Chabinsky, assistant deputy director of cyber-issues for the Obama administration's director of national intelligence.”

      We seem to be overly worried about the exploitation of our government and private sector, but we don’t care about the exploitation of our citizens because we wire tap them without warrants.

      http://current.com/items/90156744_warrantless-surveillance-lawsuit-thrown-out-fi...
      “Federal district judge Vaughn Walker has rejected lawsuits that aimed to hold telecommunications companies accountable for their role in a controversial warrantless surveillance program that was orchestrated in secret by the federal government.”

    • 8 months ago

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