Chinese officials have announced this week the bust of a large hacking ring that was allegedly the nation’s largest distributor of hacking tools.
The Black Hawk Safety Net, which used the site 3800cc.com as a front, allegedly made $1 million in income in 2009 from 12,000 subscribers.
Three admins were arrested as part of the raid. Strangely, the arrests are said to have taken place three months ago, but only reported this week.
Black Hawk was known more as a hacking “training” group, mainly through the sale of malicious software and instructions on how to use them. In 2007, the group made the news for helping create a virus that took down corporate and government systems in Hubei.
Along with the arrest of 29-year-old Li Qiang and 28-year-old Zhang Lei (the third man was not identified), 1.7 million yuan ($250,000 USD) in assets were seized, mainly in cash and computer equipment.
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Matthew Delorey of Massachusetts has been arrested this week, accused of selling hacked Comcast cable modems that would allow buyers to have free Internet access.
Delorey has also been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of wire fraud, each of which has a maximum sentence of 20 years and a fine of $250,000 USD.
The alleged hacker sold the modems via Massmodz.com, which has since been taken down. The modems were modified to have the MAC addresses spoofed, technically stealing Internet access from paying customers.
Delorey was caught when FBI agents purchased two of the modems. The hacker also posted videos on YouTube
titled “Massmodz.com How to Get Free Internet Free Cable Internet Comcast or any Cable ISP - 100% works” and “Massmodz.com How to bypass Comcast registration page with premod cable modem SB5100, SB 5101.”
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A meeting that was called for British musicians to discuss UK government proposals on how to tackle illegal file sharing has come to a consensus that file-sharers should have their bandwidth “squeezed” for persistent copyright infringement. The congregation of more than 100 artists came to the agreement that file sharers should not have their Internet accounts suspended.
Artists including Lily Allen, George Michael, Annie Lennox, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason signed a statement. It calls for two warning letters to be issued to users when they are caught sharing music illegally before their bandwidth speeds are restricted for certain purposes.
The idea would be to “render sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic e-mail and web access functional.” Lily Allen, who was the target of quite a large amount of criticism for running her mouth on the issue while technically breaching copyright law on the exact same website, was applauded by the audience for her campaign to “alert music lovers to the threat that illegal downloading presents to our industry.”
Jim Killock, executive director of digital rights activists the Open Rights Group, said that the artists had addressed the symptom, but not the cure, adding that the only answer was to “license products to compete with file-sharing.” However, he said major labels are being too cautious to approve some new services.
