On January 23, 2006, ???BotHerder??? Jeanson James Ancheta, 21, of Downey, California,
a member of the ???botmaster underground,??? pleaded guilty to fraudulently installing
adware and then selling zombies to hackers and spammers. ???BotHerder??? was
sentenced on May 8, 2006, with a record prison sentence of 57 months (nearly five
years) in federal prison. At the time of sentencing it was the first prosecution of its kind
in the United States, and was the longest known sentence for a defendant who had
spread computer viruses.
Figure 1-2 The sophistication and knowledge of hackers are increasing.
NOTE A drastic increase in spam was experienced in the later months of 2006
and early part of 2007 because spammers embedded images with their messages
instead of using the traditional text. This outwitted almost all of the spam filters,
and many people around the world experienced a large surge in spam.
So what does this all have to do with ethics? As many know, the term ???hacker??? had a
positive connotation in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was a name for someone who
really understood systems and software, but it did not mean that they were carrying out
malicious activities. As malware and attacks emerged, the press and the industry equated
the term ???hacker??? with someone who carries out malicious technical attacks.
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