I suppose I could start this post with some history.  History of how we first met up with Greg King, or of the first attacks he launched on us, or how we first started the case against him way back in 2004.  I could go into the GB’s worth of logs that I have manually read through, or the (literally) dozens of chats, both on public IRC and in private message, that I have had with Greg.  I could even get into my own non-professional psycho-analysis of his (imo) dysfunctional mind or his obscenity-plagued-and-drug-referenced use of language.

I could… but I’m sure most of that will be released slowly in the coming months as the trial progresses and information reaches the WWW.  Besides, why read here when you can read it in any of the thousands of other sites that are focusing on the arrest (even though they are focusing on a site that was attacked for a week, more than one that was attacked for years, but whatever… an arrest is an arrest).  Instead, I think I’ll focus on a lighter note.

Morale.  What’s that, you say?  Well, when Greg was running free, we were under a constant threat of having our sites attacked again (and again, and again), causing yet more damage to the systems and loss of data and coding.  It makes it hard for anyone to want to actually do anything, when you don’t even know how long it will be there for.  With Greg’s arrest, it’s like a weight has been lifted.  People are more willing to talk openly, and to participate in conversations on the forums again.  The threat has been, shall we say, neutralized… at least for the time being.  I mean, there’s still thousands of botnet kiddies out there… packet monkeys riding on the coat tails of the original gods of the hacking world (read: Mitnick).  Taking one kiddie down hardly puts a dent in the global cause.  But it’s one less threat, and that’s good enough for me.

I guess in a way, I could be thanking Greg.  Not that I will, seeing as fate would have played out one way or another anyway, but just the same, his idiocy and stupid choice of actions did speed things up some.  What would I be referring to?  Well, while I had spoken to Tami some beforehand (one of the groups on my IRC was harassing her and her team on another network, so we had to chat to each other on a few occasions to bring peace to the groups), it was the actions of Greg that caused us to begin speaking to each other regularly.  IM, email, IRC, and the occasional 3 AM wake-up call on the phone (“Greg is on IRC, and the server load is going up..” “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute *yawn*”).  As I said, fate would have eventually played it’s part anyway seeing as I already knew Tami, but the fact that we were sort of thrown into a situation where near-constant communication was necessary was a bit of a silver lining to the dark cloud that was sitting over our community for 4 years.  That silver lining, I suppose, has turned into more of a gold ring. 

Anyway, just wanted to point out that even in the shadows of idiocy, there can always be a good side.  I also want to point out that while he was, in all examples given to the public so far, a few KB short of a MB (heh… computer reference), he was actually a very intelligent kid who held great promise if only he would have focused on something more productive instead of destructive.  On several occasions, he was invited to join Killanet as a productive member of the group, and to use his knowledge to help others instead of causing problems.  He, apparently, decided to choose the latter anyway.

On a side-note, I wanted to make a public display of thanks to the officers who worked on this case (who I am not sure if I can name or not, although one in particular always made me laugh while we were discussing the case on the phone, and I’m sure he knows I mean him), as well as Assistant U.S Attorney Matthew Segal and U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott for the time and effort they have put into this.  You all are, for the record, life savers.  Not to mention sanity savers (is that even a real term?).  Anyway, thanks everyone.  And thanks to those who actually cared enough to read this.

Anyone looking for updates on the case, please visit our home site, http://www.killanet.net, as that is where the updates will be posted.  That’s also where you can get hold of myself, or the other admins and staff, in regards to this whole mess.

Anyhow, take care everyone, and talk to you soon. 

- Me

Before I post the article here, I’d just like to point out that this is the case that Adaera has been working on for 4 years now, and we finally have results. So Congratulations to Killanet Technology, and to Adaera for her hard work on this incident. Adaera’s smile when I came home from work today more than made up for all of the time spent sifting through logs, and talking on the phone with the FBI, and the frustration that I felt in thinking that the case was not going to go anywhere. I love you Tami, and thank you for your perseverance, and in making sure that this kiddie is where he belongs… behind bars.

Source
McGREGOR W. SCOTT
United States Attorney
Eastern District of California
Sacramento
501 I Street, Suite 10-100
Sacramento, CA 95814

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

INDICTMENT AND ARREST FOR COMPUTER HACKING

SACRAMENTO — United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott announced today the arrest of GREG KING, 21, of Fairfield, California, and the unsealing of an Indictment returned on September 27, 2007, charging KING with four counts of electronic transmission of codes to cause damage to protected computers.

This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Assistant United States Attorney Matthew D. Segal, a prosecutor with the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office who is handling the case, the Indictment alleges that KING used a “botnet” to attack computer servers. A botnet is a network of infected computers that, unbeknownst to their owners, are compromised by a hacker and programmed to respond to a hacker’s commands. The infected computers are referred to as “bots,” “zombies,” or “drones.” According to documents filed with the court, KING allegedly controlled over seven thousand such “bots” and used them to conduct multiple distributed denial of service attacks against websites of two businesses. In a distributed denial of service attack, a hacker directs a large number of infected computers (“bots”) to flood a victim computer with information and thereby disable the target computer. On the Internet, KING was also known as “Silenz, Silenz420, sZ, GregK, and Gregk707.”

When agents went to arrest KING at his residence this morning, KING went out the back door of the residence carrying a laptop computer, depositing it in the bushes in the backyard. Agents obtained a warrant to search KING’s backyard and seized the computer. KING was arrested and is expected to appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Sacramento at 2:00 p.m. today.

The maximum statutory penalty for a violation of transmission of damaging code to a protected computer is ten years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. However, the actual sentence will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables, and any applicable statutory sentencing factors.

The charges are only allegations and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

You can also read about it Here and Here (You can also download and read a full copy of the Unsealed Indictment at this link).