Comodo, USER-TRUST, and even Verisign have also been compromised in the past, and there's no chance that they'll be removed from browsers because they're so popular. Lots of governments also have their own probably-insecure CAs which are accepted by all browsers. The CA system is a lost cause.

How is it a challenge? what he did takes no intellectual ability at all.
". Your life is only ruined if you dox yourself and reveal everything to FBI lul" What does that even mean, it's highly naive of him to think that he is untraceable.

Most malware isn't compatible with linux because the vast majority of users use windows. Creating a botnet with linux bots isn't harder than targeting windows machines but the turn over won't be as great. Also most desktop linux users are poor communists so it's not worth stealing their financial details.

Windows users are able to enjoy the largest selection of software, when I buy a new tv card I don't have to spend 10 hours compiling drivers and kernels, I simply pop a disk in and install. Who are the real idiots?

On another note if my machine was compromised I much rather it be used for bitcoin mining than key logging. That doesn't justify his actions though.

Note: This is not vulnerable to CVE-2012-2459

Are there any settings besides intensity that can increase my hash?

MagicPID is better

Subscription Levels - MSDN Operating Systems - $699.00 ($499.00 Renewal)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/buy/buy.aspx

To get Win 7 Ultimate for free you need access to some organization that has paid for a subscription already.

I wonder how much Windows 7 Ultimate would cost in ⊅BTC?   

If the transaction is small, or the service or goods must be delivered in a manner of longer than 1 hour, it does not matter you attack it or not.

We have been quietly notifying the largest exchanges, merchant service providers and mining pools about this issue, and waited until they upgraded or patched their code to go public with this:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

CVE-2012-2459: Critical Vulnerability

A denial-of-service vulnerability that affects all versions of
bitcoind and Bitcoin-Qt has been reported and fixed. An attacker
could isolate a victim's node and cause the creation of blockchain
forks.

Because this bug could be exploited to severely disrupt the Bitcoin
network we consider this a critical vulnerability, and encourage
everybody to upgrade to the latest version: 0.6.2.

Backports for older releases (0.5.5 and 0.4.6) are also available if
you cannot upgrade to version 0.6.2.

Full technical details are being withheld to give people the
opportunity to upgrade.

Thanks to Forrest Voight for discovering and reporting the vulnerability.


Questions that might be frequently asked:

How would I know if I am the victim of this attack?

Your bitcoin process would stop processing blocks and would have a
different block count from the rest of the network (you can see the
current block count at websites like blockexplorer.com or
blockchain.info).  Eventually it would display the message:

"WARNING: Displayed transactions may not be correct!  You may need to
upgrade, or other nodes may need to upgrade."

(note that this message is displayed whenever your bitcoin process
detects that the rest of the network seems to have a different
block count, which can happen for several reasons unrelated to
this vulnerability).


Could this bug be used to steal my wallet?

No.


Could this bug be used to install malware on my system?

No.


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13-20 Ghash/s means his mining botnet earns him approx. $1.100-1.700 per month.

Now, I don't want to condone his actions, but putting myself in his skin, that seems hardly worth it to me. That's less than a cleaning lady earns where I live.  Why doesn't he just get a real job?  Why risk going to prison for such a modest amount of income?  

I assume that selling the CC information is a lot more lucrative than mining, and the mining is just a side project of his.

Either that, or his is doing this for reasons other than money. Prestige? Power?

He seems to think he is invincible, but even Tor is not 100% safe, and all it takes is a second of carelessness and your anonymity is blown, and your life is ruined.

It might even help the PCs living longer having their fans run nonstop so there is less dust buildup!

I have to agree with that.

I kinda want my own bitcoin botnet now. 

Something important for Windows users...Notice in the pics, W7, VS, XP. Every machine listed in the pics are Windows boxes. He also said he binds programs uploaded to usenet.

I wonder if he has compromised any linux boxes?

I think, 50btc.com will remind us about this good time, when the grass was greener, the reward was larger...