Anyone Want To Track This Hacker?

I have a hacker that is very sophisticated, invading my whole PC system, and uses Custom Destinations and Automatic Destinations folders to send messages to itself by wifi. I've saved a bunch of its messages.

It is no longer a problem for me, because formatting C gets rid of it - but only briefly. Still, I've saved my data, so when it returned, it was just a nuisance.

What I can't understand is why there aren't people who'd be eager to use these messages to track down the hacker(s). The messages would HAVE to be addressed to them. Have we become so accustomed to malware that it's the new norm? Is there so much of it that nobody wants to bother to find these crooks?

Does anyone here want to try? Or does anyone here know someone who would want to try?

 

Once you trace them and find they're in another country what do you think you can do? Interpol won't even look at any police files unless there is a minimum loss of $50,000. We nearly lost AU$12,000 through identity theft a while ago and even though the Australian Federal Police traced the money trail to an address in India and they had photo ID of the perpetrators getting the money, nothing was done. AU$12,000 was deemed to be not worth the effort and the bank replaced the money after their investigation concluded. The police said they knew this crime group had taken about one million dollars but only in amounts small enough not to trigger any risk of being prosecuted. Interpol only act on individual cases and if each case is below the threshold then no further action is taken.

If you think you might personally mount some sort of DoS attack or exact some other malware revenge attack for retribution then they just change their IP and start again. Also by taking action you open yourself up to possible prosecution by the authorities.

The problem with many of these attacks is they are smart enough to use spoofed IP addresses and these usually appear to be from several cascading proxies in several other countries that criss cross the globe. The people in the best position to trace these people are law enforcement agencies like the NSA, AFP, Interpol etc. but they have so much work that there has to be large losses demonstrated before they can or will take any action. In my case AU$12,000 was deemed by Interpol to be an insignificant loss and if it was AU$50,000 then they would look at the files and probably not take any further action but if it was a loss of >AU$100,000 then they would investigate and prosecute provided their investigation found enough strong evidence.

So back to the original question once you trace them and positively identify them, what are you going to do?

My time is better spent doing something that I can achieve a positive outcome

 

Mind you some email attacks you can have a bit of fun with by sending their domain to a stack of pron sites or other dodgy sites that are loaded with malware or crapware. If they get bombarded by enough spam emails then they may lose their hosting account but then they just open another one.

The problem is you might think you have wounded them but this rarely does much as they themselves have good spam filters to get rid of malware. If they are running their operation as a business then like all business they take precautions to prevent losses.
The company I work for uses Spam Assassin on all our hosting servers and this cuts out 90% of spam and malware when set to aggressive and I would think the crooks would have similar tools at their disposal.

 

If they're in another country, all the MORE reason to track them down. They can't be put on trial, but we can broadcast far and wide, WHO they are, WHAT they are doing and WHY, and HOW we can keep them from hacking US. We don't just have to punish them; we can emasculate their malware.

A positive outcome does NOT have to be an indictment, trial and conviction. Merely ratting them out publicly can deflate their efforts somewhat.

Of course, we could block the perps from ever entering the U.S., sanction the country they're hiding in, and if they have any U.S. assets, those might be possible to legally freeze or be removed to the treasury.

One thing you CAN be sure of is that by not tracking and reporting them, you're condoning, inadvertently, what they do. They rely on public apathy to thrive.

You said: "The people in the best position to trace these people are law enforcement agencies like the NSA, AFP, Interpol etc." All too true, and that's what I'm referring to, but not ALL. Today, those agencies can be compromised and fail to do their job for political reasons. That's why private experts can dig up the info - isn't that the sort of thing Anonymous people do?

I don't have the kind of expertise to point any fingers, but if this is reported to the governmental authorities, we can monitor what they do (or don't do), and by providing the info to expert agencies abroad, we'd be able to tell if our own agencies were being lax or not.

There's a LOT we can do. And the worst thing we can do is...nothing at all.

When a government agency or prominent politician gets hacked, it becomes news everywhere, and the hackers are tracked down vigorously. But attacking a politician's internet access isn't nearly as bad as attacking our election mechanisms, in order to favor the most despicable candidates. If nobody LOOKS, nobody will FIND.

Since this sort of thing works so well, we can be sure it will work just as well for them when they meddle (AGAIN) in our upcoming election. Isn't preventing it better than curing it?

I'm only asking that private people who are experts, try to nail at least the identity of the hacker, but also to investigate HOW they are going about it and what their hacks are DOING, and to how many people.

We ALL have better things to do than the drudgery of finding info on a hacker. But with our democracy in dire straits, making such an effort is worth it.

I think sending spam to the bad guys is also a crime. Besides, it'll roll off them like water on a duck. You mentioned Spam Assassin. Is it really that good, that it can deflect actual malware instead of just spam? Even though I'm buying a router to thwart this attacker, I could welcome something like that. But these days, even big businesses can't always protect themselves. The internet itself is beginning to rot. I bought a new PC, and only use the old one online. The new one will be kept virginal from the web, except updating the OS.

I think there's too much at stake right now for us to allow any kind of hacker to operate without providing it with big headaches. They're after our election system, you know. What they did to me may just be practice.

You seem to have expertise, so I'm merely begging you to spend some time working on the problems online that are trying to unravel our democracy.

In either case, I wish you well.

 

If this was at all possible then the NSA, Interpol and others would have done it years ago. You identify someone in another country and probably nobody will/can arrest them due to no extradition treaties with that country so you spread far and wide their activities. Now they change their name and IP address (every day if required) and carry on the same so you do it again and again etc......... Eventually you realise this is doing nothing. The only way this works is if law enforcement in the identified country will break down doors and arrest the people but this rarely happens.

So you block some people from entering your country big deal. Most criminals couldn't care and besides if they were such good hackers do you think they would visit on their own passport.....probably not.

I take exception to your contention that by not acting we are condoning their activity. This is just not true. Taking this attitude I hope you are spending all your spare time preventing drug dealers selling drugs on the streets.....if you're not then by your reasoning you're condoning the illegal drug trade.

The government agencies are looking full time but they can't investigate everyone so it becomes a priority to investigate hackers damaging national security and infrastructure then go after the virus spreaders and then if there is time go after the spammers........of course this is oversimplified but you get the idea.

Politicians get people investigated because they have the right connections to other people in high places who can order the different government agencies to take action so in effect they are jumping the queue. Being the government they sometimes have enough diplomatic clout to get something done in another country but this is not always the case as there are many countries that never cooperate with western countries on principle.

So election tampering was caused by hackers????? Funny how the incumbent US president was happy to let this help him win the election and even had his son negotiate the swapping of information.....funny to call this hacking because I would call it a sanctioned government action.....there are so many lies about this that very few will ever know the truth.

So you don't have the expertise to do this and don't want to learn how to do this and obviously don't want to give up your own time but expect others to take up the cause.......PLEASE!!!!!!
If you are so fired up about this why not do some courses in network security, all the common programming languages and then get onto subjects like network penetration and security mitigation and risk management then start courses on encryption and cyphers and also learn about other types of network used the military and government agencies then start reading up on all the current 0day exploits and see how you go.........yes it is a lot to do.....people with these qualifications are usually working flat out just to pay back their college loans and ongoing course costs and here are you suggesting they chase down hackers for free.......

Yes it is illegal but I figure if I were to do it then I would be sure they were in a country with no extradition treaty and if I were to do it I would be using an anonymous proxy that shows my location to be in another country. Of course this is all hypothetical isn't it???

Spam Assassin is just one commercial product that we use serverside on several of our hosting platforms. Of course no product stops all spam and malware so educating staff not to click on links unless they are sure they are OK is very important. Please note when Spam Assassin is cranked up to its most aggressive setting it sometimes blocks valid emails as well as spam so it is not the total solution but it is pretty good. Looking for spam/malware solutions is a whole topic all to itself and requires lots of research to get the package that delivers the best outcome for your business.

If you are getting a new router do some internet courses on setting up DMZ on your router. DMZ is demilitarised zone and can block anything you wish to block and it puts another hardware layer between you and the internet. It is usually rules based so when you setup a profile you can have it block IP ranges, domains, users, mail, voip servers and many other things. If you use it on a home router then make sure the router you purchase can insert a double layer as some of the cheaper routers that claim to have DMZ don't really do the job.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMZ_(computing)

I won't be chasing up hackers....I discovered long ago it is a futile exercise so now I only do traces on the people that try to hack the company for whom I work so I can put it in my report to the directors. Of course the authorities are notified and usually that is the end of it.

Agree +1
As we know tracking them down is just the beginning and doing the rest is what takes all the effort and cost and usually with a bad outcome because they hide in countries that don't have extradition treaties.