“The botnet was taken offline by the provider because it was used for criminal purposes.”
Isn’t the botnet itself a criminal intrusion? I mean, it’s unlikely that the owners of the exit nodes were even aware they were part of it.
this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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It sounds like people installed one of those free proxy things that's actually malware. I'm not sure I'd call that "intrusion" but it's certainly illegal.
I mean, it might've not been illegal. It was probably hidden in some T&C somewhere. That's the trade-off. You get a free privacy proxy, they get a free residential proxy endpoint.
Deploying botnet software is usually always illegal, regardless of consent.
People who want to prevent their devices from being swept into botnets should install security updates in a timely manner and resist the urge to continue using software or devices that no longer receive them.
That doesn't really seem likely to happen on its own. I'm pretty sure that most IoT devices phone home and upgrade themselves (which, frankly, I'd be maybe more-concerned about as a vector than a lack of updates, since anyone can buy a defunct IoT maker and thus get control of all those devices, or penetrate the IoT maker's network) and I imagine that most people have no idea when a device has last been updated.
You can maybe have some sort of network protocol where devices can report their last update. That'd maybe permit for auditing that, if you had a device that would tell a user about an outdated device, which isn't really the case today. Also kind of hard to tell an end user what a device at IP address X is. If they're on the same LAN, maybe could try to identify it by OUI on the Ethernet address, I guess, but that's not going to give you a convenient helpful-to-most-end-users product ID for a lot of devices.
I thought Lemmy.ml had been quiet recently.
I don't think there are many bots on Lemmy. If I were a betting man, though, I'd wager that the 10-day-old account complaining about the .ml instance is the bot
He also has made 300 comments in just 10 days. I have a total of 1600 in 2yrs. I make more comments compared to posts yet he will outpace me in the next 30days. Definitely sus 🤖