This Business Gives Belize a Bad Name

[Zelda]

Feds Shutter ‘Black Hat’ ISP

By David Kravets * June 4, 2009 * 5:02 pm

For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission is shuttering an internet service provider it alleges, “recruits, knowingly hosts, and actively participates in the distribution of illegal, malicious and harmful electronic content” such as botnets and child porn.

The company, doing business as 3fn.net and APS Telecom, “actively recruited” to its hosting service thousands of “rogue” and “black hat” web sites distributing “illegal, malicious, and harmful electronic content including child pornography, spyware, viruses, trojan horses, phishing, botnet command and control servers, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest. ”

A San Jose, California federal judge, responding to the FTC’s lawsuit, has ordered upstream internet providers and data centers to stop servicing the company, also known as Pricewert, which is based in Oregon. Its operators live in Belize.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/0 ... k-hat-isp/

[Zelda]

further details emerge:

In addition to blatantly admitting its willingness to host content that's illegal in the U.S. (a 3FN representative in a Web forum said the firm would, "of course," host rape and incest Web sites), the company was found to be running banner ads promoting its hosting services on a Russian language Web site, crutop.nu, which features forums for webmasters.

The FTC alleges 3FN "has gone to considerable lengths to hide from law enforcement." Court documents describe Pricewert as "a shell company" created by 3FN, incorporated in Oregon and reportedly operating from Belize.

Phrases like "bot herder" and "zombie drones" pepper a supplemental document posted along with the FTC's statement about the case.

http://www.clickz.com/3633993

[Zelda]

they're still dismantling those EVIL phisher-kings...

Internet Firm Shut Down For Aiding Online Gangs

Posted on: Friday, 21 May 2010, 10:25 CDT

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently reported that it shut down an internet firm that has been linked to many of the internet’s criminal gangs. The FTC said Belize-based 3FN supported gangs that ran botnets, carried out phishing scams and traded images of child abuse.

3FN servers and hardware have been seized and will be sold off as the firm is dismantled. 3FN operators must also pay back more than $1,000,000 they are accused to have made by hosting criminal sites.

The FTC began its legal action against 3FN in June 2009 alleging that it was actively scheming with the web’s cyber criminals to distribute nearly every type of malware and illegal content out there. 3FN was also involved in distributing spyware, viruses and trojans. They also aided phishing scams and helped gangs sell illegal images over the Internet, and acted as a discussion forum for many spammers.

The FTC also charged that 3FN worked with scammers who run botnets and aided them in stealing data by planting keyloggers in hijacked computers. It maintained a library of more than 4500 malicious programs that could pilfer data from hijacked computers.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology ... technology

still wondering WHO was running this POS operation here in Belize, was it USian expats ?

and WHERE exactly were they located ?

here's an old article about 3FN:

Dedicated Web Hosting Provider, 3FN Launches All-In-One Services Portal

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) March 26, 2009 — 3FN Inc., is a recognized dedicated server web hosting provider, today launches an All-In-One Services Portal to offer easy-to-use solution for managing modern web hosting and marketing technologies.

<snipped>

”As we provide comprehensive dedicated web hosting and marketing services we are happy to announce that now we have the place to manage all our services at once. By launching 3FN All-In-One Services Portal our customers have the opportunity to manage all services provided by 3FN company from one easy-to-use tool. We believe this is a good thing as most part of our customers purchase several services and would be happy to have such tool, ” states Dean McToner, the 3FN official representative.

<snipped>

A leading company on the international web hosting (http://www.3fn.net) market, provider of dedicated servers and web hosting services Triple Fiber Network, 3FN Inc., is a US based web hosting provider, located in San Jose, California, the US. The main company’s datacenter is located in the heart of the Internet, Silicon Valley, creating dedicated server network ideal for every web hosting solution.

http://www.tophosts.com/articles/008427.html?from=rss

hmmmm. that raises more questions than it answers... but... anybody here heard of, or know this guy Dean ? every article I read is remarkably SHORT on relevant details...

[Zelda]

another tidbit:

3FN Offers New Backup Plans Responding to the Growing Customer Demand

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) July 12, 2008

<snipped>

The company provides customers with all-year and daily support via toll-free telephone line, online chat and ticket system. 3FN company's headquarter is located in San Jose, California, the US. The company's offices are located in UK, India, Ukraine and EU

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/07/prweb1093654.htm

what a tangled web...

[Zelda]

and here's a background piece from 2009:

US Federal Trade Commission shuts down ISP

Provider accused of harboring malware, child porn

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Posted in Crime, 4th June 2009 20:02 GMT

<snipped>

Court documents alleged a litany of illegal services that 3FN operators actively offered. They include:

The site allegedly communicated with malicious software hosted McColo. Investigators who sifted through the contents of the latter shuttered provider found instant message logs in which high-level 3FN employees provided technical support to customers trying to configure botnets with as many as 200,000 nodes.

A NASA investigator probing intrusions to the space agency's networks found 22 separate attacks on NASA computers originating from IP addresses controlled by 3FN, including five this year, one as recently as April. NASA estimates it has spent more than $14,000 to repair the damage.

A separate investigator managed to peer inside 3FN after reverse engineering malware masquerading as a video player that was hosted by the provider. What he found were logs showing that thousands of computers had been compromised by the malicious code. He also located more than 40 websites hosted by 3FN that are possible hosts of child pornography, some with names such as little-incest.com and littles-raped.com. Using a text-only browser to visit some of the sites, he found text promising "illegal photos of little girls" and "very little schoolgirls raped."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/04/3fn_shut_down/

ugh... may they burn in hell...

[Zelda]

Is it really easy to incorporate in Belize or something?

here's ANOTHER group, this one did "scareware"

similar deal, set up on paper in Belize City, with offices in the Ukraine and the US...

3 indicted in alleged $100M global 'scareware' scheme

May 28, 2010 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE

An Ohio man and two men living overseas were indicted Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago for allegedly carrying out a Ukraine-based “scareware” internet fraud scheme that took $100 million from victims from all over the world.

http://ftc.gov/opa/2008/12/winsoftware.shtm

here's the FTC complaint, from December 10, 2008 (dang it takes a while to get indictments, doesn't it?):

Court Halts Bogus Computer Scans

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. district court has issued a temporary halt to a massive “scareware” scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and illegal pornography on consumers’ computers. According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of those responsible for the scheme, to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress.

According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants used an elaborate ruse that duped Internet advertising networks and popular Web sites into carrying their advertisements. The defendants falsely claimed that they were placing Internet advertisements on behalf of legitimate companies and organizations. But due to hidden programming code that the defendants inserted into the advertisements, consumers who visited Web sites where these ads were placed did not receive them. Instead, consumers received exploitive advertisements that took them to one of the defendants’ Web sites. These sites would then claim to scan the consumers’ computers for security and privacy issues. The “scans” would find a host of purported problems with the consumers’ computers and urge them to buy the defendants’ computer security products for $39.95 or more. However, the scans were entirely false.

According to the complaint, the two companies charged in the case – Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC – operate using a variety of aliases and maintain offices in various countries. Innovative Marketing is a company incorporated in Belize that maintains offices in Kiev, Ukraine. ByteHosting Internet Services is based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The complaint alleges that these two companies, along with individuals Daniel Sundin, Sam Jain, Marc D’Souza, Kristy Ross, and James Reno, violated the FTC Act by misrepresenting that they conducted scans of consumers’ computers and detected a variety of security or privacy issues, including viruses, spyware, system errors, and pornography. The complaint also names a sixth individual, Maurice D’Souza, as a relief defendant who received proceeds from the scheme.

http://ftc.gov/opa/2008/12/winsoftware.shtm