An Ohio computer hacker who served as a digital button man for a shady internet hosting company faces prison time after admitting he carried out one of a series of crippling denial-of-service attacks ordered by a wealthy businessman against his competitors.
Apparently, an unscrupulous businessman has a lot of ways to use the internet and the hackers who hang out on the IRC systems.
"Every script kiddy on IRC had a shell there," says Andrew Kirch, a security administrator for the Abusive Hosts Blocking List. "Spamming, hacking, phishing, DDOS networks -- you want to run scans for a large amount of IP space for prevalent Windows vulnerabilities? Set up there."
The internet is a scam heaven. Spam, click fraud, phishing, etc. What is more worrying is how the online marketing world - including affliate marketing can be drawn into the scam world.
Echouafni, who was CEO of Massachusetts-based Orbit Communication at the time, allegedly claimed that competitors RapidSatellite.com and WeaKnees.com had stolen his content and attacked his online business, which sold satellite TV gear over the web.
Though the article doesn't say so, some of the businesses mentioned are heavy affliate marketing sites. The incentives for illegal and unscrupulous practices are fairly large in lucrative markets like satellite TV affliates.
Where is Echouafni now? He skipped bail and is thought to be in Morrocco.