Secrets of a botnet developer
Botnet Development as a Career Path
My life as a software developer got interesting once I started writing bots. My entry into this area came from an interest in network security, which quickly lead to my interest in automated web clients. Webbots were my ticket out of the cubical jungle, and I started a period of my life that produced a worn-out passport, publishing contracts, speaking opportunities around the world, and media appearances, including the BBC in the UK and California Public Radio in the US. Perhaps the biggest reward, though, is the expression I bring to my clients' faces after I solve a business problem using existing technologies in interesting and unexpected ways.
Infos
- "Security Services Get More Access to Monitor Emails and Social Media": http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jul/28/isecurity-services-emails-social-media
- "U.S. Government Wants to Read Your Emails": http://news.discovery.com/tech/internet-wiretap-intelligence.html
- Microsoft Security Intelligence Report Volume 12, 2012 (page 4): http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/9/A/C9A544AD-4150-43D3-80F7-4F1641EF910A/Microsoft_Security_Intelligence_Report_Volume_12_English.pdf
- Webbot/botnet libraries: http://www.webbotsspidersscreenscrapers.com/DSP_download.php
- libcurl: http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/
- jEdit: http://www.jedit.org/
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