More on PIRT: Someone gets it horribly, horribly wrong...

I don't know whether this is

a) a knee-jerk reaction,
b) jealousy or
c) stark-raving mad insanity

but someone doesn't like the Anti-Phishing campaign set up by Castlecops and Sunbelt Software. While checking out Digg, I was amazed to see this, entitled "The PIRT Blunder".

At this point, I'm wondering whether the blunder is that the acronym was incorrect, and it should've been PHIRT, PHORT or (oh noes), PHART.

No, seems it's even worse than that.

Because - check this out...this guy thinks the real secret of PIRT is.....DOS attacks on the Phishing sites being targetted, or something. Yep, Paul Laudansky, Microsoft MVP and owner of a well-known security site, and Alex Eckleberry, President of Sunbelt Software and kickass Security guy, are secretly building an evil DOS empire. I was going to post an excerpt here, but after re-reading the post in question, I didn't see a juicy "notable quotable" spot so apologies if the below is somewhat...well....mangled:

In such a case it may very well be that the best course of action is to attack the said netblock with any means necessary, no one will complain if a developing nation's only server is DDOS'd off the net and the costs incurred and the effect(s) on the citizens and governments of these countries...or is it?

.....HUH?!

Yes, poor old Jub-Jub Island, with their one, singular Apache box washed ashore and powered by a monkey with a cable up his butt.

This guy makes a whole bunch of points about nothing in particular, claims that PIRT will suck because "they're not Government or ICAAN" and asserts that the PIRT methods are oh-so-secretive. Yes, that'd be the same Government that has proven woefully ineffective in tackling pretty much any problem online up to this point. I spoke at the ASC Conference in February with a bunch of people on panel from the FTC, and their summary (after an hour of Powerpoint and jibber-jabber) was that....hey, whaddya know, we can't do anything at all, especially if it's outside the US, kthxbye. Yeah, go Government, go. I'm wearing my FEDS4LIFE T-Shirt as I type, I assure you. And there are so many things wrong with ICAAN it's not even funny. The various methods that'll be used by PIRT are mentioned all over the place - there's no "uber-conspiracy" anywhere in plain (or indeed hidden) sight.

And as for the level of competence displayed by the volunteers, the training in place at Castlecops is good enough to have known and established security entities fix people's borked PCs on a day to day basis.

So with that in mind, why shouldn't the same ring true for tackling Phishers?

Yet another crazy excerpt:

The last category is that of an amateur, a script kiddy if you will. 10 dollars with a stolen/borrowed credit card will get him/her shared hosting with PHP, 10 minutes later the emails start going out, and sooner or later they will hit PIRT. In such an occasion can shutting down a "first-timer" justify DDOSing an entire shared server with thousands of users? Is it legal? Morally/ethically tolerable?

What the Hell is with the DOS obsession? Who mentioned knocking boxes offline? Can anyone spot this and win a prize?

Final quote, because my brain is starting to bleed:

In the end it boils down to this: as a non-privileged, third-party, 'volunteer corp' the choice is limited to either effect-less words or resorting to "suspicious" (but effective) means.

Clearly, this individual doesn't have much (if any) involvement in shutting rogue elements down, because I do it all the time and (often) it can indeed be achieved with a simple phonecall and / or email to the right person. Botnets, Phish, Spam, hacked websites...you name it, I've nailed it. And amazingly enough, not once did I get it wrong or have to resort to pushing my big, evil DOS button.

Most ironic moment of the whole affair? When the guy (in an earlier blog post about something else) says the below. While reading it, bear in mind that he submitted his rant about PIRT to Digg.com:

Finally. It has been 3 days of nonsense, starting off with a no-name site trying to get some traffic...

....I'm saying nothing.