Master-Botter Pleads Guilty
David Anthony Edwards, of Mesquite, Texas, has agreed to plead guilty to building a botnet of 22,000 PCs and using them to attack a local ISP in order to prove how powerful it was.
The digital "mine is bigger than yours" measuring contest took place back in August of 2006, when Edward and his bot-buddy Thomas James Frederick Smith built a botnet called Nettick, then attempted to sell it to nefarious cyber-do-badders for 15 cents per infected computer.
To prove the size and power of their botnet, Smith and Edwards used Nettick to attack a computer that was hosted by theplanet.com. The test must have proved impressive: the prospective client bought the source code for Nettick for about 3 grand, claim prosecutors.
Edwards will be pleading guilty in federal court in Dallas, according to his attorney, Mick Mickleson, while partner Smith has already pleaded innocent and will be going to trial on May 17th.
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