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BBC team buys a botnet, DDoSes security company Prevx

"In a bit of an awkward and highly unnecessary move, a team at the BBC’s technology program Click has purchased a botnet consisting of 22,000 malware infected PCs, self-spammed themselves on a Gmail account, and later on DDoS-ed a a backup site owned by security company Prevx (with prior agreement), all for the sake of proving that botnets in general do what they’re supposed to – facilitate cybercrime.

Upon finishing the experiment, they claim to have shut down the botnet, and interestingly notified the affected users. Exposing cybercrime or exposing the obvious, the experiment raises a lot of ethical issues. For instance, how did they manage to contact the owners of the infected hosts given that according to the team they didn’t access any personal information on them?" – Content courtesy of BBC team buys a botnet, DDoSes security company Prevx | Zero Day | ZDNet.com