This is something i have pondered about for a while now, but never really thought to ask. How is it that botnets can communicate with a controller of some sort to co-ordinate DDoS attacks and other nasties without it being traced back to the operator of the botnet?
Surely the botnet needs to know where to recieve its commands from to stay in sync with what the rest of the botnet is doing, how is it that this source cant be found and traced back to the perpetrator?
Another thought I had was that perhaps botnets work on a peer-to-peer basis, and that all bots know about all the other bots in their 'network', and all the controller needs to do is pose as another unwilling member of the botnet to make the controlling machine indistinguishable from the bot machines, but I cant see how this would work well enough to hide their indentity entirely either?
How is it they can get away with doing this without getting caught?