Botnets are a pervasive threat to the Internet and its inhabitants. A botnet is a collection of infected machines that receive commands from the botmaster, a person, group or nation- state, to perform malicious actions. Instead of “cleaning” individual infections, one can sever the method of communication between a botmaster and her zombies by attempting a botnet takedown, which contains the botnet and its malicious actions. Unfortunately, takedowns are currently performed without technical rigor nor are there automated and independent means to measure success or assist in performing them. This dissertation focuses on understanding the criminal infrastructure that enables communication between a botmaster and her zombies in order to measure attempts at, and to perform, successful takedowns. We show that by interrogating malware and performing large-scale analysis of passively collected network data, we can measure if a past botnet takedown was successful and use the same techniques to perform more comprehensive takedowns in the future.

This paper discusses the history and recent developments pertaining to ISPs' liability for copyright infringement in the European Union. Section I. explains ISPs' basic roles on the Internet, discusses practical grounds justifying a special liability regime for ISPs and outlines the EU legal framework providing safe harbor provisions for ISPs' liability and transposition of these rules into the legal system of the Czech Republic. Section II. describes how judicial decisions in the EU Member States eroded safe harbor rules and how these decisions were subsequently overturned by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJ). The section continues with an examination of the latest judgment of the CJ in UPC Telekabel Wien concerning new rules (or lack thereof) for website-blocking injunctions. Section III. discusses notable examples of EU Member states' legislation or legislative proposals which aimed to put a stop to "online piracy" and copyright infringement. Considerable part of this section analyzes the recent controversial system set up by the Italian communications regulator AGCOM. Section IV. describes examples of increasing voluntary collaboration between ISPs and content owners, which has the potential to effectively combat online piracy and benefit all parties involved. Section V. explores...

Thesis title: Liability of information society services provider for the storage of information provided by a recipient of the service This paper deals with a special liability rules for service providers that play a key role in the Internet environment and provide hosting services. Objectives of this paper are to specify the concept of the ISP, describe related current issues and above all to present and analyse the drafted legislation, which was presented by the European Commission at the end of 2016 and which has the potential to significantly influence the elaborated issues. In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, the thesis identifies the legislation dealing with this issue and describes the relationship between the European and Czech regulations. It also further specifies the essential conditions for the attainment and subsequent preservation of a Safe Harbour, which excludes the application of general liability rules. It also deals with the ISP's no obligation to monitor the information they store. In connection with the above-mentioned matter, this thesis analyses important decision- making practice, which presents advanced interpretation of the issue and the development of SDEU's approach to the status of ISP in general. In its practical part, this paper focuses on the...