BBC uses botnet to spam, launch DDOS attack -- what?!

After reading this BBC News piece I could only say one thing: "What were they thinking?!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7932816.stm

BBC's Click, a usually excellent program that explains technology to the masses, used a botnet of 22,000 commandeered PCs to send spam and launch a denial of service attack.

Granted, they sent spam to addresses set up by themselves and attacked their own Web site, but that doesn't take away that PCs of unknowing people were abused to do this. These commandeered PCs were in use by businesses, government, schools and regular consumers.

So what's the purpose of the BBC stunt? It seems they wanted to showcase the botnet problem. Unfortunately, the botnet problem is well understood, it is not a new threat that is not reported on enough. In fact law enforcement has been ramping up arrests of bot herders and organizations like Microsoft and McAfee have been warning consumers about the botnet risks for years (since we saw the first big DDOS attacks about a decade ago.)

Will Scotland Yard be knocking down the BBC doors early one morning? Maybe they should at least have an ethics conversation.