Researchers Build a Botnet Playground
"Researchers have created their own botnet and unleashed it on 98 servers running 3,000 copies of Windows XP to better understand how they operate. The team from ESET and Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal needed to keep the Waledac botnet from infecting other computers, and took a cue from 'Battlestar Galactica.' They physically disconnected the servers from the Ecole Polytechnique's network, and only loaded software from DVD."