I think the best way to stop it wouldn't be Orwellian at all. I would propose several things:
1. For Russia to make computer malware a crime. Right now, writing malware 9even malware designed to steal money) just isn't a crime in Russia. Russian mafia makes more money these days on computer malware than on the normal organized crime trifecta of drugs, prostitution, and extortion; outlawing this activity in Russia would go a long way toward kicking the legs out from under Russian mafia.
2. For Russia to have extradition with the US.
3. For banks and merchant account underwriters to stop processing credit cards for organized crime. A lot of organized crime's revenue stream comes from "ransomware" (malware that encrypts the data on your computer and threatens to delete it if you don't pay a fee) and "scareware" (phony antivirus software that warns you of bogus, non-existent viruses and then keeps bogging your computer down with popup warnings until you pay to "register" the software). Panda Labs estimates that as of 2009, Russian organized crime was bringing in $34 million a MONTH from fake antivirus malware. Almost all of this money comes from credit card transactions. In 2011, US banks stopped doing business with Russian groups who were collecting money for fake antivirus registrations, but European banks quickly stepped in, often charging 30% or more in fees. The lure of $10 million a month in income was too great to pass up, I suppose. Outlawing credit card processing for criminal activity would do a lot to remove the financial incentive for some forms of malware.
4. Better policing of online ad clicks. The Flashback malware makes money when the virus writers set up Web sites that have ads on them, and then the malware causes infected computers to send bogus "clicks" to the ads. With each bogus click, the malware writers make money. If Google, Doubleclick, and other ad vendors were to implement more proactive monitoring of their ad performance, they could put a stop to it; for example, if a Web site has just one page that's an article in Romanian about artichokes, and somehow it's generating $15,000,000 a month in advertising clicks and 99% of the visitors to the site click the ads, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's happening.
