In July 2004, he told one chat partner he had more than 40,000 machines available, “more than I can handle,” according to the indictment. A month later, Ancheta told another person he controlled at least 100,000 bots, and that his network had added another 10,000 machines in a week and a half.

In a three-month span starting in June 2004, Ancheta rented out or sold bots to at least 10 “different nefarious computer users,” according to the plea agreement. He pocketed $3,000 in the process by accepting payments through the online PayPal service, prosecutors said.

Starting in August 2004, Ancheta turned to a new, more lucrative method to profit from his botnets, prosecutors said. Working with a juvenile in Boca Raton, Fla., whom prosecutors identified by his Internet nickname “SoBe,” Ancheta infected more than 400,000 computers.

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Ancheta and SoBe signed up as affiliates in programs maintained by online advertising companies that pay people each time they get a computer user to install software that displays ads and collects information about the sites a user visits.

Prosecutors say Ancheta and SoBe then installed the ad software from the two companies — Gamma Entertainment of Montreal, Quebec, and Loudcash, whose parent company was acquired last year by 180Solutions of Bellevue, Wash. — on the bots they controlled, pocketing more than $58,000 in 13 months.

“It’s immoral, but the money makes it right,” Ancheta told SoBe during one online chat, according to the indictment.

“I just hope this (Loudcash) stuff lasts a while so I don’t have to get a job right away,” SoBe told Ancheta during a different conversation.

Aquilina, the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, wouldn’t say whether authorities plan to charge SoBe or any of the people accused of renting out Ancheta’s bots, many of whom are described as “unindicted co-conspirators.”

During the course of their scheme, Ancheta and SoBe infected U.S. military computers at the China Lake Naval Air Facility and the Defense Information System Agency headquartered in Falls Church, Va., according to a sworn declaration signed by Ancheta.

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