Fight Back and Bring down Nigerian 419 Websites

[ldyguique]

For those of you who have just a bit of an ornery streak or would simply like to take a half hour to "fight back," you might check out the Artists Against 419 site. The link is for a subweb, 5th Flash Mob, their "action" site for this month. The goal is to steal bandwidth, send email complaints, and generally be disruptive to 53 known "Nigerian Scam" or 419 sites.

I found using Crazy Browser, which has tabbed windows, was very effective for going straight across a series of sites, hitting refresh, and repeating it. Three sites went down during my half hour (and gave me a really big grin).

As far as I can tell, about half of the sites are currently down for having exceeded their bandwidth. None of the emails I attempted to send got through -- all of those email addresses have been inactivated or have exceeded bandwidth.

[Ravenhawk]

It is wonderful that Artists Against 419's doing that. May the 419 Scammers die the death of a thousand cuts.

[Andilinks]

I'm all for shutting down 419 and similar sites, but I would be careful about using denial of service attacks. These are illegal and you can be prosecuted for it. The fact that the site you are attacking is a sleazy low-life scammer might be a justification in the eyes of most, but it would not be a defense if you were caught doing this. And these scammers are just the sort of people who would use the law against you.


Andi

[Rod Swift]

If the site is on a managed server with other sites or on a common network with other servers then this will adversely affect the users of legitimate sites on this server or network, not very clever me thinks. I would not like to be an innocent party on this server or network and I'm sure no Web Pro member would either.

I think the law of un-intended consequences applies here, with a campaign with the best of intentions potentially affecting innocent web sites. I cannot endorce the illegal and potentially anti-social actions by LdyGuique.

Rod

[Stevo]

Unfortunately it will take more than DoS atttacks to stop them. You may be interested in this - we just got two such 419 scams FAXED to us in the past hour!

And then there is the rationale for leaving them in place as an eternal testimony to the maxim 'A fool and his money are soon parted' and 'There's no such thing as a free lunch'... And dont even get me started on the ones on greed!

Cheers,
Steve

[Jeff Colburn]

I heard the other day that this is Nigerias number 1 source of income. I also heard that a few people have actually gone to Nigeria to try and get their money back from the scam artists. They did indeed find who they were looking for, and were killed for their efforts.

Jeff

[xmx]

I agree with Andi,

it is wrong, and can be dangerous,to use illegal methods.

It is much better to become active in informing about those kinds of crimes.

Of course using legitimate methods as reporting their crimes to their webhosters, email providers and various isps is much better and can help, but it will take even more of your time.

[mikmik]

I'll add my vote to the 'anti-vigilante' group.
I do not want the internet to become a free-for-all war zone, and if necessary, I will walk away rather than be reduced to the lowest common denominator.
I have every excuse I want right now to fight a hacker.
I want nothing to do with that mindset. Find another way, create a solution. Do not become part of the problem.
What next? DDoS mobs terrorizing the internet?

Nasty.

[Andilinks]

In case anyone missed this Nigerian Email Conference:

http://j-walk.com/other/conf/index.htm

[mikmik]

ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES, ANDILINKS :o)

[Stevo]

Man, i agree - that was awesome... Guess there is a funny side to everything! Thanks heaps!

Steve

[xmx]

Originally Posted by Andilinks

In case anyone missed this Nigerian Email Conference:

http://j-walk.com/other/conf/index.htm

Hey...

I would know more about those 2 events...

# Keynote Address:
Dr. Hamza Kalu's adds some historical perspective in his keynote address: "From Postal Scams To Email Scams: We Have Come a Long Way Infant Child."

# Workshop:
Grammatical errors: What's the optimal number?

[paulhiles]

Originally Posted by Andilinks

In case anyone missed this Nigerian Email Conference:

http://j-walk.com/other/conf/index.htm

I thought the running water was a nice touch... and my email campaigns have become so much more effective simply by the use of capital letters!

[Webmaster-DSP]

Yes I wouldn't go announcing to the world that I was doing this but I think the reality of it is this...
Web hosts always say that their servers are not to be used for such things but they rarely stop anyone from scamming or spamming via email. If, however it was to have the result of taking down their servers the situation would soon change. The same conformist "don't make waves" attitude voiced again in this forum was used many times by opponents of the American civil rights movement. There is no one out there who is going to do anything about this-legally.

[downstrike]

Originally Posted by ldyguique

Three sites went down during my half hour (and gave me a really big grin).

Maybe the sites went down. Maybe their networks recognized your part in the DoS attack and blocked your IP.

For an alternative that does not utilize any illegal methods, please see http://www.webdomainboycott.com/

[mizambar]

On the topic of scammers, there is a great website to check out: http://www.419eater.com.

There is a great diary of how a guy scammed one of these criminals out of money. It's one of the funniest things that I have ever read...