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| | == Welcome to Artists Against 419 == | | == Welcome to Artists Against 419 == |
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| − | The '''[[Flash Mob 14|The Valentine's Day Flash Mob]]''' is over! Artists Against 419 and their supporters have bandwidth hogged 26 Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud fake banks to their miserable death on 13 and 14 February, 2006. Click [[Flash_Mob_14#Visit_some_Fake_Banks.21|here]] for the list of the results. | + | The Internet is great, isn't it? It's a magical place, where you can buy anything you want, meet new people, find information... and lose all your money to scammers. |
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| − | [[Flash_Mob_History|Read more about the past Flashmobs!]] | + | We've never liked that last part, so we started to fight back. [[History|Over time]] our art has evolved, and we now maintain the largest manually researched online repository of web sites used in internet fraud. |
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| − | ==Announcement: New home for 419legal.org==
| + | We offer a [https://db.aa419.org/ complete public interface] for our site visitors, as well as [[JSON_API|database access through webservices]] which can be used for automated retrieval of fake site entries. Web browser toolbars use our database feed to warn users that a site they visit is a fake company run by scammers. But most importantly, we continue to build better relations with other anti-fraud organizations and webhosting companies, to pursue our goal of ridding the Internet of fraudulent web sites. |
| − | The home of the former joint venture between the Johannesburg Commercial Branch anti-419 team and certain members of the world scambaiting community, 419legal.org, has been moved to a new domain: [http://419legal.ath.cx http://419legal.ath.cx]. Please note that for the reasons described on the front page of the new site, the project has been terminated by the admin and moderator team. The new domain is being made available to the public for documentation and research purposes only.
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| − | ==Announcement: request from the [http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm Metropolitan Police (UK)]== | + | ==== Related pages ==== |
| − | Please forward all your incoming 419 and advanced fee fraud emails to the Metropolitan Police ''along with full email headers'' to '''[mailto:fraud.alert@met.police.uk fraud.alert@met.police.uk]'''.
| + | * [[FAQ and Support]] |
| − | | + | * [[Advance Fee Fraud|What is 419?]] |
| − | This request is obviously not limited to those living in the UK for the simple reason that UK based perpetrators of this crime indiscriminately distribute their scam letters to email addresses all over the world.
| + | * Is this a legit site? Use some [[Online search tools]] to help identify fraud |
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| + | * [[Links]] to other sites |
| − | In the event that you fail to include the full headers, the information is as helpful as phoning the fire-brigade and telling them that there is a fire, but failing to tell them where it is. If you cannot find the full headers, please just bin your e-mail and do not forward it as it will merely irritate busy police officers and is a total waste of your and their time.
| + | * [[Fanmail]] |
| − | | + | * [[Old Coaster's List of Bank Regulators around the World]] |
| − | Please refer to the documentation of your email client on how to turn on full email headers before forwarding your emails. (Yahoo users should click on "Options", "General Preferences", and at the option "Forwarding Messages" set "Forward as an attachment".) Users of other email programmes may find [http://ez2ba.com/html/help/guides/viewing-email-headers.html this page] useful, but be prepared to copy and paste if your programme will not include them automatically.
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| − | The Artists Against 419 greatly appreciate the efforts of the [http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm Metropolitan Police] in taking action against the perpetrators of the [[Advance Fee Fraud|Nigerian scam]] and offer full cooperation.
| + | ==Announcement: Anti Phishing Working Group== |
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| | <div align="center"> | | <div align="center"> |
| − | {{clickpic|http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm|http://wiki.aa419.org/images/a/a7/Met-police-logo.gif}} | + | {{clickpic|https://www.apwg.org|https://wiki.aa419.org/images/apwg_logo.gif}} |
| | </div> | | </div> |
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| − | ==Spread the word!==
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| − | A new bandwidth tool has been released for beta testing on 13 February 2006: [http://wiki.aa419.org/index.php/AA419_Tools#Muguito_-_Download_Now.21 Muguito] is a Java tool that runs equally under Windows, Linux, Mac, or any other OS that supports Java. Current version is [http://muguito.aa419.org 0.1.5a], released on April 26, 2006. It is stable, fast, precise -- and deadly to fake banks.
| + | We believe that open communication between all companies and groups involved in the fight against internet fraud is the only way to combat it. |
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| − | The Artists revealed an updated version of the [http://www.aa419.org/vampire/ladvampire.php Lad Vampire] on December 5. Take a look, and read more about it in our [http://forum.aa419.org/ forums]!
| + | To that end, the Artists Against 419 are proud to announce their membership of the Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG), and look forward to co-operating with its many members. Our main focus of work will remain fake websites used in Advance Fee fraud, but we aim to share our knowledge where possible. |
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| − | ==Artists Database Used in New Firetrust Sitehound Software==
| + | For more information on the APWG, please click on their logo above. |
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| − | That's right, [http://www.firetrust.com/firetrustsitehound_community_groups.html the Artists are one of the Community Groups] whose information is used by Firetrust's [http://www.firetrust.com/firetrustsitehound.html recently released toolbar]. Of course we are very pleased that years of hard work in putting together our database are being put to some greater use! But most importantly, there's now a way for thousands of internet users to be immediately warned that they're being targeted by scammers. '''Nothing fights 419 fraud like public awareness!!!'''
| + | ==WHOXY== |
| | + | [https://www.whoxy.com/ WHOXY] is a great tool to research a domain's history or the behavior of a registrant. Much as some parties would like to describe WHOIS data as privacy invasive, the reality is it allows transparency to consumer and commerce alike and, if used correctly, is rather a stepping stone to consumer trust protecting both consumer and service provider alike. It also allows researchers and consumers to research issues that undermines the legitimate internet, avoiding and/or addressing them. WHOXY is a great tool for this purpose and a must in your bookmarks or toolkit. |
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| | <div align="center"> | | <div align="center"> |
| − | {{clickpic|http://www.firetrust.com/firetrustsitehound.html|http://wiki.aa419.org/images/f/fd/Sitehound.gif}} | + | {{clickpic|https://www.whoxy.com/|https:////whoxy.s3.amazonaws.com/x.png}} |
| | </div> | | </div> |
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| − | ==Manifesto==
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| − | Artists love the internet - with the exception of spam! There is only one thing that we hate more than spammers: 419 scammers abusing the internet... These criminals abuse our mailboxes by sending 419 emails, they abuse our guest books by leaving their MUGU entries and they abuse this media by building web sites for criminal fake companies. But some people started hitting back....
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| − | In October 2003 the Artist Against 419 started tackling fake banks in an artistic way: by hotlinking their images to drain their small bandwidth allowance over the limit. But the fake banks evolved and so did the Artists. On the 30th of November 2003 the Artists Against 419 hosted the [[Flash_Mob|first international flashmob against 419]] which would have many successors. We also started maintaining a list of the 419 related sites we found so that potential scam victims would see our website and be warned when they searched for their online banks, and we started cooperaing with webhosting companies to get the 419 sites shut down as soon as possible without causing harm to the webhosters.
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| − | At the moment, the Artists maintain one of the world's largest databases of 419 websites. We offer a [http://aa419.org/fake-banks/ complete public interface] for our site visitors, as well as a database access through webservices which can be used by people for automated retrieval of fake bank entries. We continue to build better relations with webhosting companies and rid the web of fraudulent websites.
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| − | Fake bankers beware! The artists are coming....
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| − | Everybody is an artist!
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| − | ====Related pages====
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| − | *'''[[FAQ and Support]]'''
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| − | * [[Advance Fee Fraud|What is 419?]]
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| − | * Is this a legit site? [[Online search tools]] to help identify fraud
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| − | * [[Links]] to other sites
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| − | * [[Fanmail]]
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| − | * [[Fake banks and Web sites in the news]]
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| − | * [[Old Coaster's List of Bank Regulators around the World]]
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| − | '''Bandwidth Attack Information'''
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| − | * What is the [[Flash Mob]]?
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| − | * [[Flash Mob History]]
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| − | * Why [[Bandwidth Theft]]?
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| − | * [[Bandwidth Results]]
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| − | * [[AA419 Tools]]
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| − | * [[Bandwidth Scripts]]
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| − | Please see the [http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide User's Guide] for usage and configuration help. [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing This guide here] is a good summary about formatting, tips and tricks, etc.
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| − | __NOTOC__
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Welcome to Artists Against 419
The Internet is great, isn't it? It's a magical place, where you can buy anything you want, meet new people, find information... and lose all your money to scammers.
We've never liked that last part, so we started to fight back. Over time our art has evolved, and we now maintain the largest manually researched online repository of web sites used in internet fraud.
We offer a complete public interface for our site visitors, as well as database access through webservices which can be used for automated retrieval of fake site entries. Web browser toolbars use our database feed to warn users that a site they visit is a fake company run by scammers. But most importantly, we continue to build better relations with other anti-fraud organizations and webhosting companies, to pursue our goal of ridding the Internet of fraudulent web sites.
Related pages
Announcement: Anti Phishing Working Group
We believe that open communication between all companies and groups involved in the fight against internet fraud is the only way to combat it.
To that end, the Artists Against 419 are proud to announce their membership of the Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG), and look forward to co-operating with its many members. Our main focus of work will remain fake websites used in Advance Fee fraud, but we aim to share our knowledge where possible.
For more information on the APWG, please click on their logo above.
WHOXY
WHOXY is a great tool to research a domain's history or the behavior of a registrant. Much as some parties would like to describe WHOIS data as privacy invasive, the reality is it allows transparency to consumer and commerce alike and, if used correctly, is rather a stepping stone to consumer trust protecting both consumer and service provider alike. It also allows researchers and consumers to research issues that undermines the legitimate internet, avoiding and/or addressing them. WHOXY is a great tool for this purpose and a must in your bookmarks or toolkit.
