While most of the scams that we encounter via the internet are new versions of old tricks, for fraudsters, the internet has added incredible economies of scale to their tried and true tactics.
While law enforcement is certainly attempting to contain this web-endabled explosion of low-level financial crimes, there are several home-grown groups that exist and operate in what could generously be called beyond the standard regulatory regime who have made it their business to frustrate would-be phishers, 419 scammers and other such internet con artists.

Take for example this recent story, via Yahoo UK about hacker-types using their skills to deface phony bank websites employed by internet scammers:

Vigilante hackers use Old West tactics for cyberspace justice

Wednesday May 25, 06:53 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Angered by the growing number of Internet scams, online "vigilantes" have started to take justice into their own hands by hacking into suspected fraud sites and defacing them. These hackers have targeted fake websites set up to resemble the sites of banks or financial institutions in recent weeks, and have inserted new pages or messages. Some say "Warning - This was a Scam Site," or "This Bank Was Fraudulent and Is Now Removed." The efforts by the self-proclaimed "hero hackers" come amid a surge in online schemes known as "phishing" in which victims are lured to fake websites to get passwords or other personal data...

..."While phishing is undoubtedly an illegal activity, the legality of defacing phishing sites is also quite questionable, but in cases observed by Netcraft so far it is reasonable to assume that only the fraudsters themselves have been disadvantaged," the security firm said. Some of the hackers are boastful. "We only deface fake banks. Nothing else. Our targets are illegals and hosts that don't take down illegal sites," said a message posted on the website SecurityFocus by the purported "white-hat" British hacker group called The Lad Wrecking Crew....

... Peter Cassidy, secretary general of Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry alliance, acknowledged there was a "gap" in law enforcement action against the schemes, but that hacking was not the solution. "This is similar to what we've experienced before in the Old West," Cassidy said. But hackers defacing websites "could leave the brand holder open to further retaliation," including efforts to hack into the real website of the bank or company...

The full article can be found here.

Another group, Artists Against 419 offers a novel way to combat scammers who use phoney bank websites to perpetrate their crimes. AA419's website is designed to steal bandwidth from phoney bank sites (which are themselves, in the interest of scammer versimilitude, illegally displaying images that contain the names and logos of legitimate institutions).

Most web hosting companies set a daily limit on the quantity of data that can be exchanged via a hosting account. By hot-linking images from the phony sites so that every time a web surfer views the AA419 site it draws against the scammer-sites' daily bandwidth limit. When that limit is exceeded the phoney site is pulled off the web for the day or until their bandwidth limit is reset, usually presenting potential visitor-victims with an error message that looks something like this:

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.

Apache/1.3.27 Server at Port 80

AA419's philosphy is that any downtime they can force upon scammer sites is time that people aren't bing victimized. AA419 also maintains a fascinating fake bank link database, in case you are curious about how folks can be taken in by these sites, some of which look pretty convincing, others less so.

Another group has taken a less technological and more personal approach to fighting back against internet fraud, choosing to make a hobby of actually scamming the scammers, or scambaiting as they call it. 419eater.com is one such group mainained by a cadre of crack anti-phishers who actively engage with scammers attempting, essentially, to waste the con-artists time and thereby prevent scammers from vitimizing others.

"419" is the Nigerian legal code for an advance fee fraud scam which by now every man, woman and child with an email address has encounted in a form somewhat resembling this:

The most prevalent and successful cases of Advance Fee Fraud is the fund transfer scam. In this scheme, a company or individual will typically receive an unsolicited letter by mail from a Nigerian claiming to be a senior civil servant. In the letter, the Nigerian will inform the recipient that he is seeking a reputable foreign company or individual into whose account he can deposit funds ranging from $10-$60 million that the Nigerian government overpaid on some procurement contract...

...The sender declares that he is a senior civil servant in one of the Nigerian Ministries, usually the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The letters refer to investigations of previous contracts awarded by prior regimes alleging that many contracts were over invoiced. Rather than return the money to the government, they desire to transfer the money to a foreign account. The sums to be transferred average between $10,000,000 to $60,000,000 and the recipient is usually offered a commission up to 30 percent for assisting in the transfer....

...The goal of the criminal is to delude the target into thinking that he is being drawn into a very lucrative, albeit questionable, arrangement. The intended victim must be reassured and confident of the potential success of the deal. He will become the primary supporter of the scheme and willingly contribute a large amount of money when the deal is threatened. The term "when" is used because the con-within-the-con is the scheme will be threatened in order to persuade the victim to provide a large sum of money to save the venture.

In response to such requests and being led by their intrepid leader, Shiver Metimbers, the 419Eater crew has vexed international scammers with all manner counter-scams. They approach their work with an unmatched verve and an equally unmatched perverse sense of humor (for all TDC readers of the Lindsay Lohan demographic, please ask a parent or guardian's permission before visiting the site).

While not advocating or approving anti-fraud tactics that stray beyond the bounds of international law, The Daily Caveat can recommend that you check out 419Eater's F.A.Q., Letter Archive and Audio Files, all detailing real correspondence between 419's intrepid scambaiting crew and various international fraudsters. Particularly recommended for review are The Tale of the Painted Breast letter exchange and the Martins David / Shiver Metimbers audio exchange (in which Timbers engages in a telephone conversation with a scammer using only Arnold Schwarzenegger sound files).

For more on the subjects of phishing and internet facilliated financial crimes, check out the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the Secret Service's financial crimes page and Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Viva la resistance.

-- MDT

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