Comments on: Mugu Marauder: Windows Users Asked to Target Nigerian 419 Scammers - Don’t Do It!

By: T.L Dutchman

T.L Dutchman — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:14:59 +0000

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

By: Hippy

Hippy — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:42:21 +0000

The person that wrote the artical “Windows users asked to target nigerian 419 scammers dont do it” is an idiot and does not know what a DOS attack is. The idea mentioned by aa419 is no different than normal high access to a site. It is not hitting the site with rubbish attacks like a DOS atack. Read all the info on aa419 moron.

By: iwatch75

iwatch75 — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:10:53 +0000

I am fairly sure that this will not be a popular comment, but is there no distinction between what is “legal” and what is “right”?

What the flashmobbers are doing may be technically on the wrong side of American law but I still approve. It is not done out of malice or for profit, but for a sense of mischevious benevolence. If it does take hundreds of participants to be effective, and given that there is virtually no chance of any of the owners of these sites bringing a complaint to the US authorities, then the flashmobbers are pretty safe from prosecution.

Perhaps its American law that needs to catch up?

By: Jim Brown

Jim Brown — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 02:45:25 +0000

Yep, The whiners all say to “call the internet police.” Well, the truth is that the hosters (Not ISP’s) have been unresponsive to calls to shut down the scammers. We do not have to take these predators preying on the vulnerabilities of internet noobies, the elderly, and the very young (The most lilely victims) Same fools that will die waiting for the police instead of taking out the punk breaking in the house!!!

By: komsomol

komsomol — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 03:32:02 +0000

Based on Aunty’s pointless accusations of aa419 advocating/committing/orchestrating a criminal act, specifically a DDoS attack, during their regular flashmob events, some of you got hooked pretty well and apparently decided to ignore the facts. As usual on the internet, the facts are just a few clicks away. They are here: http://aa419.org/content/faq.php and here: http://aa419.org/mm/faq.php

If you care to read the above sources from aa419, you will hopefully understand why the Mugu Marauder does not constitute anything close to a DDoS attack. To put it short, aa419 flashmobs are bandwidth hogging instead of “overwhelming a system”. The idea and the corresponding implementation do not target the host or the hoster, they do not intend to and do not actually disrupt services, overload servers and such. Quite the contrary is true. As soon as the targeted fraudulent site goes down, the load stops immediately. The targeted (fraudulent, illegal) site goes down as soon as the purchased monthly bandwidth will be exceeded or when the hoster, who was previously notified at least twice and who ignored the complaints, eventually decides to take it down, respectively.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 16:17:59 +0000

Linking to an image on someone elses web site is going to land someone in jail? W T F there are millions of criminals who use HTML capable bulletin boards who are going to the joint. Let’s get real.

By: Mark Twang

Mark Twang — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 06:34:02 +0000

Aunty, You are unclear on the concept of WAR. Yes, this is a war, and
if this “society” doesn’t wake up, it will collapse. Wake up !!!!!

By: Kelson

Kelson — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 18:27:52 +0000

That’s a very narrow definition of DDoS. A denial-of-service attack is simply a deliberate attempt to overwhelm a system by sending repeated requests. A distributed denial of service attack is a coordinated DoS from multiple systems. The protocol isn’t important, it’s the intent to overload. (This is why being slashdotted isn’t really a DDOS — the intention is to share or read an article/story/etc., not to take down the target’s site.)

If the intent of the project is to take down websites by overloading them with traffic, well, I’d say that constitutes a denial-of-service attack. Even if not, someone on the “dark side” (if you’ll excuse the pun) could easily argue the point and file charges or a civil lawsuit.

If DOSing the bad guys is legal in your jurisdiction, that’s great. DOS away. But it’s not legal here, and cases like Charles Booher (arrested for making death threats to a spammer, later killed himself) make it clear that even with spammer, breaking the law to stop them is risky. Some people are willing to take the risk. Others are not.

The big mistake, of course, is assuming there’s only one solution to the problem.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 14:04:04 +0000

It’s sort of like watching the movie Death Wish- you hope he gets his revenge and takes a bite out of crime, but at the same time you know he’s also breaking the law. Unless these spam sites have notices stating that it’s illegal to use their content via direct links, AND the material being linked to is in fact their own intellectual property and not public domain, then there is no legal issue with what they are doing.

They are broadcasting their “services” to the Internet the way a radio might play in a public space. If I walk up and start babbling to where nobody else can hear that radio, does the advertiser have a legal right to pursue me? I don’t think they would based on my layman understanding. But they paid to get their message out, just like paying for ISP bandwidth. If I linked to a pic and then had a web page refresh constantly, I am acting in a way consistent with a DoS attack though, and there is legal precedence regarding that. But if I don’t refresh so much as to be singly responsible for the act, but rather am 1 of thousands visiting the resources on their system, that should not be illegal. If thousands of people walk into a coffee shop to look at the menu, with the intent of not buying something but just to look, what could the shop do?

At best this is a grey area, at worst the spammers could log requests and target those machines. Or if they had half a brain, they could make simple changes to their sites that prevented remote linking.

By: Lord Vader

Lord Vader — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:24:11 +0000

Well, it is *not* a DDoS attack, if that´s what all you jolly-do-gooders refer to, it is repeatedly downloading images from websites, which causes the websites to either be deactivated for exceeding their allowed bandwidth or the criminals that set them up to be charged huge sums for all the traffic that we cause. Both will hurt them. That´s our goal. Nothing more and nothing less.
I don´t think that http requests - even though repeatedly by *many* people - are to be construed as illegal activity. We do not aim to attack the servers of particular hosting companies to cause a general denial of service, we target single websites, that have been set up with the sole purpose of defrauding people.
If you stigmatize us as vigilantes, well, fine. I can live with that.
Some people are great at talking, others act.