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Artists Against 419 Releases Mugu Marauder

An anonymous reader writes "Similar in scope to the (now defunct) screensaver created by Lycos that targeted spam sites, the newly-released Mugu Marauder is intended to take fraudulent bank sites off the air by sponging up their bandwidth. Mugu Marauder can be downloaded at www.aa419.org/mm/ It's currently only available for Windows, though a Linux port is allegedly in the works."

10 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Lad Vampire by apikoros · · Score: 5, Informative

    I like this, but prefer the lad vampire at the same site. There is something somehow more satisfying about watching the images flash by.

    Just put it in a browser tab and let it run!

  2. Re:Yay (*sigh*) - Attack the IP, not the domain by MTO_B. · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, as a starter, most of these fraudalent sites work IP based because they dont have the real domain.
    So I'm guessing this problem you mention would not happen if you just attack the IP. When you attack the IP you'd be attacking their server, even if they point their domains to some other site.

  3. No mention of today's flash mob or Linux scripts?? by goldfndr · · Score: 2, Informative
    The site is currently sponsoring a flashmob in celebration of Chinese New Year. It started 2005-02-08 at 16:00:01 GMT and lasts 48 hours.

    One of the links from the flashmob page is for bash scripts suitable for Linux/*nix (and presumably OS X et al).

    --
    Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
  4. Re:FP by BlkSprk · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can set how much of your bandwidth it uses. I uncapped it and im pulling some 376 KiB/S... im having fun testing bandwidth

  5. As always the "experts" assume too much. by mugu_marauder · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is nice to know that the IT industry is full of experts who fail to do the first thing when presented with something new..... Try researching things guys. 1. The Mugu Marauder operates exactly the same as a web browser repeatedly refreshing with no cache on a specified list of target URL's (normally images because they typically have a large filesize compared to HTML pages). 2. The UID number generated for the application is used to tally stats for individual users, so just drop the paranoia. 3. FFS The sites targetted ARE NOT related in any way to legitimate banks. As I said if you did a little research before sprouting your "me too" crap you might realise just EXACTLY The Artists Against 419 are fighting against. 4. A DoS attack is defined as the act of deliberately trying to make a service on the attacked machine unavailable by flooding it with requests, sometimes using deliberately corrupted data packets. Now, I dont know where you tool come from or whether you sympathize with cyber criminals or are simply too dense to comprehend ths. We are downloading images from *CRIMINAL* fake banks after having tried to contact the hoster and shut down these *CRIMINALS* in vain at least two times or mopre. Then, and then only, do we actually start trying to deliberately exceed the allowed bandwidth of these *CRIMINALS*, so they cant use their bogus banks to prey on unsuspecting victims. It is *NOT* an attack on the servers, but on the *CRIMINAL* websites only.

  6. Re:another dumb idea by maztuhblastah · · Score: 5, Informative

    As an actual member of 419eater, I feel compelled to feed the troll, or at least respond to it. As it stands, we have code that spiders the sites and checks if a bandwidth limit exceeded page has been reached. When it has, the hitlist is updated to no longer have that target on it. We have yet to have a hoster tell us we're DDOS'ing them...mainly because we have never, and will never DDOS them. We only try to exceed the bandwidth limit, not knock out the server.

    -maztuh

  7. Re:Leave well alone by waldonova · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some of us 419 baiters set out to find and close down the fake bank / lottery sites that are used as part of the scams. Victims are referred to these sites to help with the confidence scam and some even require thousands of dollars to open an "account". One site has services that support every 419 modality that I know of, right down to the "Private Dumbered Bank Account!" All joking aside, not only can you loose money but some have even been killed by 419 fraudsters. We have had great success shutting down over one thousand of these sites. After researching the bank, we submit all of our evidence to the hosting company and for the most part, they are closed. There is now, however, a trend to host these sites in China. There are a lot of bullet proof hosting companies on Chinanet that send all of our notifications to /dev/null. We just want these criminal sites closed. Before your aunt puts her email address into a guestbook.

  8. Of all the things... by Tavor · · Score: 1, Informative
    "Artists Against 419"? Now I know a lot of artists do good things, but this frankly sounds fishy. Consider this:

    The legality of this is in question

    You *must* be connected to the Internet to use

    Having lots of bandwidth is preferable

    You connect to lots of other computers, likely more than the user is aware of.
    What does this remind you of? Exactly, what the RIAA has tried to paint as the 'Artists enemy #1'... Filesharing! Unless someone can go through and confirm that this screensaver is indeed clean, I for one am going to avoid it like the plauge. I know this has sounded like a bunch of FUD, but on a Windows box having an app 'phone home' is easy. There are also so many other good points, which I'm not going to rehash... I'm just saying to THINK before you act!

    --
    Windows has detected an undetectable error.
  9. Re:Pointless again... by mugu_marauder · · Score: 2, Informative
    Such as the fact that a server owner may or may not be aware of the content hosted on their customers' web sites until after their box has been flooded off the Internet.

    Not quite, the targets are selected AFTER the hosts are notified on the content of the sites and who fail to act on our complaints. Our notifications contain fully presented evidence as to the legitimacy of the site in question. Most often the site breaches the hosts OWN AUP (or similar document). Other evidence presented is how the site is not listed in financial services regulator databases (depending on what claims the site makes in relation to its aparent location on the planet). There are also many, many other things that are used as evidence to the host.

    The bandwidth tools like the Lad Vampire and Mugu Maraurder are a the last in a long line of steps we use.

  10. Re:Block list by mugu_marauder · · Score: 2, Informative
    Well, the Artists Against 419 have the largest FREE database of fradulent 419 and fake lottery websites on the internet. http://aa419.org/fake-banks/

    Perhaps that might be a start for you guys.