Artists Against 419

Artists Against 419 (short: AA419 ) is an Internet community that the identification and closure of advance fee fraud websites dedicated to. The number 419 in the name is explained by the Nigerian criminal law. The section number 419 deals specifically with the fraud alleged excessive fees and promised gains. Besides the name "Nigerian Fraud " is therefore the artists opinion as " 419 Fraud 'is a common term for this particular type of fraud.

Objectives

In October 2003, the artists began at the wrong banks by hotlinking of the picture pages to exhaust the small monthly bandwidth. Over time, the fake banks have evolved, as well as the artists. On 30 November 2003, the artists either hosted the first international flash mob. It has subsequently been other flash mobs that were intended to make the Hoster attention to the fact that the artists will not accept that Hoster knowingly host criminal websites.

In addition, the artists began to create a database of fraudulent websites that had their members found so potential fraud victims find their page and can thus be warned if you are looking for the sites to which the scammers want to guide them. The database now contains over 40,000 sites (as of January 2010) and is one of the largest databases of fraudulent websites worldwide.

With a special search method searches for the fake websites. Once a website is identified as a forgery, it is entered into the database and the hoster will be contacted and asked to shut down the fraudulent website. In most cases, bogus pages are disabled within hours after their creation. Each page is checked with great care before it is entered into the database. The law enforcement agencies are increasingly using this data as a source of information.

The artists maintain contacts with web hosting companies that include the websites on the evidence available. Should a company of hardened show despite evidence no reactions, a flashmob process is initiated by them.

Flashmob

In this case, the flash mob consists of a large number of people visit and download the fraudulent website. The goal is to use up the bandwidth ratio, so that the site is no longer accessible. Where a number of websites the same rate, then these are also other sites less accessible. In some cases, especially when small web hosting companies are concerned, it may happen that all the web pages of the Hosters be slowed down. But as soon as the hoster disabled the criminal website, automatically returns to " normalcy ", because the deactivated page with "Error 404 unreachable" replies ( a very small amount of data ) and the much larger amount of data the Web page is not transmitted.

The artists want to make any unannounced flash mobs. The method should be used only as a last resort.