Massively complicated but awesome idea

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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:57 am

Now, unfortunately, I don't have the coding skills to actually implement this idea myself. I do know enough to list the idea though.

The basic idea is a program that catches, parses, and answers scam emails, then carries on a basic conversation with the scammer, ala an AIM chat bot, but in emails. Mass overload would need to be avoided by timers on individual conversations, an overall bandwidth limit, and a limiter of outgoing emails. Processing/disk access might get heavy at higher numbers of emails.

Basically, the program would feed off of catcher arrounts somehow- maybe a POP account fed by a dozen or so catcher accounts. I have absolutely no idea how to do this. Confused

The program would then parse the mails, looking for a type signature if there is one, and emails. If emails are found, it will use a type (charity scam, lottery scam, etc) if available, and toss back an "I'm interested" response through a sender account, tag it to that account when it forwards it back, and backburner it for a week or so. If no email is found, it just replies, doing the same thing.

After they respond (if they don't, it just dumps it after a week) it basically does the same thing. Slightly randomized responses, depending on keywords in the scam mails, and if you want to get fancy, have it contact barristers. Each "send" operation would be delayed 4-10 hours after receipt of the mail (for realism and to spread out the outgoing spam). Some research on keywords and wording would be necessary to help it try and identify type.

Just pure straight baiting on a massive scale, with a few catchers, and a dozen or so spoofed-as sender accounts that forward to the main address.

A rather massive amount of work, but it would only need to be done once... and after that, imagine how much mail a dozen or so of these things could answer, once they got into full swing. Twisted Evil

After a few dozen of these leading-nowhere conversations, mugus would be GLAD to get a baiter requesting a picture! Laughing

Still, this is really more of a 2am brainstorm than anything else. Ahh well, put it on the "that would be cool" list.

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:28 am

I effin' Love it. Bots consuming lad time? With some tuning along the way it could be awesome. Done right it could tie up thousands of lads.

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:45 am

I believe you are describing an autobaiter. Wink

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 7:06 am

This sounds like an Eliza-type idea adopted to various baiting modalities. I think that it can easily be done if a few clever master baiters put their time into it. Here's a wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

Here's a link to source (somewhat modern Java code): http://www.chayden.net/eliza/Eliza.shtml

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

excellent idea : here is how i am implementing it.

- see below -

- the editing is over -

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:33 am

Now if only I hadn't nearly failed out of the first real programming course I took. Laughing

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

Quote:

Now, unfortunately, I don't have the coding skills to actually implement this idea myself. I do know enough to list the idea though.

excellent idea - i will just add my 2 cents and take the first steps towards implementing it

Quote:

The basic idea is a program that catches, parses, and answers scam emails, then carries on a basic conversation with the scammer, ala an AIM chat bot, but in emails. Mass overload would need to be avoided by timers on individual conversations, an overall bandwidth limit, and a limiter of outgoing emails. Processing/disk access might get heavy at higher numbers of emails.

what you want to be done:

1. download all the mail
2. classify the mail in type of scram
3. scan the email headers / body to find the correct email address to respond to.
4. get eliza or alice ( i like this one better, much better than eliza ) to reply
to the email and use a bit of scripting to generate "good" English to make the replies more believable
5. should be light on network usage
6. should be light on disk usage
7. should be light of cpu usage

My own additions to the above requirements
8. make this be able to run on any os Linux, BSDs, any Windows [ NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista]
9. make the code modular so any of the components can be replaced with something better if required and the program should be free / open source so there is no cost associated with this.
10. able to integrate the with the Phone Disservice Line, 1TV5 and WUSECURE with minimum effort

Quote:

Basically, the program would feed off of catcher accounts somehow- maybe a POP account fed by a dozen or so catcher accounts. I have absolutely no idea how to do this. Confused The program would then parse the mails, looking for a type signature if there is one, and emails. If emails are found, it will use a type (charity scam, lottery scam, etc) if available, and toss back an "I'm interested" response through a sender account, tag it to that account when it forwards it back, and backburner it for a week or so. If no email is found, it just replies, doing the same thing.

for 1.
i recommend freepops to automate the download process from all the web mail from msn, yahoo, gmail, aol etc. this program

for 2.
run all the downloaded email through a spam assassin filters for classification this will require some added spam assassin rule writing for determining the type of scrams like dead relative or phone scram or lover scram or some other type

for 3.
a script to scan for the email address to reply using find on windows, grep on unix

for 4.
use the same script to generate correct replies using the information like the name of the sender from the downloaded email, the email address, the time of sending the email, the current time of replying to make the replies as human as possible

for 5. should be light on network usage we are sending all the responses in acsii plain text in so the amount of network usage per email should be very low for estimate expect to see something less than1 kb per email
the bandwidth required would depend on the amount of mail being downloaded, also using task scheduler in windows and cron on unix it would be possible to add the correct amount of delay in the email responses

6. should be light on disk usage
We are not storing any information � we just process everything as the mail are downloaded and let the alice work up all the replies as required but if the number of emails to respond to goes up then temp space required to process the mail would go up

7. should be light of cpu usage
Since most of the program is i/o bound � getting data from the network, getting it from the disk cpu usage should be low enough and this process if run with a low priority or the correct nice setting would be very light on cpu usage

For 8 and 9
As per my requirements 8, and 9 all the programs above are free and cross platform ( run on windows as well as unix )

For 10,
All these programs are scriptable or scripts themselves so they can be modified to be able to plugin or use anything like WUSecure, 1TV5, or the phone disservice line. The maintainers of these projects would have to give a thought about how would it impact on their services if the people using their service ( the mugus ! ) goes up like 50 times or 100 times also there would be some associated costs like increased bandwidth costs and

For V3rifys3c there is a webform that can be used to generate unique keys so the process can be automated trivially using cURL For Phone Disservice line the would the number of operators have to be increased and would the hardware keep up with the demand? For Wusecure : I don�t know how do you request the MTCN � if that is just a webform if would be another trivial thing to add into program.

Quote:

After they respond (if they don't, it just dumps it after a week) it basically does the same thing. Slightly randomized responses, depending on keywords in the scam mails, and if you want to get fancy, have it contact barristers. Each "send" operation would be delayed 4-10 hours after receipt of the mail (for realism and to spread out the outgoing spam). Some research on keywords and wording would be necessary to help it try and identify type. Just pure straight baiting on a massive scale, with a few catchers, and a dozen or so spoofed-as sender accounts that forward to the main address.A rather massive amount of work, but it would only need to be done once... and after that, imagine how much mail a dozen or so of these things could answer, once they got into full swing. Twisted Evil After a few dozen of these leading-nowhere conversations, mugus would be GLAD to get a baiter requesting a picture! Laughing

KEYWORDS: this research would greatly increase the success rate of the project ! we have enough completed baits to cover almost all the possible variations out there and the mugus don�t mind some inconsistency so it should just work out of the box

I would do something like this

Start by downloading the email in outlook for windows or fetchmail in unix
And then building the outlook rules for the replies and other stuff
Or start using fetch mail for doing the same.

Quote:

Still, this is really more of a 2am brainstorm than anything else. Ahh well, put it on the "that would be cool" list.

pretty cool idea - now if we could just implement it correctly we just might be able to take on ALL the mugus out there and since this program will be something like a howto list even the most technically noob member should be able to follow this and make his own autobaiter

lets make the auto baiter a tool of all baiters and let them watch it grow like we watch tissue cultures Lab Petri dish !

also make it easy to make personality changes so the responses coming out of the auto baiter would be very unique to the baiter running it.

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 2:30 am

You wouldn't have to write the catcher and parsing/categorizing part right off the bat, that part could be done manually while the replying part was being developed and tested. IDK, it's out of my league, but I think it could be really powerful once it's underway!

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

Quote:

You wouldn't have to write the catcher and parsing/categorizing part right off the bat, that part could be done manually while the replying part was being developed and tested.

the manual intervation should be as less as possible in the final product. but during making of this project the manual tuning would be very much a part of the project

all this is a huge project it will be done in parts. for parsing/categorizing i will be using spam assassin - it already has rules to detect 419 email - i just modify with your help to make it perform better.

Quote:

IDK, it's out of my league, but I think it could be really powerful once it's underway!

its even out of my league - i have just laid down the first steps

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:16 am

Also, one of the other things I was thinking is to make it more than a one-shot answerer: Basically, have it STORE each email address that it sends to, and if they respond, it responds in kind (mostly appropriately) with stage 2, then another response brings stage 3, etc. And a week of inaction resets it.

Heck, most responses are:
SCAM SCRIPT PAGE 1
"oh hey, I'm interested" -- which they don't even read
SCAM SCRIPT PAGE 2
"yeah, i'm interested, what do you need?" -- which they read for 3 seconds
SCRIPT 3 WITH INFO REQUEST
*fake info as requested*
then either MORE SCAMMER or OH HEY TALK TO THE BARRISTER

In addition, it could send as multiple email addresses with reply-to, so theres really no reason that it can't respond 20 times to the same lad with different spoofed addies. Also stored and taken into account. Some disk access here, probably, but not too much. Also, it should definitely not speak until spoken to, to avoid spamming random people too much.

This would probably fall under additional modules in a fairly advanced stage.

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 5:19 am

Quote:

... what you want to be done: ...
3. scan the email headers / body to find the correct email address to respond to.
...

Would be nice to allow for such possibilities as- EnvelopeTo/From

Most of what crud we're getting at mydomain get thru our filters using the above two entries in the Header for the real TO addresses. And the from usually seems to be like/simular to the originalstart in the received from info. (Lots of filters based on spam addressed to throw-away addresses just for junk sign-up sites)

Gmail filters outgoing mail content for some blacklisted domains due to spam. Maybe, somewhat reverse their list?
(think it's public, maybe commercial though)

Quote:

Basically, have it STORE each email address that it sends to, and if they respond, it responds in kind (mostly appropriately) with stage 2, then another response brings stage 3, etc. And a week of inaction resets it.

a timed autoresponder (sort-of) Cool

*** BANNED *** Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 140

If anyone here is good in programming, he should start an open source project dedicated to this, and get others to join in. Given the subject matter, it shouldn't be too hard.

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 8:52 am

Wow, I would have no idea where to start in making something like this. I'm not program-efficient...if you need anybody to type up sample responses or something along that line I'd be willing to put in my contribution, this sounds like an excellent idea, Kudos!

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 8:53 am

There used to be a popular program called 'phyciatrist', I haven't seen it recently but it gave non-commital, generalised answers to questions and then asked another question.

Done correctly, a bait-bot would just provide very generalised answers like "That sounds like a good idea, what should I do next?"

The first thing to do is not the programming but to come up with a series of 'catchall' phrases that could be returned (even from a simple 'Vacational responder").

There should, of course, be that little question that demands an off-script reply and a telephone/fax number that eats lad's money fast.

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

Franc28:

Quote:

If anyone here is good in programming, he should start an open source project dedicated to this, and get others to join in. Given the subject matter, it shouldn't be too hard.

this will NOT be open source for the mugus would be very easily modify this and use if for scramming

justjay

Quote:

Would be nice to allow for such possibilities as- EnvelopeTo/From

another very nice idea!

IP Freely :

Quote:

Heck, most responses are:
SCAM SCRIPT PAGE 1
"oh hey, I'm interested" -- which they don't even read
SCAM SCRIPT PAGE 2
"yeah, i'm interested, what do you need?" -- which they read for 3 seconds
SCRIPT 3 WITH INFO REQUEST
*fake info as requested*
then either MORE SCAMMER or OH HEY TALK TO THE BARRISTER

the alice AI can generate all the responses without any previous information and i will not be storing all the info but just important information like the name of the barrister + his email address + all the information required to make this sort of responses

IP Freely

Quote:

In addition, it could send as multiple email addresses with reply-to, so theres really no reason that it can't respond 20 times to the same lad with different spoofed addies. Also stored and taken into account. Some disk access here, probably, but not too much. Also, it should definitely not speak until spoken to, to avoid spamming random people too much.

This would probably fall under additional modules in a fairly advanced stage.

another very good idea this can be very good time waster for the mugus - i will start with about 10 personalities - more can always be added later!

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

Emma Stralian

Quote:

There used to be a popular program called 'phyciatrist', I haven't seen it recently but it gave non-commital, generalised answers to questions and then asked another question.

Done correctly, a bait-bot would just provide very generalised answers like "That sounds like a good idea, what should I do next?"

i had a bot online for quite some time - search for mariamkofi2005 in the phone lads forum i am going to do the same things with email

mariamkofi2005 wasted hours and hours of phone lads time but google mail just killed of my mail distribution system

am going to rebuild another one right now!

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

hugh_ben_pond

Quote:

Wow, I would have no idea where to start in making something like this. I'm not program-efficient...if you need anybody to type up sample responses or something along that line I'd be willing to put in my contribution, this sounds like an excellent idea, Kudos!

type up sample responses would be great help also search for high rate premium numbers where we can send the mugus to and which can be called internationally ie from out the country - most of the premium rate numbers cannot be called from outside the country where they are situated

and please post them over here.....

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

PART 1 COMPLETE : FREEPOPS installed and working !
now the program - ( know as autobaiter ) can download mail from any webmail - as i can download it in outlook.

for the technically inclined : freepops will download mail from http server and make it available as a local pop3 server.

more about freepops
http://www.freepops.org/en/info.shtml

download it from here http://sourceforge.net/project/downloading.php?groupname=freepops&filename=FreePOPs-0.2.1-openssl.exe&use_mirror=jaist

now testing the spamassassin filters to seperate the spam and 419 mails - so far only 1% of 419 mail is being mislabelled as spam. this should prevent the responses going out to spam

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 9:59 am

nobody3 wrote:

PART 1 COMPLETE : FREEPOPS installed and working !

I looked at the FREEPOPS page. TYp[ical of programmers, they don't explain the basics. What is this? Is it a UNIX server script, a PC (windows) program, a Linux program?

Is it of any use to non-programmers?

Master Baiter Joined: 25 Dec 2006 Posts: 156

Emma Stralian wrote:

I looked at the FREEPOPS page. TYp[ical of programmers, they don't explain the basics. What is this? Is it a UNIX server script, a PC (windows) program, a Linux program?

Is it of any use to non-programmers?

On their download page they do say it works on Windows, GNU/Linux, most Unix flavors, OS X and BeOS. Very Happy

It seems to be something that can make web based email services look like a POP3 server on your own machine.

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2007 11:39 am

Wouldn't it be easier to run all the known Lad addresses through the shuttle?

*** BANNED *** Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 140

nobody3 wrote:

Franc28:

Quote:

If anyone here is good in programming, he should start an open source project dedicated to this, and get others to join in. Given the subject matter, it shouldn't be too hard.

this will NOT be open source for the mugus would be very easily modify this and use if for scramming

*snicker*

How many 419 scammers are professional programmers do you think?

Posted: Fri Mar 30, 2007 12:43 am

This idea has been churning in my head ever since it was brought up. The autobaiter doesn't have to be all that "smart". With a large library of bait responses available, the logic to determing the response can be as simple as timed responses keying off of the first scam mail arrival. It could also reply with many characters all operating off the same library of responses. It's all about the man-hours consumed.

timer example:
baiter detected, wait 6 hours, send from library of initial responses
2 days later, send from library #2 (first round responses)
2.5 days later, send another froim library #2
4 days later, library #2 again
5 days later trash files
6 days later library #3, sidetracking questions
7 days later etc, etc

after x days, look for keywords such as western union, test question, etc shoots him into library #5 responses, early western union responses
2 days after keyword, do X..... etc.

All repeated from different character? etc.

The detection part could be as simple as detecting replies or absence...

More b-storming on my part....

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

Franc28:
Quote:

Quote:

If anyone here is good in programming, he should start an open source project dedicated to this, and get others to join in. Given the subject matter, it shouldn't be too hard.

in response nobody3 wrote:

Quote:

this will NOT be open source for the mugus would be very easily modify this and use if for scramming

Franc28 wrote:
*snicker*

Quote:

How many 419 scammers are professional programmers do you think?

hey you know i would not make this open source - but if anyone in the eater wants to setup his own autobaiter i would be do everything possible -

also since the responces are so easy to modify any person with 2 brain cell will be able to misuse it

Master Baiter Joined: 05 Aug 2006 Posts: 213

Zorro:

Quote:

Wouldn't it be easier to run all the known Lad addresses through the 419Eater's Original Shuttle?

only after the code has been tested and is found working correctly - after all our clients the mugus deserve nothing but the best

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