Do you go beyond just wasting their time?

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 05 Jun 2015 Posts: 2

Hi 419 Eater's,
Great group and a fun topic. Although I am new here I am not new to doing this. I have had the pleasure of playing with some of these characters in the past that have emailed me. A great way to end the game if you want them to stop emailing you is tell them you are the police or FBI. Emails stop instantly.
That being said, do you ever go beyond just playing with them and wasting their time and causing them expense?
Does anyone gather IP addresses and other technical data from the emails that are sent? Is information passed onto law enforcement for investigation? I know I can hear the laughs on the last one from Canada.
If these people are sending you documents and you are opening them how often are you infected with a virus?
My ethics wont allow it but it would be very easy to send them a nasty little bug. Sorry for the multiple questions, as I mentioned I am new here and this is very fascinating to me. Take care all.

OSINT Guy

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:19 am

Welcome to eater osintguy

osintguy wrote:

A great way to end the game if you want them to stop emailing you is tell them you are the police or FBI. Emails stop instantly.

And you've just educated them in what to look for in timewasters (or jokers as they call us) and so made them better scammers

osintguy wrote:

If these people are sending you documents and you are opening them how often are you infected with a virus?

Unless you know what you're doing, don't open anything a lad sends or click on any lick they provide

osintguy wrote:

My ethics wont allow it but it would be very easy to send them a nasty little bug.

Reading the Forum Rules will answer this one for you Wink

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

Quote:

My ethics wont allow it but it would be very easy to send them a nasty little bug.

Good to know, since we don't, either Very Happy

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:24 am

Welcome to Eater oisntguy, most of your questions are covered here

https://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=176248

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go beyond just playing with them and wasting their time and causing them expense?

We gather bank account information, and pass that on to the relevant people, the mods in this forum can pass this on

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Does anyone gather IP addresses and other technical data from the emails that are sent?

IP addresses can be, and usually are to some extent, internet cafes, and therefore itps' as per Forum rules.

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Is information passed onto law enforcement for investigation?

You will notice some members with gold badges, yes, information leading to an arrest is possible, patience, perseverance, and a huge amount of luck and skill are needed.

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If these people are sending you documents and you are opening them how often are you infected with a virus?

Scan first, then open, or use view in gmail, or just don't open the doc and abuse the lad for not sending in the right format. There are viruses out there, but the lads are after your money, why lose a possible payday?

Quote:

My ethics wont allow it but it would be very easy to send them a nasty little bug

We do not send "bugs" etc. Please read the forum rules.

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:02 am

Welcome to Eater!

We report bank accounts and stolen credit cards. Bank accounts may lead to arrests; if they do, we don't know it, as we delete the baiting character name from the report, the bank may not pass on the Eater name to the police, and there has to be actual scammy money going to the account for the police to do anything.

We get lads' websites shut down. This causes victims to twig and the lad to lose the money he paid to register and host the site.

We send them on safaris. This may result in a record of a border crossing with the scammer's real name.

I open documents sent by lads only on Linux (or BSD, but my baiting box is now a Linux laptop). Some other baiters run Linux too.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 05 Jun 2015 Posts: 2

Thank you vonpaso xlura for the reply. That was the information that I was looking for.
In my initial post I was wanting to know if the scammers are using technology (malware etc) to steal money or just social engineering. The latter seems to be the case. These kinds of fraudsters are not the kind I deal with on a regular basis so I am curious more than anything.

As for Linux, yes its a good idea to run a Linux distro on tails that way you can be assured to not get infected with anything. Just as an FYI if you download Tails you will be put on a watch list by some orgs that have 3 letters in their name.

There is a great deal of intel that can be gathered by people on here that law enforcement everywhere would love to have. The more people that are in the war against cybercrime and the like the better. Thanks again and take care.

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 2:32 pm

osintguy wrote:

In my initial post I was wanting to know if the scammers are using technology (malware etc) to steal money or just social engineering. The latter seems to be the case.

For what we do in here, yes. Social engineering is the name of their game. However, it is an old and silly way of thinking to say our scammers are just being scammers. They are criminals and do whatever they can to get money. Including malware if they can get their hands on it. These people are at least loosely organized into groups of "people who know people". They know where to buy services if they want and need them. But we concentrate on one specific aspect of their criminal activity and rarely see the rest.

Quote:

Just as an FYI if you download Tails you will be put on a watch list by some orgs that have 3 letters in their name.

Uh-huh.

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There is a great deal of intel that can be gathered by people on here that law enforcement everywhere would love to have.

The law enforcement is quite good at gathering its own intelligence. What they lack and what we can't provide them is international jurisdiction and properly prosecuted cases to go after these people.

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:56 pm

There's a gang called Bimbom-Bump which two of us were battling for a few years, making their sites jump from one hoster to another. One day most of them disappeared, their nameservers being pointed at some IP address in Microsoft netspace. It turned out that the sites were connected with some malware called Shylock.

As far as we know, though, most lads do not intentionally spread malware. Their computers may be accidentally infected.

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 6:03 pm

Welcome to Eater osintguy

Hope you stick around. And pick up this great hobby.

Quote:

I have had the pleasure of playing with some of these characters in the past that have emailed me

Make sure you are baiting safely with nothing that can point back to your real life details. These people are criminals.

Read the stickies, Grab a mentor, and Join in on the fun.

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2015 8:09 pm

osintguy, welcome.

Tails, thanks for the idea, just downloaded it. Fortunately I'm in the UK, and since I don't intend to infiltrate the US government or it's arms, I don't expect to receive a knock at the door. I doubt they care very much about baiters and Scam-Warners, in the grand scheme of things.

As Huntsman said, all the above, and then join in the fun.

Well, that's post 1500 for me then!

*** BANNED *** Joined: 26 Jul 2012 Posts: 1116

OSINT: Open Source <strike>Intelligence</strike>

Sorry I frequently make fun of intelligence types, including those who don't read the open source rules before posting. Laughing

(seriously go have a read of them)

Regarding your question of lads using phishing and malware and social engineering, they use all three in varying degrees. Malware and phishing kits are readily available these days and not as exclusive to nation states and high end organized crime as they once were.

So yes even the West African scammers use these tools, just to less of a degree due to the technical barrier......... and I certainly wouldn't suggest opening any attachments they send you. I can't speak for all site killers but a few use stuff like noscript or a linux distro. Some of us even have a dedicated computer for this kind of stuff.

There are varying degrees of OPSEC but we definitely will throw a flag on the field if we see someone who is not operating safely or legally.

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