The lecture outlines strategies by the "Artist against 419" online community that uses open source intelligence to gather data and file reports about fraudulent websites. The lecture presents the artistic installation "Megacorp." (created by KairUs) that tries to visualize the global phenomenon of fake business websites.
“Megacorp.” is a corporate conglomerate inspired by its equally powerful counterparts in science fiction. The artwork is based on a collection of fake websites scraped from internet by the artist duo KairUs. These companies exist only virtually and are used by cyber criminals for phishing attacks or to support scam stories. The “Megacorp.” exists therefore as an umbrella company for subsidiary companies that are 100% dummy cooperations. “Megacorp.” operates on a global scale and is constantly growing with firms represented in almost every branch of industry. The strategic objectives according to the “Megacorp.” Mission statement is to: “offer complete services from one source which can serve the entire market”. Accordingly the subsidiary companies cover domestic and international export, real estate agents, insurance companies, law firms, security companies, banks, educational institutions, hospitals, online commerce, economic communities and ministries.The functions of “Megacorp.” are presented in the form of an interim report and company visuals. The archieved websites are locally available in the gallery allowing visitors to explore the current fake website repository. By examining the fake websites the artwork reflects both the imaginary and the real world ‘megacorps’, questioning centralization of power.
Speakers: Andreas Zingerle Linda Kronman