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EU Gumshoe Chases Internet Villains
Robert Haskins writes "The Pittsburg Post-Gazette is carrying an interesting Wall Street Journal story about a guy who works for Microsoft and chases virus writers, software counterfeiters, spammers and other suspected law breakers. Can companies really make a difference by helping law enforcement like this?" From the article: "Mr. Fifka isn't a cop. He works for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Safety Enforcement Team. Created in 2002, the group is part of the U.S. software giant's intensifying efforts to combat cyber crime at a time when consumers and businesses are becoming increasingly frustrated with fraud and virus attacks on their personal computers, most of which use Microsoft's Windows operating system. As Internet crime proliferates, law enforcement is relying more on the private sector to help counter it. That's because tracking cyber criminals requires a different set of skills than police have traditionally used. Compounding the challenge is the speed at which new online threats are morphing."
is they cannot pay 100k+ for dedicated CS people, anybody who has the skills will be working for [somecorp] as they will pay the market rate, cant blame the individual as business is business, why work for the police for 50k when you can earn double in the market.
Of course if people want to pay more taxes (like corporations for a start) then you will get the police force society needs for a modern world, but until then you will only get alturistic people and alturism is frowned upon in America, greed is good, get rich or die trying
Spyware is usually user-installed (usually disguised as or alongside of a useful program). Any operating system where users are allowed to install software is vulnerable to spyware.
As Internet crime proliferates, law enforcement is relying more on the private sector to help counter it.
That's a big concern. People who work in law enforcement should not also have other kinds of interests. Even without deliberate abuse of power, someone who comes from a corporate environment will bring his own set of prejudices and interests to the table. For example, someone working for Microsoft may be more interested in pursuing piracy using Linux and less interested in tracking down people who write viruses that infect Macintosh. It also may lead to a situation where the primary means of getting the police to do something is to pay someone lots of money; it is even more disconcerting that those someones are ex-police, which really is getting pretty close to outright corruption.
If you think about it, it is also truly bizarre that companies like Microsoft find it easier to finance a private police force to track down virus writers than to fix their software.
"If Microsoft cannot fix the security holes then they should opensouce it so it gets fixed by the Linux community. Microsoft can still sell software and support.
"
Linux software isn't secure. Why do you think Linux programmers can make Windows secure?
Vote for Pedro
Half the stuff these guys do would probably not be legal for a policeperson to deal with. This is just another case of outsourcing breaches of rights to the private sector.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Yeah, I was confused, too. I thought he was actually an EU official, in fact he doesn't really have anything to do with the EU. Apparently EU was just used to meant Europe, not the European Union, the governmental body or even the European Union, the geographic entity.
Which is interesting, because people around here (inside the EU) routinely make the opposite "mistake" (if you want to call it that way), referring to Europe when they actually mean the EU, or even part of the EU. Although the EU does encompass a large part of Europe these days. Kind of like talking about "America" when you're actually referring to either North America or the USA.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Please. Rent a clue. It's much cheaper to hire one person to "assist" the police and help them feel "secure" about their own Windows purchases, to leave law enforcement dangling and angry and much more happy to get subpoenas against you and refuse to use your fundamentally insecure products on a governmental level.
.NET that caused Peter LaMacchia to reason from the project after writing Microsoft's book on the software.
There are certainly good people who do such even work: this guy may be one of them. But with Microsoft's long history of patent theft, copyright theft, and major criminal anti-trust behavior, it's clear that Microsoft's focus is ot on protecting its users. This is worsened by Microsoft's history of adding features at the expense of security, including the changes in
And the reason "law enforcement is relying more on the private sector" is not just that they don't have the skills.
It's because these are no normal, human-vs-human crimes. These are crimes against IP. These are crimes against corporate America.
The corporations are just enforcing the laws they lobbied into existence. Don't worry; they'll eventually lobby to have "anti-piracy" police budgets increased enough that they won't have to overtly aid the police.