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Cybercrime More Lucrative Than Drugs
prostoalex writes "Yahoo is reporting that global cybercrime overtook global drug trafficking in terms of revenue this past year. In related news, only 4% of Internet users can flag 100% of phishing e-mails as fraudulent, and Americans filed 207,000 reports on cybercrime to FBI."
According to the book Freakonomics, drug dealers make less than the minimum wage, on average. It would not be hard to beat that level of productivity in any undertaking, criminal or not.
As for the phishing problem, I really don't understand why people fall for those. Your bank, or eBay, or Paypal, will never, ever, ever, ever, ever send you an email asking you to disclose any account information. If those people want to contact you for an important reason, they will either call or send you actual mail. This seems like a simple rule to remember, doesn't it?
And technically, what makes a drug a drug? What about perscription, cigarettes, alcohol? Those are all mind altering and bad for you.
:)
This is my field of study, so I feel obliged to throw in my 2 bits here.
When someone refers to a "drug" in the sense of crime, they mean more accurately a "Schedule I Material" (and rarely, Schedule II or III, but usually just I). What does this nonsense mean? Well, in theory anyway, Schedule I is reserved for materials deemed to have no redeeming medical value, with a high possibility of chemical addiction or overdose. Now, given your statement about cigarettes and booze -- you and I both realize that that isn't entirely the case.
While at the core, the doctors who worked with the FDA and the DEA to create the original controlled substances lists were doing so in good faith to protect the population at large from "Snake Oil" and soft drinks with addictive spikes (Ahem, Coca-Cola); there are unfortunately, larger powers at work than even the medical industry today. "Big Tobacco" has been in power in this country for hundreds of years before this country was even a country. So even though nicotine in all scientific methods would be a Schedule I material -- it isn't. This is also the reason THC is Schedule I despite having qualities that should qualify it for Schedule III (your usual prescription medications). Alcohol, for similar social reasons, is not Schedule I either.
Your usual prescription medications are Schedule III; which roughly defined is materials that have useful medical value and low possibility for addiction, but have other qualities such as allergens or drug interactions that merit having a doctor or two check you out before giving you them.
Hope that I have helped
~Rebecca