Slashdot Mirror
The Long Arm of Microsoft
eldavojohn writes "Software giant Microsoft is helping the law track down and find phishers and political borders are no boundary for them. From the article, 'One court case in Turkey has already led to a 2.5-year prison sentence for a so-called "phisher" in Turkey, and another four cases against teenagers have been settled out of court, Microsoft said on Wednesday, eight months after it announced the launch of a Global Phishing Enforcement Initiative in March.' This initiative started back in March and has resulted in 129 lawsuits in Europe & the Middle East. Perhaps their legions of lawyers will come to some use for the rest of us but teenagers settling out of court? That reeks of RIAA/MPAA tactics to me."
I'm really personally torn on this. I mean, on one hand, I hate spam and I hate all kinds of computer related scams. I feel that a lot of good ideas (like e-mail) risk death at the hands of these attacks. That said, I welcome all efforts to take care of this.
... that Microsoft offers out of court settlements from these individuals & personally profits from them. I would assume that amount is trivial to Microsoft & I would want Microsoft to punish these people to the extent of the law where they live. It would also be nice to see Microsoft turn around and donate any money earned towards anti-phishing and anti-spam initiatives.
However, I would be a lot happier if the law took care of this. You know, if Microsoft would give every police district across the world free software, tools and maybe even hardware to catch these guys, that would be the safest route--leave it to the law to take care of these matters. But what I fear is that local police just don't have the time and resources to track these guys down. And, on top of that, law enforcement here in the states might find an illegal or rogue server in another country and have no way within their jurisdiction to follow the case across the boarders. That and in some locations, cops are crooked or they don't see the problem of phishing to have any tangible victims.
So while there's a lot of good reasons for Microsoft to do this, I still feel a tiny bit afraid that an already very powerful company is becoming a lot more powerful by gaining international recognition as a crime buster.
So, if you'll entertain me and let my tin-foil hat imagination run wild for a second, say that BitTorrent becomes illegal to use under some country X's laws. Now, I live in country Y (across the world) and I use BitTorrent to retrieve Linux DVD distro images. Microsoft somehow monitors this through my operating system and brings a trial against me in country X. I don't even live there but now I have to go there and defend a lawsuit in that country? That would be a horrible outcome.
Another fear of mine has already occurred
In the end, I really don't think this is the answer to the problem of spam & phishing. I submitted this story in hopes that there'd be some good debate about where the responsibilities of stopping phishing attacks should lie.
My work here is dung.
What kind of boarders are they getting across? Surf-boarders? Skate-boarders? What have they done to deserve being squashed by Micros~1?
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
political boarders - hate those, damn imperialists and trotskyites are the worst, they never pay their rent on time.
The o is not even close to the a on the keyboard, have to wonder...
Most of the cases were Microsoft simply providing evidence to local authorities, who themselves prosecute the scumbags. In the small number of cases where Microsoft is directly taking action (on behalf of little-guy victims everywhere), I'm actually surprised it isn't Citibank and other colossals pummeling these dirtbags into the ground.
Comparing this to the RIAA cases? Give me a break. That's like comparing a rapist with someone taking a second glance at someone they find attractive.
teenagers settling out of court? That reeks of RIAA/MPAA tactics to me.
No, it only shows that teenagers do all sorts of things online, including copyright infringement and phishing. Or are you saying that teenagers shouldn't be tried under the laws of the country?
While criminal complaints are aimed at what Microsoft believes to be real criminals, the civil lawsuits are aimed mainly at young people without criminal intent. For them, settlements of 1,000 to 2,000 euros ($1,290-$2,570) are deemed to be enough of a deterrent, Microsoft said.
Those are much smaller settlements than the RIAA is asking for, and I dare say that they either don't cover, or barely cover the legal fees that Microsoft incurs from these actions.
This doesn't look at all like the kind of profit-making enterprise the RIAA is engaging in. Rather, it looks like MS is trying to deter criminals and criminals-in-training from ripping people off.
Of course, they are doing it for their own business reasons. It makes them look bad when people get scammed because of security vulnerabilities in IE. But I don't see how you can draw an evil motivation out of it.