Slashdot Mirror
Top 10 Internet Crimes of '06
An anonymous reader notes that "The Bad Guys blog at USNews.com offers a look at the top ten Internet crimes of 2006. The federal study cited draws on over 200,000 complaints to US law enforcement and regulatory agencies. Top crime: auction fraud, followed by other online rip-offs. "
I think I've been involved in half of these and I consider myself safe.
I guess mail order bride's leaving you isn't a crime. DAMN.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
*rimshot*
The article mentions that the results are probably skewed by the likes of E-Bay providing direct links to file complaints, and it also doesn't say if the complaints were ever followed up on or not. This is probably a list of all complaints, rather than those that were shown to be legitimate.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
My list of the The top ten internet crimes:
1. Windows Vista
2. Microsoft Office
3. RIAA lawsuits
4. Slashdot "editors"
5. Web sites with blinkey flashey ads and two paragraphs per page for a grand total of fifteen blinkey flashey pages I could read in less than two minutes except I have to wait for all the bullshit to load before I can read the next pair of paragraphs. There is a damned good reason they got rid of the <blink> tag, you know!
6. DMCA. The law itself is a crime
7. Bono Act (AKA "Steamboat Willie Preservation Act"). Again, the law itself is the crime.
8. Jack Thompson
9. Sony's rootkit
10. Cowboy Neal
get rich quick book I bought off of eBay several months ago. Is that considered auction fraud or non-delivery?
I would say that auction fraud could happen to just about anyone.
I mean c'mon - it's the most widely distributed piece of spyware YET. And it occasionally calls legitimate users thieves and reports them. And blackmails people. How did that not make the list?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That child pornography accounts for 1% of all internet crime. Yet, somehow, this seems to be the only crime I've heard of the FBI cracking down on. Is this because of skewed news reporting? Or is it because of the relative severity of child pornography? Or is it "thinkofthechildren"ism?
Just take a look at the Top 10 list:
Internet is only the communication channel used by the crooks, all the crimes depicted there are good old fashioned real life crimes. Being perpetrated via Internet is only a detail that should be irrelevant when categorizing crimes. What I would really like to see is the ratio of these same crimes perpetrated in real life vs. via internet. That would really be insightful and newsworthy.
Net crime and no mention of piracy? Glad to see they're accepting it as a non-crime now :)
Whenever you see the RIAA whining about how Piracy/IP Theft/Copyright Theft etc. is a major crime, remember this list.
Piracy is not even in the top ten.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
I'm just curious how check fraud, at 4.3% of complaints, qualifies as internet crime. Even if someone writes a fraudulent check for goods purchased online, I'm not sure it should be classed as internet crime, since the internet is incidental to the crime.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
6. DMCA. The law itself is a crime
7. Bono Act (AKA "Steamboat Willie Preservation Act"). Again, the law itself is the crime. I was looking for those in the article before I read your comment, but I didn't see one instance of any form of "pirate" or "infringe" in the article. So is there a reason that copyright infringement, such as through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, is not one of the top 10 Internet crimes of 2006? There is a damned good reason they got rid of the <blink> tag, you know! O RLY? Gecko supports the <blink> element and even has a corresponding CSS attribute for it: text-decoration: blink . Luckily, blinking text in recent Gecko is easier to read than blinking text in older browsers because recent Gecko blinks with a duty cycle of 75 percent on, unlike older browsers that used 50 percent on.
*crickets*
well I guess they don't call it sleaze bay for nothing!
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Goatse.
*rimjob*
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I expected a listing of the biggest individual cases, not broad categories that pretty much cover everything on or off the 'net.
Much sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Why isn't spam on the list? It is a crime in many places to send certain kinds of spam such as forged headers. I would think this would the most common type of cyber crime.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Violent crime = criminal violent act.
Unless you are a teenager shooting yourself, a live child-porn vids is a violent act.
Unless you are a teenager shooting yourself, creating child porn is a violent act.
Distributing or watching child porn is not a violent act. By the time someone watches it, the violence is over. The violence may even date from 30 years ago. It is evidence of a violent act. It is also a very serious crime in most of the world.
If the violent act took place just about any country in the world, it's a violent crime. A kid being molested on the internet is WAY more important than being ripped off $200 via auction fraud. Amen.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"I was looking for those in the article before I read your comment, but I didn't see one instance of any form of "pirate" or "infringe" in the article. So is there a reason that copyright infringement, such as through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, is not one of the top 10 Internet crimes of 2006?"
Copyright infringement is not the same as these criminal activities. It's a violation of the copyright, not a criminal act that can be prosecuted.
Has got to be believing the article, after all it's put out by the same branch of government that is reading your email without a warrant.
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
stay on topic plz. we aren't talking about top crime of 2000.
Surely Myspace has to be considered some sort of ongoing internet crime against decent taste and humanity in general.
Tomorrow we will be seeing the top 10 slashdot top ten stories on the front page!
Really, how many top ten, bottom ten, best of, and worst of lists have we had in recent memory? Seems like I see a new one or two every day, getting a little ridiculous. Sure, the occasional top ten list is funny, but they are rarely newsworthy.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Except when the laws doom teens fooling around or taking cell-phone pictures of themselves into life on the sex-offender register.
The Georgia case of Genarlow Wilson is an extreme case.
1. Pass overly broad laws to protect children from predators.
2. Enforce them to the letter
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
I think not. Won't someone thinkoftheteenagers?
Lobby your lawmakers for sane predator-protection laws.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So is there a reason that copyright infringement, such as through peer-to-peer file sharing networks, is not one of the top 10 Internet crimes of 2006?
Crimes = criminal. Copyright violations are generally punishable only by civil suits, with the exception of high volume piracy by a single individual for profit, but that generally occurs through physical media rather than online. Unless you consider contributory infringement, most online piracy by individuals probably does not reach the volume to make a criminal case out of it.
Note: the specific laws regarding criminality of copyright infringement vary in different jurisdictions. Your mileage may vary.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Last I heard... sending out billions upon billions of spam emails was a crime.
Last I looked, I'm still getting tons of spam email.
Last I checked, spam tends to require the internet.
Why wasn't it on the list again?
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
All you people who said these "crimes" are not "Internet crimes", are correct. The Internet is just the medium that was used to communicate when committing such crimes as "check fraud" etc.
While strictly, most of these crimes have direct analogs that do not involve the Internet, the Internet makes the execution of many of these crimes orders of magnitude easier.
Consider scamming people out of their money by setting up a fake web site that looks like Bank of America. Compare with scamming people by building a physical building which is a fake Bank of America branch. Nobody would attempt the latter (at least I've never heard of it) while the former is stupidly easy.
I figure you don't have children. The FBI (and legal entities all over the world except for Thailand et al.) is cracking down on it because it's among the worst crimes there are, in the same league as torture and rape. Screw those idiots who send money to people without having the goods first.
;)
Notice that I don't think new or stricter laws are necessary, I rather consider them counter-productive. All those thinkofthechildrenisms are a joke. When I was a kid, there weren't all those crazy laws we have today, and we got it much better than today's kids who are all treated as if they were potential amokers or terrorists, and barely capable of getting *anything* right for themselves. If I had been treated like this, I'd probably have rebeled *much* more, and the same is true for today's kids for sure. I make sure my kids feel valued and value other people, and know what they want and what they don't, and the rest will follow. If it's hard, oh well, so was it for my parents, it's only fair.
(Modded OT in 3...2...1...)
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
With the Department of Fatherland Security and the FBI's illegal wiretapping, collecting of personal data in regards to phone and internet companies, Bush's statements on how he wants to track all e-mail and uploaded images I think government fraud should be on this list.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
...USNews.com should learn how to design sites properly, with percentages not exact pixel widths. GRRRRRRR
Blink has gone away becuase flash is a better way to really annoy people.
YouTube is down right now... that's a crime.
After a conversation with friends and a promise that I could find I Love Lucy's "Vitameatavegamin" video within a minute, we get nothing...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Ha! Got ya! This isn't really slashdot...
The host with the post. twd
*Opponents* of net neutrality.