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Famous Criminal Opines that Technology Breeds Crime
jcatcw writes "In an interview with Computerworld's editor in chief, Don Tennant, Frank Abagnale spoke about his life of crime and crime prevention. Abagnale is a notorious criminal, whose exploits were portrayed in the movie 'Catch Me If You Can.' Abagnale claims: 'It would be 4,000 times easier to do today, what I did 40 years ago, and I probably wouldn't go to prison for it. Technology breeds crime — it always has, it always will ... I really think the more technology there is in the world, the more you have to instill character and ethics. You can build all the security systems in the world; you can build the most sophisticated technology, and all it takes is one weak link — someone who operates that technology — to bring it all down." This would seem to echo commentary in a New York Times article about the rise of Russian hackers in recent years.
For everything that benefits society, along comes those who seek to use said benefits for personal, illicit gain. I don't think it's so much that "Technology Breeds Crime" as "Crime Feeds On Technology".
It only makes SOME crimes easier.
When you had to walk into a bank to empty someone's bank account, you were limited by how far you could travel.
Now, when you can do it across the 'Web, you are not limited in the same way.
The problem is that the security model has not kept pace with the concept of "web services" offered by the banks. But if the banks were 100% liable for any loss, you'd see them focusing on the security.
It isn't that technology breeds crime; it is that technology is a form of human enhancement, and some humans are criminals. However, technology also enhances law enforcement, brings new ethical and moral issues to the table for society (or the ruling political junta) to rule on, and empowers people further and further down the economic scale as technology itself becomes inexpensive.
I don't think we ought to be "criminalizing" technology as a whole. We simply need to keep considering, and re-considering, the ethical and moral issues of the day in the light of what our current society can tolerate without infringing on the liberties of individuals and the security of the group.
If we have a fault, it is an inability to change quickly when we see social regulation - like the drug war, or the current pogrom against sexuality - isn't working. That's a political problem, and one we (speaking as a US citizen) have been roundly unable to address.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
He's right, and I'm getting off his lawn soon, but first I want to point out that customer service rep "Tiffany" is not exactly using technology just because she's sitting in front of Windows using a vertical app rolled out by IT.
Oh fuck. Now we're going to see an endless stream of posters stating that "correlation does not imply causation"...
Let's use a criminal's ideas for criminal law reformation.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Society prepares the crime. The criminal commits it.
Chip H.
Because he was a very skilled criminal he ended up getting a great job with the FBI.. Similarly, great traitors from different comntries get lots of mony from their country's enemies. Sad, Sad, Sad!
At least I am glad they dont hire former crackers for security jobs anymore. However, some of them start their own security companies.
"The person operating the technology" ... A stick, a rock, a screwdriver, all tools. Can I kill somebody with a screwdriver? A Glock, on the other hand, is designed for a reason.
The better a tool is a doing crime, the more we need to ask: who designed it and why?
Do computers make some crimes easier? Yeah. But they also make detecting and preventing crimes easier. They're general-purpose tools.
Nothing has changed in 2000 years about how much character it takes to avoid criminality. So if there's more crime, there's less instilling or more unbridled greed.
I'd blame the latter. Leadership sets the example.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
...but it also makes it far more traceable (along- sadly- with more legitimate activities). The potential intrusiveness of technology into our lives and the trail of electronic fingerprints we leave is far greater than most people are aware of, and it's going to get worse before- if- it gets better.
For one simple example, what about the trail that your mobile phone leaves with the network when you leave it switched on and are travelling somewhere?
This isn't even counting the fact that with future improvements in technology, it's quite feasible that activities that you can "get away" with today could leave a trail that is inciminating with tomorrow's forensics and analysis technology. I'll bet that people who committed murders 30 or 40 years ago didn't even consider the possibility of their getting nabbed by DNA tests in the future.
And in all honesty, even if the data we have available to us today isn't able to tell us much, this might change with improved data mining/analysis tools. Something that someone does today might not be enough to get them prosecuted immediately, but what happens when improved tools come along in the future and spot things that had been missed previously?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I would agree with him that technology breeds crime. But I would add that technology also breeds capture. With so much technology at their fingertips today's law enforcement has a much higher rate of capture.
Of course, the question remains unanswered if the crime that is bred outpaces the crime that is captured and/or deterred.
Unfortunately. It is not helped by Judges who have to ask "What is a web-page.."
http://shadowofadoubt.wordpress.com/2007/05/19/law-and-tech-intersection-a-dark-corner-for-judge/
Reminds me of dear old Peter Cook's Judges who prefer it to Coal mining..
"A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
For everything that benefits society, along comes those who seek to use said benefits for personal, illicit gain.
I will not stand for your impugning politicians in that manner!
All the intelligent criminals are already at the top. They simply made what they do legal.
Deleted
When did "technology" come to mean "consumer electronics" anyway? Creating fire is technology. The wheel is technology. The written word is technology. The printing press is technology. The motorcar is technology. All of these advances were beneficial to criminals too. Welcome to earth, motherfuckers. Every living being on this planet is fighting for the same limited resources, and life is tough here. Put on your fucking helmet and get on with it.
Anyone know what it means to be 'Notrious'? Is that 'not nutritious'? Damned editors...
Technology doesn't breed crime, it facilitates crime (as it does massive election fraud and bad customer service, but that's for another /. story).
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Uh actually, technology breeds prosperity which sadistic sociopaths view as more opportunities to commit crime.
Qxe4
BS! Technology just boast your inner self. You can always be more efficient when you have access to better technology, even if you're a criminal. If the world is breeding criminals, that's for a different reason.
If you took away all technology that crime wouldn't happen?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
...have it so easy! I remember when I was a young criminal, we had to walk uphill to the bank to rob it! Both ways! Through six feet of snow! Fending off lions and tigers with our BARE HANDS!
4000 times harder in the "old days" huh? Boo hoo.
Technology breeds governments and control as well: The more technology there is, the more control governments seek to have over their subjects.
Technology also breeds more effective community action: The more technology there is, the more easily people can form communities and co-operate more effectively.
So, technology is an afterburner: It speeds up all existing social processes, including law enforcement, community cooperation, crime... anything.
Therefore saying that 'technology helps X' is devoid of meaning. The correct thing is to say 'technology assists in everything, including X'.
are making the same comment... most of whom don't realise that that is Frank Abbagale's entire point for the length of the article, and they're arguing a nitpick argument over a single poorly chosen word in the opening line.
The Russians may be especially vulnerable to this, coming down as they are from a fully-controlled society. Under Communism, individuals must be taught from childhood to ignore their inner moral voice and instead follow the orders coming down from above. Inner sensibility is bred out, because it can only interfere with a command economy.
But then the command structure toppled, and all of its cogs were set loose in "freedom, horrible freedom". No more orders coming down from above... and no inner voice (or at least an abnormally quiet one) and not much of a national religion to forcibly install one. Perhaps such people are therefore more likely to become free-riders, or worse, as the opportunities arise.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I would imagine that with improved communication and information gathering technology, _catching_ frauds would be easier, too.
Yeah, there is a lot of "criminal" activity involving technology. But that criminal activity consists mostly of moving numbers around and rarely results in people getting hurt in a physical way. Overall, we're still a lot safer and better off than we were. And if you don't like the technology or the crime related to it, just don't use it. And if we, as a society, decided that some technologies might be too risky (on-line banking, e-voting, whatever), we could go back to paper.
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
It might have become easier for criminals to get away with things but it has also become easier for the police to catch them. Computers can scan thousands or millions of fingerprints for matches, driving and passport records can be immediately displayed, police, financial etc. records from around the world can be viewed or transmitted instantly, automatic face recognition is becoming possible etc.
I don't see, once the technology is stripped away, that things have really changed regarding criminals vs. the police: the smart criminals are still a step ahead just as they have always been. The difference is that for the rest of us our privacy is a casualty of the tactics the authorities are using to keep up.
I'll admit that when I saw the TV series, The Pretender, I always assumed that Jarod's ability to fake believable nametags and other elements of an identity were highly unrealistic. From what Abignale is saying here, maybe that isn't the case.
I'll admit that ever since I discovered the television series, real-life Pretenders according to the series' definition of the word have fascinated me. Abignale is an interesting man, as was Ferdinand Demara, the Pretender that the series was inspired by.
Does anyone know of any more examples of these types of individuals, and whether or not, given what security is like these days, they are still able to operate to the same degree?
Criminals do. The fact that we have gunpowder and pistols make it where an asshole requires a lot less in the balls department to rob a liquor store. I suppose you could try to pass photocopied 20 dollar bills, but you would be not only an asshole, but a stupid asshole. The world is always going to have a complement of assholes, but the cost of crime generated by most technologies is much less than the productive value.
for your convenience here
Language attempts to convey limited information about reality. That information is not just conveyed through the explicit meanings of individual words, but also through more complex means such as context, emphasis and innuendo.
"Technology Breeds Crime" places the emphasis on technology whereas "Crime Feeds On Technology" places the emphasis on crime. I would say this is a story more about crime than about technology, so the second is more appropriate.
I'm still waiting for someone to say, "and that's where I come in..."
And a tool is neither good or evil. It only empowers the one able to wield it to use it for good or evil. Take whatever invention ever created and you will see that it can be used for both.
Weapons are of course an easy example, but everything human ever invented works. It is something that gives the one able to use it a power edge over someone not equipped with it. Knowledge works a similar way, but to a lesser degree.
And having more power than someone else can be used to exploit him. Ever been that way, ever will be. Technology is power. Superior technology allowed the exploitation of Africa and Asia as colonies. Superior technology (or rather, superior knowledge of technology) allows a trojan writer to exploit the "clueless" user with his infected machine.
But that doesn't make technology a device for more crime. It makes technology a device of power. Not more, not less.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A little history lesson: If you don't know the answer make your best guess. Answer all the questions before looking at the answers below. Who said it? (there are only six, you can do it!)
1) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
A. Karl Marx
B. Adolph Hitler
C. Joseph Stalin
D. None of the above
2) "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few...and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity."
A. Lenin
B. Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the Above
3) "(We)...can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people."
A. Nikita Khrushev
B. Jose f Goebbels
C. Boris Yeltsin
D. None of the above
4) "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own...in order to create this common ground."
A. Mao Tse Dung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong Il
D. None of the above
5) "I certainly think the free-market has failed."
A. Karl Marx
B. Lenin
C. Molotov
D. None of the above
6) "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched."
A. Pinochet
B. Milosevic
C. Saddam Hussein
D. None of the above
Answers:
(1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004
(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007
(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005
A Glock, on the other hand, is designed for a reason.
To get people laughed at by the owners of real pistols?
If technology breeds crime, do we have more crime now than we used to? I get annoyed by people who claim that "X leads to more crime," and yet don't back that up with crime stats. Is there more crime now than there used to be? I know at least where violent crime is concerned there's not.
Also, with crimes that are more common with technology, like fraud, some of them were being committed legally. Do some research in to the crap surrounding medicine 100+ years ago. People who outright lie about what their supposed medicine did, the whole "caveat emptor" concept of any transaction and so on. It seems that perhaps there was plenty of fraudulent activity going around, it just wasn't illegal. Now you aren't allowed to sell sugar pills and claim they are drugs.
More or less, any time someone says that we are worse off, like more crime, more poverty, less education, etc than we used to be, I want to see some kind of proof. Despite problems, it seems that things do continue to get better overall at least for people in industrialized nations.
he either steals fertilizer, or always has a canister of laughing gas with him whenever he commits a crime, kind of like the joker
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The discovery of iron led to conquests of those who only had bronze swords (arguably a "crime"). Firearms contributed to a "lawless" west... until the telegraph made it harder to get away. Domestic and agricultural pest control led to poisonings. Machine guns (along with automobiles) led to frequent bank robberies... until the Feds caught up with weaponry and radio communication, again making it harder to get away. Xerox technology led to forgery. Fine scanning and color printers, the same. Email: a way to defraud more people in less time, using the same old scams.
It is actually hard to think of a major innovation that did not spark the minds of criminals, at least for a while until law enforcement caught on. I don't know of anyone who planned crimes specifically around Teflon for example, but who knows? I question even that.
Even so, the basic concepts of criminality have not changed even a little. Only the specific methods have changed. Nor has the overall rate of crime increased... it has not. At least in the U.S., property and violent crime have both trended steadily downward for the last 20 years, according to the Department of Justice's own records.
1. what technology does is increase the number of attack vectors. a lock box full of money has only a certain number of ways to steal the money inside. meanwhile, a complex intercontinental banking system has orders of magnitude more ways to steal that same amount of money
that's why i've always said we should never have electronic, or even mechanical, voting systems. that even the most technologically advanced society should still use paper ballots. yes, you can still mess with paper ballots, but only in a small number of ways. anything more complicated than that, and you've just introduced 1,000 more ways to tamper with voting. the trust in the voting system is just too vital to imperil and be technophilic about it just to make it more "convenient"
2. technology, yes, makes crime smarter... and this, on its flip side, is actually a GOOD thing. bear with me here:
say you want to steal a guy's horde of gold in rome in 100 BC. ok, you have to actually kill a few people to get to it. bloody, messy, ugly, brutish. but the criminal doesn't necessarily want to kill to get the cash, but he will if he has to. now fast forward to the 20th century, a criminal just wants some money, so, like frank abignale, he merely manipulates the trust system of the technology involved in financial transactions. ie, he forges checks, and gets people money without actually causing a drop of blood to flow
in other words, more technology turns crime from a game of violent sociopathic brutal physical force to one of subtle mind games and con artists. not that it's ok that you are left without your money, but it's better to be penniless and alive than penniless and dead
it's still stealing your dough, but it's stealing it without turning you into a corpse. so it is progress, in a twisted way
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't know of anyone who planned crimes specifically around Teflon for example, but who knows?
Some crimes have been at least dependant on teflon. Bank roberies have been planned and executed that used teflon coated bullets to go though the guard's bullet-proof vests.
The simple fact, and part of the problem, is that historically criminals have had access to technology before law enforcement. So there has been a window of opportunity for criminals to think of ways to exploit technology before law enforcement catches on.
And that is the way it should be!!!
Imagine a world in which government and law enforcement had access to most technology before the public did. You would not be a free citizen very long.
"Never appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one." -- Robert A. Heinlein
Actually, there is nothing new on the table. The basic concepts of "DRM" and easy copying of Copyrighted material go back to the days of player pianos and rolls of punched paper that played copyrighted songs.
The internet and digital music are NOT new concepts. The ONLY difference is the speed and ease by which these things may be done. The legal concepts, the morals, and the ethics are all the same as they were 150 years ago!!!
The only difference today is the degree to which the public has accepted the arguments of corporations regarding what those corporations' "rights" should be, in regard to copyrighted material. They have tried to extend it far beyond the rights that were ever allowed to individual copyright holders. And that is sad. Partly because the corporations, in general, have been full of shit. And partly because actually, corporations do not have "rights" at all. They have certain legal privileges, but rights belong to individuals, not companies. And partly because, ultimately, it is individuals working for or with those corporations who actually created the content that those corporations "bought". The reality is: the corporations have been all for them, and none for you. So the idea of supporting them at all in this endeavor is foreign to any reasonable concept of justice. They should be fought at every turn, with every angle available. Because indirectly but inevitably, their goal has been to make your life more expensive and difficult.
Wealth in its own way breeds crime of the sort we're talking about. I'm excluding "pure violence" that is not at least in part a means to an end of acquiring something; the 911 hacker is in this exclusion.
Banks, in a high trust society that allows their existence, breed wealth; putting your money in a bank has great benefits to you and the economy (for as long as that trust remains).
Wille Sutton is famously said to have answered the question of why he robbed banks, "That's where the money is." So in a sense you could say the concentration of assets that is necessary for a bank to function "breeds" various sorts of crimes against them (more types of crime now that banks do more things).
Technology in various direct and indirect ways makes us more wealthy, e.g how many of us have gained and/or maintained long distance friendships through the net? This can of course be used against us in direct (social engineering attacks, e.g. the worms that read address books) and less direct ways.
Although there's one key ingredient that not having read the fine article may not have been touched upon. Many sinners need temptation, but it takes more than just that for them to sin. Lowering the barriers to entry, lowering the chances of getting caught, increasing the payoff, all increase the temptation, but it still takes a fallible human to give in to that temptation to then commit a crime. (Some of course are sociopaths for whom the only question may be "can I get away with it?" (such people often have difficultly thinking ahead, so even that can be an issue).)
Hmmm, and if one goes so far as say without qualification that "technology breeds crime", well, that's not too far from saying "Any clothing that reveals more than face and hands breeds rape." I'm uncomfortable going that far....
Technology does not feed crime. Technology makes it easier for criminals to do their thing using the new technology for a few years while the law catches up.
Remember, neither lawyers, judges, nor police officers are experts in the Internet, computers, etc., and it takes a while for them to ramp up those skills.
As an aside, I wish they would ramp up on those skills BEFORE making stupid decisions that allow cartels like the RIAA to come to power.
I see the problem with technology as it relates to crime to be instead the fact that to catch criminals who are using technology deliberately designed to cloak them you have to make necessary modifications and allowances to the laws protecting civil liberty. And tampering with those laws at ALL is a bad idea because someone always sticks some shit in the bills that has nothing to do with protecting civil liberty.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
He said this years ago, but in any case it was in fact easier for him. There were no video cameras and no dna evidence and he was not fingerprinted ever before conviction. IE, no paper trail and no way to say it was him until he slipped up, had he changed certain elements he could have continued. He was only caught because a stew recognised him, too bad he didn't go to a country where he couldn't have been extradited first. I'd say it was easier for him, the only easy thing today is that the tools he had to find are now downloadable.
FlyingPizzas.com, for the tasteful hermit
I bet you thought for a whole 10 seconds about that one just to get first post. Anyways, thank you for sharing your amazing wisdom that people are selfish.
I must question both its timing and its spirit. "The west gets what it deserves"? Is that how NYTimes wants to portray Russia? Why don't they just go ahead an (in light of Putin's recent visit to Iran) say straight out "Oceania has always been at war with East Asia"?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Technology is just a set of tools. GREED breeds crime! Tag on main page is spot on.
You nailed it.
Now who's going to do the much harder task of figuring out how to emulate low-crime/high-tech states, instead of just blaming evil on technology?
Cheers.
We all know the Mayan long cycle is coming to a close as we realign with the galactic core ushering us into the dawn of the age of Aquarius. The Rapture is coming, but who will be the Antichrist come 2012? As always, the answer has been hidden in plain view.
Let us take the name
President Hillary Rodham Clinton
We rearrange the letters and the truth comes to light!
Rapid hell Antichrist demon, no rly
We further rearrange these letters to complete the damming message:
Antichrist lol no rly I'd dampen her
Ignore the evidence at your own peril. Vote Ron Paul!
Quite right. That is why Microsoft is a weak link.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"Technology breeds crime" is not at all true, and quite the opposite of reality. Technology may open new frontiers, which may offer new criminal possibilities, but the technology itself has the opposite effect.
Telegraphs are what ended the era of the Wild West train robbers.
Encryption has eliminated the benefit of tapping into data lines, and has obsoleted messengers carrying critical information that could be easily intercepted. Unfortunately, it is the human element that has prevented its use on laptops, which would put an a end to major vector of data theft.
While printers may have made it easier to forge checks, the technology to detect forged checks (and cash) is far better now too. While you may be able to place hundreds of orders on a stolen credit card in minutes, the same technology allows the credit card companies to see that strange activity, and instantly contact the actual owner of the account.
The man doing the complaining is a criminal, and has very clear motivation for making everyone afraid of technology to push his wares. If anything has bred crime, it's changing social norms making continually lower standards acceptable.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The problem is that our institutions for instilling character and ethics are themselves so grossly corrupt, from molesting priests to divisive "holy" leaders to judgmental jihadists to politics infested with religion.
We need new values entities, based on God and love and freedom and fairness and kindness, not based on shooting abortionists and blowing up so-called infidels.
It's time to jettison all the priests and the mullahs and the reverends and the rabbis and their flavor of the day books and their pet rules and try God and love for a while instead.
God unites. Religion divides.
"And the morals that they worship, will be gone..."
I agree with the article except for the part where it is mentioned that it would be 4000 times easier to do these crimes. It is more like 4000 times more opportunity to do these crimes.
Crime has been rampant throughout history.
In areas of low technology you can commit crimes and leave without a trace-- start your life over.
Technology may increase the potential size of the payoff.
But increase the likelyhood? No.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I don't think they like being called criminals. I think they prefer the title "CEO." Oh, and you don't even have to buy the laws ahead of time any more. These days, they offer retroactive immunity, though it seems to be a little more expensive.
With all the crime-fighting that's been enabled by technology (think forensics, for example, where people can leave only microscopic amounts of evidence behind at a crime-scene and STILL be tracked down based on it) - I think it all comes out about even, in the end.
Sure, technology makes it easy to steal money from the comfort of one's home, with just a PC, an Internet connection, and some socially-engineered passwords.... But it also means more "casual conversation" is done via email or online chat, where it can be recorded and/or traced back to its source. In the "good old days", it was FAR less likely you could prove who said what if it was just a couple people talking while sitting on a park bench or what-not.
Technology provides additional tools for people which can be used for "good" or for "bad". In fact, they WILL be used by both sides - and it has a "canceling out" effect overall.
Japan, Inc is quite a nationalistic and non-multicultural nation. They are outward traders, but still quite insular, and it is their culture, along with a sense of "superiority" and "obedience to the state and traditions".
"Fast" multicultural societies with a more anarchistic bent (the US is one example, especially in coastal large urban areas, or the opposite economic extreme, somalia with zero functioning government) have no unifying core set of values or experiences or social mores to share (even to the point of quite different languages in very short geographical distances being the norm), hence, more crime, because it is one or two steps away, isolated as it were, with selfish well being as a community "whole". It takes multiple generations to establish a functioning unified community. You are less likely to commit crimes inside your own "family" or "tribe" if you are a recognized member, it is safer to go outside that construct, and if "outside" is merely a few blocks away at the most, it becomes a "who cares?" proposition, and greed and human nature takes over.
This civilization deal is very very thin veneer, ask anyone who has experienced a major riot in any developed nation. It takes 5 minutes tops to go from civilized to criminally horrendous, so the potential is always there beneath the surface. The other factor is globalization and the rise of near universal anonymity, no sense of actually belonging anywhere, and the feeling that no one on the planet cares for "you", so this "you" guy develops a sense of, again,"who cares?" and is more apt than not to tend to slide to criminality when the situation presents itself, even casually. Witness, joe law abiding will be tempted buying a cheap laptop off the street, or cob something from work, or cut corners in his work or family life duties, etc. In his mind, it is barely a half-crime, socially acceptable, because at the macro level, he sees that this is the way his giant corporations and governments "work". Once on that path, slippery slope takes over.
So to avoid that, you must not create the conditions that foster this in the human collective. slow and steady and tried and true must balance "new and shiny and foreign and gee whizz". You need a balance between this anarchistic "me,me,me, greed is good, anyway I can get it is OK" idea, and the perpetual drooling luddite locked down never changes at all type society. Places that can address both sides there with some moderation and common sense do well, others they fail one side or the other experience rises in crime, loss of economic stability, increasing polarization, and so on. A productive and happy and near culturally equivalent middle class is the best option if you want stability and low crime. If you work towards greater economic disparity (as is the globalization model as conceived and run right now by the most wealthy right now, not the "globalization" pie in the skyperfect world theory that is never implemented), towards a two class society, with the vast bulk of the people set against each other in competition for the crumbs and dregs, you'll get more crime.
In todays world, expect crime to keep increasing as long as they push forced massive change multiculturalism and dog eat dog globalization. If your so called leaders in politics and business don't give a crap about you, why should "you" give a crap about anything but snagging as much as you can, any way possible? We are really just going to see more and more crime as this plays out, technology or not, because we have traded profits at any cost for stability and common shared cultural civilized norms. You get what you pay for.
The story is an obvious forgery.
--Lord Nimula
Sure technology would make it even easier for him, but I'd be willing to bet that a person like Frank Abagnale would be at home in just about any society with the sort of rules that we are used to. He is a larger-than-life super villan of a criminal, the sort of person who was born with natural criminal... talent? I'm sure one could call it that, regardless of the nefarious intent of his actions. Sure, he was a bad guy. But who are we to judge the origins of his motive? The truth here is that this guy thinks in exploits. He sees a system and his mind immediately sets to work on how it can be subverted for his personal gains.
This is the sort of guy we NEED to see problems in security. Locking such a person away is not going to make the problem go away because there are many people who think similarly, although perhaps not as fast or efficiently, to Mr. Abagnale. With enough time - and indeed enough cleverness - any system can be exploited, whether it's a social system or a computer system. If a person like Abagnale could be persuaded to finding flaws in a system for the ethical reason of disabling them, then systems could be much more secure.
It's obvious that this guy was born with a natural tendency for deception, something that does not always have to be for bad purposes, just as computers and technology is not always designed for bad purposes. People should learn and accept that criminals are often only a hairs breath away from being "normal people." They also need to stop thinking that crime is something that will just go away once we've eliminated the means for it. We should use those talented ones that are willing or able to be persuaded to be willing to uncover the thought process and motives that go into committing crime, not wastefully trying to criminalize the tools of miscreant behavior such as p2p and data encryption/decryption software, or the knowledge and methodology for creating and using such tools. We should instead set out to learn the reasons for crime and seek to eliminate them, while simultaneously closing up the gaps that allow for it. People commit crimes, people such as Frank Abagnale. Not tools. I think that is what was most thoroughly proven in this interview.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Abagnale has some good points. Forgery is much easier than it used to be. Printing and paper quality are no guarantee of anything.
A point Abagnale didn't make to the interviewer is that social engineering is easier, too, because people are more used to remote requests for information. Many of Abagnale's scams required him to physically go someplace and deceive someone. Most people can't act well enough to pull off a con like that. Now, much more can be done remotely. "Identity theft" barely existed before the Internet; a few times a year somebody might pull something off, but it wasn't widespread.
...family values bank robbery is still being practiced. The old ways aren't all gone yet.
Porn breeds technology! Therefore, porn breeds technology AND crime! What a slut.
When you have finished this cup of coffee your adventure will begin again.
Anywhere that you have connectivity combined with the absence of a functioning judicial system; you will breed crime. It doesn't matter what that connectivity is, or how you measure that connectivity - whether it is in paved roads, running water, electricity - each of these factors contributes to both the reach of commerce and the reach of criminals. The two cannot be divorced from each other. If you have a rapid expansion of transportation, without an equal expansion of police power, criminals will exploit that weakness. In the wild west, outlaws would rob trains as they crossed the nation, knowing that they'd be vulnerable and there was little chance of being caught.
Let's look at Russia. Back in the cold war era, there were technology export restrictions in place. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, those restrictions were relaxed. By the time we in the United States started going online en-masse in 1995, upgrading our computer systems to Pentium machines running Windows 95 - our old computer systems didn't go into the garbage, they were sold into the huge technological vacuum of the former Soviet Union.
Who are the early adopters of technology? Kids of course! And Russia was no exception. Like a 16-year-old with a hot rod, the youths started souping up computers that we considered garbage. They got on to the internet using whatever they could, and once they connected to our information flows, they started teaching themselves programming. Because they were learning to program on outdated equipment, this forced them to become very, very good. There was no such thing as code bloat. Then you add 5 years to the calendar and what do you have? Little Ivan is no longer 15, he is 20 and has 5 years experience - and therein lies the rub - Ivan cannot go out and get a job in information technology, there is no economy to support his skill set. So, he goes about earning a living any way he can. I call it "N0 RUL3Z, JU5T WR1T3". Ivan sets about writing spam software, creating Trojan horses, worms... this is where we see the emergence of the botnet.
Brazil wasn't far behind. In 2004-2005 we saw an uptick in the botnet wars arms race with Russia being one-upped by Brazil with the Beagle/Bagle, Mydoom and Sasser botnet pissing contest.
There is a tide shift taking place. Putin has implemented a 12% flat tax which is bringing revenues flowing into the Russian economy for the first time in 15 years. They are reviving their legal system because they want to attract the Foreign Direct Investment dollars which will never come if they have no legal system which can enforce a legal contract. Along with the civil justice and FDI dollars, criminal justice must reign in corruption otherwise the FDI dollars will quickly disappear. So, Russia is growing out of the script kiddie phase and reemerging onto the world scene. Its good to have Mother Russia back.
I could go on providing details of history and economics, but I will leave that for the book I'm writing. But I will pose this question for you to think about: What do you think the outcome of One Laptop Per Child will have on the future of cybercrime? If connectivity absent a legal system is the breeding ground for crime, what do you think will happen as the bottom billion in Africa gets online?
Computer security is all about dealing with the unintended consequences. Every computer and every system that was ever built was first done to share information, not secure it. Security only came after we got everything connected, then had the collective "awww crap!" moment.
Regards,
Joel R. Helgeson
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
He said in the interview, he has been helping the FBI for 32 years!
greatly concerns me...
This man is clearly a genius - he understands systems more as what they _are_ rather than what we've been told. He makes a very valid point. The title of this article is in itself an appeal to emotion, like something I'd expect from Fox News. Please, remove your emotional attachment to your technology and the base emotions words like "crime" and "criminal" stimulate.
Technology is power. We're walking a thin line between anarchy and enslavement. Imagine handing out guns to a zoo full of apes.
You ignore this or treat it as a passing armchair philosophical argument at humanity's peril.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Way to get me to mod you flamebait ;)
And no, I don't care about the moderator 'guidelines.'
Technology lets humans do whatever it is they want to do exponentially more effectively. Sadly, a non-negligible portion of what humans want to do is criminal (or should be).
DNA just wants to be free...
One day in the future, we could also use new technology to mine the brains of criminals and learn the A-material they aren't telling us when they become security consultants.
Fortunately Slashdot leads in being a bunch of characters.
Tech creates new opportunities for everyone, including criminals. The best way to get rid of crime is to give everyone a fair go. In this world, where a child's wealth and education are fated to be little better than their parents', crime is only going to get worse.
Software patents delenda est.
...we need to kill criminals of all types. The criminal gene or class or mindset or whatever it is has to be stomped into the dirt. That includes you, too, crooked politicios.
No, the man is a sociopath, and you are desperately dreaming of sucking his dick.
You are the prime product of today's society: a fucking little lickspittle toady to sociopathic criminal types.
Imagine handing out guns to a zoo full of apes.
That's a description of the Islamic world right there. Oh, is that prejudiced? Well, you can suck my dick, too.
REAL apes would probably just throw them at one another when they ran out of feces, or put them in their mouths resulting in a few accidental suicides.
Everybody uses broad generalizations.
I for one welcome our new criminal overlords.
it's just absurd. There are a lot of stupid laws passed every day. I always say, criminals must have lobbyists in Washington.
Hehe... yeah, I keep saying the same thing.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Capitalism breeds crime - technology is simply a means for those with resources to perpetrate. In a system where competition is the means for "survival" there are always going to be those who cheat.
On one side of the balance put everything postive technology has bought us and on the other side put everything negative.
On the positive side you've probably got Medicine and on the other side you've got War Machines, Resource Raping Machines, Social Control Mecanisms.
Would we be better off living with a lot less technology? I think so.
It helps, sure. It's not really possible though.
Because even if you create identical access to all parts of the school-system and job-market, having rich parents will still be a great help. It'll allow you to study full-time and not need part-time jobs on the side. More importantly, having *educated* parents means you have the kind of parents who think that education matters. Which transfers to the kids in a million little ways.
The school-system in my part of the world already works pretty close to identical-access. There's still a large (not as large as in USA, but still large) difference between how kids of well-off parents do and how kids of poor parents do.
Perhaps affluence has a greater effect on the value a parent places on education. If you're already rich, what does it matter if the kid does well in school? You can simply buy their grades.
Sorry. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
There no doubt exists parents who themselves are uneducated, but who nevertheless understand the importance of education, and are able and willing to support their offspring in getting an education (I don't mean primarily financially, there's other forms of support atleast as important!)
But it's not the trend.
For example, in Norway (I doubt USA is much different, but I don't have the numbers handy) overall aproximately 20% of the population has a university-degree.
If *both* your parents have a university-degree, then the odds that you do too are 65%. If *one* of your parents do, odds are 45%, if none of your parents do, 12%.
It's not just a question of finding it important. Being *willing* to support is one thing, being *able* is another. It's a benefit to have parents that are *ABLE* to discuss problems you're having in school and/or university with you and actually contribute. Parents who themselves didn't finish high-school are less likely to be *able* to say anything sensible on whatever problem the children has in school. Furthermore, knowing how to *find* answers is atleast as important as knowing the answers. That's *also* a skill taugth during education.
But perhaps most at all important; people with a passion for knowledge tends to be infectious. Growing up in a home where the newest exploits of Hawking is an average topic of conversation does something to you. I'm sure there's uneducated parents who also has a passion for knowledge, and share it with their kids. But again: it's not the norm.
It has very little to do with character. A very small % of the population has some sort of predisposition to anti-social behavior. Most people turn to crime because of a lack of access to legal opportunities. i didn't rob a gas station this morning because i have a nice cushy job, a rented townhouse, nice toys and a belief that my life will get better. i have something to gain by obeying the law, and much to lose by breaking it. i have reasonable faith that if i were to apply to grad school that i could get in and succeed. It's easy to say that anyone can succeed if they apply themselves. But it's bullshit. It's a lie. We don't all start the race at the same point on the track. Some have to carry extra weight because of the baggage those with power dump on them. If those at the top shared more of their power, or used it to do more good, to work toward permanent and real solutions, crime would seem like less of an option. Punishment only deters people who have something to lose. i'd love to have some fast easy money that might come from robbing a liquor store, but i would much rather keep my fiber internet connection, girlfriend and possibility of someday earning a six figure income. Hope deters crime. If greed is the problem it is not the greed of the poor, but of those who keep the poor being poor. There's more than enough to go around, and we wouldn't have to resort to communism to do it. Better funding for education would make a huge difference at minimal cost.
This week's box office intake was about 80M$.
1% of that is 800K$
That times 52 weeks is more than 41M$
In a fund or account generating 3% interest, even without compounding is more than 120K$ per year.
* Rounding down to add administrative costs
That's 120 scholarships of 1K$
That model would be self perpetuating and would adjust for inflation on it's own.
Now lets take a look at 41M$ per year:
Establish a competitive scholarship that awards 10K$ each, for 410 students.
Select 410 families and give them 10K$ that they can use to add to their down payment on their first house
Give 1M$ to 41 elementary schools.
Give 41M$ to the poorest state in the union for use in the education budget
Give 410 teachers 10K$ off on their student loans
41M$ is a teentsy-tiny amount of money, but it could do a great deal of good. That's just one percent of what we spend going to the movies (on tickets alone).
i'm not saying taxes can solve everything, or "redistribute wealth, comrade!", but rather that our priorities are fucked. With temporary and/or minor adjustments to our priorities we can right many wrongs and decrease crime drastically in one generation.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Anyone else notice that Computerworld's interviewer seems to think that 2007-1980=17?
It's true that uneducated parents will have a tough time helping their children with school work, but if they have a serious attitude about education they will do what it takes to find the answers. Even if they can't help themselves they will find someone or some organization that can. There are plenty of ways to get help with school work.
And I'm not going to find you any data because I just don't care that much. If you disagree with me, or I'm really just completely wrong on this issue, that's just fine with me.
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education. ~ Sir Walter Scott
"Most people turn to crime because of a lack of access to legal opportunities. "
Shut the fuck up.
Most people turn to crime because they lack the character necessary to do other things. As to "lack of access to legal opportunities" that bullshit doesn't do much for the mother of 2 working 3 shitty jobs, avoiding crime because she knows it's wrong.
And in all my life, no matter the state of the economy, I have found legal, albeit occasionally distasteful, alternatives to crime to support myself.
People CHOOSE crime, because something inside if them makes it ok for them to prey on others. Stop making stupid excuses.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
While I know that his main scheme was check forgery, I've gotta say that that really shows off how dated he is. I mean, nobody uses checks anymore.
I haven't written a check of any kind for 4 years. And for the previous 4 years before that, I only wrote one per month (apartment charged extra for credit). I mean, if somebody tried to give me a personal check, then I probably wouldn't accept it unless I knew them *very* well. Why can't they transfer their money online like everybody else. Paypal has mobile service now, you know...
Our company recently switched to check scanners across the whole country. When you write a check at any of our stores, the check gets scanned and read, VOID printed across it, and then handed back to you. The transaction has been converted to an electronic one, and the money has left your account probably before you leave the store. Assuming, of course, that it's accepted at all, since it checks the check itself and the account and such to verify that it hasn't been flagged for fraud. Check fraud was so rampant that when the system was implemented, fully half the checks we received were rejected entirely as fraud. Many people were arrested based on the security footage gained.
While this is all anecdotal, what I'm saying is that people using checks are automatically suspicious nowadays. You can make a really convincing looking check, sure, but people don't even use *real* checks anymore, so you'd still have a hard time passing it.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I said so numerous times. But ok, again: it is certainly *possible* for parents with no education to nevertheless offer support and help their children get one. It is however not the norm.
Thing is, all the stuff you say uneducated parents -could- do are correct. Sure they *could* some of them even *DO*. But educated parents could do all of those *AND* more. Plus, they're more likely to actually care about education.
This is perfectly logical: who do you think is most likely to themselves get a good education; someone who thinks education is really important, and who is good at it, or someone who -doesn't- think education is important ? Your guess !
As a 30-year old Russian, I'm telling you: we *were* raised with morals and never had to "blindly follow orders" (you Americans, with Dubya on the throne, do that much more than we ever did... but let me not divert from what I meant to say). It's actually the onset of capitalism, the "GET RICH NOW! (*) don't ask, don't tell" slogan, that bred this type of people who ditched morals for money.
I should have realized this before, but I think I know the reason for our disagreement. My perspective is different from yours.
My parents were immigrants, and much of their extended families are now as well (I am a US citizen). Having been around, not only my extended family, but also, other immigrant families, I saw all the parents putting great importance on education. It seems to me that it IS the norm. I can't think of an example of parents that don't value education, whether or not they are educated themselves.
But I never stopped to consider how it might be different for uneducated, non-immigrant, parents.
So perhaps you are correct in general.
"It wasn't necessary to refute you. You did it for me. Your post showed all the classic flaws of someone who would hold such a position."
OOH NICE! So, after you've attacked me personally, you are convinced that is sufficient and no refutation of my statements are necessary.
How about instead of pretending my qualities as a human have anything at all to do with the accuracy of my statement, you actually address my fucking statement.
Except, you can't refute it, and you know it, so you pretend attacking me personally is sufficient.
Newsflash sister, the truth of my comment is independent of who said it. Your inability to grasp this is what lead you to such ridiculous conclusions in the first place.
"You don't want to debate, you want to be a jerk"
No little guy, I want to do both.
Sadly, all you want is to pretend that since I'm not nice I can't have a valid opinion. That is what your kind does when they're wrong.
Which is why you continue to do it.
This is where you say "WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Someone should stifle his speech because it hurts my FEEELLINGS!!!!! WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Turn back! Turn back!
Sure. Being an immigrant makes a difference. Parents that immigrate are *also* people who, on the average, care about actively doing stuff to improve the future of themselves and their children. But if you live in a country where it's *easy* to get all the education you want if you just care for it, and have the talent, but you nevertheless opt to (out of lack of interest or lack of talent) not to take advantage of that. Odds are you're *NOT* very passionate about knowledge. Or you're just plain dumb. Since intelligence is partly genetic, that is ALSO a disadvantage you're likely to pass on to your kids. If you're not educated, not for lack of interest or lack of talent, but simply because you never got the chance, that's obviously not a comparable situation. Ever wonder why poor natives tend to be the most hostile to immigrants ? One of the reasons is, the immigrants typically arrive with nothing (or very little), and still regularily demonstrate that starting there and ending up somewhere significantly better is possible and practical. (it's harder in the USA than most other places in the west, despite the "american dream", but it's POSSIBLE)
Did anybody else parse this as being about some kind of buffer overflow, or is my mind particularly warped today?
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
I agree what that Animats commented about Abignale. If we think logically, Abignale made history the past 40 years about his expert in forgery without using any technology tools, only with his act of social skills. So there is a possibility by using technology, it can be twice or maybe tripple time easier to do what Abignale has done before. Nowadays we even have AI, neural networks and all of these intelligent algorithm that is possible to integrate them to create crime. Even so, the technology of crime prevention is also along the pace of crime threats. If there is crime, there must be a way to prevent it. So at the end of the day, we might be thinking that there are pro's and cons for a certain situation. Try reconsidering it.