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.

Comments

Nature of Things

[snl2587]

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".

Re:Nature of Things

[LordKaT]

Here's the problem with wording: Foxnews and George W Bush.

"criminals use technology" means that technology can be a neutral thing in which can both benefit and harm society.

"technology breeds criminals" means the loopy fuckers in power will send us into another dark age, all in the name of security.

Re:Nature of Things

[node 3]

Here's the problem with wording: Foxnews and George W Bush. Yes. That's exactly what I stated the problem was: the irrational people. Without the irrational people, Fox News and GWB would be impotent.

"criminals use technology" means [1] that technology can be a neutral thing in which can both benefit and harm society.

"technology breeds criminals" means [2] the loopy fuckers in power will send us into another dark age, all in the name of security. Nice try.

You're swapping definitions.
means [1]: is defined as
means [2]: leads to

If you re-read my post, it will be *extremely* clear that I'm referring to "means [1]", and point out that the problem caused by "means [2]" is not the wording, but the irrational people.

My solution is to teach people to think. Your solution is to trick people with wording. My solution solves the problem. Your solution merely treats the symptoms.

Re:Nature of Things

[loganrapp]

To Abignale's credit, his solution isn't to restrict technology but to invest more in the character of people.

Re:Nature of Things

[hedwards]

I realize you are reacting against the fear that people will hear this and fight against technology instead of fighting against crime, but that's them being irrational. The best way to fight irrationality is not more irrationality, and the claim that technology does not help criminals is irrational. Teach them to oppose the crime, not the technology. But also accept that sometimes the best way to oppose the crime is to limit the technology. I think what a lot of people miss is that technology really only changes affects the types of crimes that are being committed. Sure forgery and ID theft are probably far easier now than they were 40 years ago, but 40 years ago it was far harder than it had been 150 years ago. These things come in waves, and it'll take some time before law enforcement and the legal system really catch up with them.

The other thing is that these are nonviolent crimes that technology is presently abetting, even though they are still serious crimes, they can at least be largely cleaned up and resolved.

I don't think that anybody would really should argue that technology is the problem, as there were far more violent crimes prior to the modern police force and all the improved investigative techniques that have been found since. Its just that people who are victimized get far more attention now than they did 100 years ago, so it seems like crimes are higher than they were.

Re:Nature of Things

[badasscat]

What exactly is the difference?

Come on, don't be a simpleton. You don't see the difference in the reversal of cause and effect?

If "technology breeds crime", then every sufficiently advanced country in the world would be a hotbed of criminal activity. How much crime is there in, say, Japan? In fact, their crime rate is dropping as technology advances - and that includes white collar crime. If the adage that "technology breeds crime" were assumed to be true, then even one exception would prove it false. And there's your exception.

In countries where there is already a large criminal element, technology may enable them to more easily commit crimes, or to commit crimes that were never possible before. But technology is not "breeding" that crime; that crime already existed. Russia has been basically a lawless society in a lot of ways since the fall of the Soviet Union (and probably even before; we just didn't know it) - it didn't take the internet to put it in that state. There are all sorts of forces that create criminality; technology, though, is not one of them.

Tech does not "breed" crime.

[khasim]

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.

Wrong way to look at it.

[fyngyrz]

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.

Oh fuck. Here comes the correlation != causation.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck. Now we're going to see an endless stream of posters stating that "correlation does not imply causation"...

Criminals make bad sociologists.

[yusing]

"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.

Re:Criminals make bad sociologists.

[fyngyrz]

A Glock, on the other hand, is designed for a reason.

Um-hmmm. To make money for the manufacturer by creating an object that will be highly desired such that people will pay well for it as compared to what it costs to put it together. From the consumer perspective, to shoot bullets. And going by what said Glock is mostly used for in that regard, that is, shooting bullets, said #1 reason would be target shooting, #2 would be gun collecting, and a very, very distant #3 would be putting a bullet into a living, breathing animal. Sometimes for entirely appropriate reasons, I might add.

For instance, if someone enters my house but chooses not to ring the bell and wait for an invitation to enter by an authorized member of my household, I'd just as soon put a bullet in their kneecap as not. But the fate of their knee isn't in any way a product of technology; if I didn't have a gun, I'd be perfectly content to shatter that same knee with a bat instead; using a "technology" that has literally been around since man lived in caves. Even failing that, as a martial artist, I could simply use my hands, weight and leverage and destroy their knee that way. Each of these technologies requires that I come closer and closer to my target, and enhances my risk in the order presented. Which leads me to ask: Why should I suffer such risk enhancement for the sake of a home invader, or the offended sensibilities of people who are not in any way authorized members of my household?

The problem here is the failure of the interloper to observe the social boundaries of "this is not your house", and, if you like, that I have grown to consider unauthorized intrusions into my home to be every bit as unacceptable as an actual physical assault. Not that a Glock can put a bullet into a knee. If you want to solve the actual problem, either convince me it's OK for someone to enter my home without my permission, or convince all members of society not to enter my (anyone's) home without permission. This is a social problem, a human problem, a problem of boundaries, ownership, privacy and liberty. The Glock is irrelevant.

Technology may make crime easier...

[Dogtanian]

...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?

Re:Yeah...

[thefirelane]

... because before the Internet, folks just sat around thinking "I wish I could go steal some money, but I just can't figure out how."

But he does have a point: today's technology separates people. I see the point of your joke: people used to rob banks. But now, if you can simply click and hack your way to a robbery, more people would do this rather than hold someone at gun point.

It is the criminal equivalent of how online discourse is so much more harsh than in real life: people do things they wouldn't think about doing in person.

Oh, FFS

[Colin Smith]

All the intelligent criminals are already at the top. They simply made what they do legal.

Uhhh Actually...

[neuromancer23]

Uh actually, technology breeds prosperity which sadistic sociopaths view as more opportunities to commit crime.

logic flaw

[phantomfive]

He seems to have a logic flaw in his way of viewing the world. On the one hand, he considers that the world has no ethics:

we live in an extremely unethical society....so today you have a lot of young people who have no character, no ethics and they find no problem in defrauding somebody or stealing from somebody or cheating somebody. but then he goes on to say that people are basically honest:

The problem is that most people are basically honest, so they don't sit back and think about how someone would do this. So what is his point of view here? Does he think people have ethics but don't manage to pass them on to the younger generation? Does he think the only way to pass on ethics is in classes? I'm not really sure. But he seems to have gotten himself into some sort of problematic way of seeing things.

Re:logic flaw

[Sycraft-fu]

That's because he's not a good person to ask for insight in to the human psyche. Basically, all that I read about him points to him being a sociopath. That's more or less a person who's incapable of empathizing with others. They cannot "put them in someone else's shoes" so to speak, they can't consider how their actions might make you feel. As such, they generally see it as perfectly acceptable to commit crimes, lie, cheat, steal, whatever so long as it enriches them since in their world, they are the only ones that matter.

Well, since people are quite good at taking their own situation and projecting it to the world, you can see how he'd figure that others have no ethics and that it has to be taught. After all he has no ethics. To the extent he's gotten any it is because he believes that obeying these rules is better for him.

While I think he's got a bit of truth overall, in that the Internet in particular is making it easier for certain kinds of sociopaths to commit crimes without fear of being caught, I wouldn't give his analysis of humans any weight.

Re:logic flaw

[duffbeer703]

People are full of paradox. Everyone knows of devout, moral religious people who have dirty secrets like pedophilia or are stealing from the poorbox.

Ethics and honesty are too different things.

How many people would steal $5 from someone's wallet? And if they did, how likely are they to admit it?

How about complaining about food at a mom & pop restaurant for the sole purpose of avoiding payment? And again, how likely are they to admit it?

And finally, how about realizing that the cashier at Wal-Mart forgot to scan an item? And how likely would someone be to admitting that?

Most people are basically honest because they understand that stealing from someone is wrong. The the lack of ethics today is evidenced in how someone will happily steal from a big corporation. Theft is theft, but many people don't see it as a black and white issue.

Russia may be a particular problem...

[inviolet]

This would seem to echo commentary in a New York Times article about the rise of Russian hackers in recent years.

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.

Technology doesn't cause crime

[Cracked Pottery]

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.

2 thoughts

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:It's scarry

[MrHanky]

What a funny way to make perfectly ordinary statements seem moonbat extremist.

Re:Language

[node 3]

"Technology Breeds Crime" places the emphasis on technology whereas "Crime Feeds On Technology" places the emphasis on crime. Agreed.

I would say this is a story more about crime than about technology I don't think so. It's equally dependent on crime and technology. Remove either one and the article makes absolutely no sense.

so the second is more appropriate. I fully disagree, which is the exact point I'm trying to make. If you treat this primarily as a problem with the criminals, you will be less likely to make beneficial technological changes (which is, in fact, the primary motivation for slashdot-types to say, "it's not the technology, it's the criminal") for fear of the potential for irrational changes. And a very rational fear that is--after all, how many very irrational technology laws have been passed via this very route!

Instead of kowtowing to the irrationality of others, why not fight that irrationality? In this case, kowtowing to irrationality means avoiding actual *beneficial* technology laws for fear of enacting bad technology laws. This seems to be a very short-sighted and defeatist attitude. Instead of working to make society better, all you're doing is trying to keep it from getting worse. In such an effort, if you win the best you can hope for is to keep things the same. If you lose, things get worse. Given that you are highly unlikely to win every time, you're taking action that will do nothing but ratchet down, allowing things to get worse and worse.

Abagnale has some good points.

[Animats]

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.

No Rules, Just Write

[JRHelgeson]

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

Re:Oh fuck. Here comes the correlation != causatio

[Eivind]

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.