The International Cyber Cop Unit

coondoggie writes "A group of international cyber cops is ramping up plans to fight online crime across borders. The unit, known as the Strategic Alliance Cyber Crime Working Group, met this month in London and is made up of high-level online law enforcement representatives from the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. One of the main goals of the group is to fight cyber crime in a common way by sharing intelligence, swapping tools and best practices, and strengthening and synchronizing their respective laws."

Comments

"Cyber Cops"?

[webmaster404]

Do we really need more laws/people trying to "protect" us online? It has already been proven with laws like the DMCA that congress has no clue how the internet/modern technology works. And adding law enforcement is just an excuse to add more laws that do nothing but annoy us law abiding citizens. And also, if white hat hackers can't get the real criminals, there is no way that these "cyber cops" are going to be able too unless they say control a botnet. This just is more excuse to block "warez" and "piracy".

Another unPolice.

[gnutoo]

The US can't get the FBI, CIA and NSA to play nice with each other or the hundreds of state and local athorities. I'm supposed to believe that there will be real international cooperation? Yet another UN police force, what a joke.

I'd like to see bot hearders busted but I don't have any faith in this new super team to get it done. What we will probably see is this team putting pressure on other governments to support imaginary property. At it's worst, it will be used to track dissidents and limit free speech world wide, while criminals continue to do what they always have.

Re:Another unPolice.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Honestly, unless these people have TONS of bandwidth (or tons of Linux install CDs) there's no way they can take down these botnets.

I've sat in on talks from several different security researchers who infiltrated botnets and reverse engineered them. That doesn't take a lot of bandwidth. It takes a few honeypots, a decompiler, and and IRC client. They could also have issued a command to redirect the entire botnet to a new control channel under their control and from there disabled the botnet, even patching the vulnerability used to gain control in many cases. People don't do that, not because it isn't possible, or they need more bandwidth. They don't do it because of the legal liability. They have no authority to take control of other people's machines (even if someone else also has control). Worse in many cases, what if they try to patch it and the patch fails? Well, then the researcher is liable for any damage than ensues. No one wants to take that risk.

Stealing bots from other botnet herders is already common practice among crackers. It is perfectly possible for cops to steal them back, it just is a legal nightmare to do so, especially if you aren't even sure whose jurisdiction all those machines are in.

Re:Nice name for a group

[TheLink]

Nah the first thing I thought of when I saw the countries participating was ECHELON.

I think they're probably going to scare the people to help justify spying and dubious stuff (like the spread of nasty policies to other countries).

I'm personally not afraid of all that malware, while there are lots of bots, there aren't that many hackers out there actually controlling those bots.

The fact that the cops have done little is mainly because it is not a priority. After all they could always follow the _money_. I am sure that some of the money trails will lead to their jurisdiction. Then you could also do stings.

I'm more afraid of the policies and laws that will result from this "cooperation", because they will probably try to infect other countries with the resulting mal-laws.

Re:Another Cyber Control Group?

[sasha328]

Just what we need, another vigilante group patrolling the intertubes. As if the americans didn't have enough of these already. Could you please elaborate on how you define the FBI, AFP, NZP, RCMP and the Scotland Yard as vigilantes?

It is really frustrating the kind of responses to this kind of story. I wonder what the slashdot troll would write when or if this agency manages to arrest a nasty spammer. My guess it'll probably be in the YRO section decrying the freedom to spam.

Re:PIGS IN CYBERSPACE!

[PopeRatzo]

Way to advocate the murder of cops.

Excuse me, douchebag, but before you get all exercised about the notion of poor, noble boys in blue fighting crime on the mean streets of our cities, remember, these are "cybercops" we're talking about here.

They'll be the same ones who listen in on our phone calls and pressure ISPs to give up subscriber info. They'll be the same ones who monitor the surveillance cams and figure out ways to leverage your credit or medical records against you.

Calling them "cybercops" gives them too much credit. They're the toadies working for Big Brother.

And all the GP said was "first ones against the wall". He didn't say what happens next. That was your own imagination at work, son.