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US Failing To Prosecute Online Criminals
Ashlynne9423 writes "A report by the Center for American Progress and the Center for Democracy and Technology has found there is too little action being taken against online criminals, despite rising consumer concern about online safety. The report found that state officials were spending only 40 per cent of case time investigating online fraudsters, preferring instead to concentrate on higher profile solicitation and pornography cases."
Seconded. After 3 years handling, among other things, the abuse-department of a very large webhost, I'm convinced that online crime is almost 100% risk-free.
And it's not just "minor" stuff like phishing or spamming, or scamming people with "nigerian" mails that's riskfree, I've had a few cases were we or our customers reported people who used stolen creditcards, people who were traceable since they were stupid enough to use their own home connection (in other words, I had their real IP-address and logs with timestamps)... and the police (in Sweden) basically said "sorry, we don't have the time, manpower or competence to do anything".
So things like car theft, burglary of unoccupied homes, etc... All low priority. Heck, I've heard of burlary rings that don't even care of a house is alarmed - police response time is so slow that they have time to steal everything they want and leave before the police arrive. One was even spoofing the alarm people, delaying things even more.
I have a cop friend who works day and he says the same thing about Alarm systems. They are pretty much worthless except for letting people at home know when their perimeter has been breached. Reason cops don't care about alarms is 4 out of 5 times, it's a false alarm. Kid forgets to shut it off. Dog jumped up at something and set off motion detectors, high wind jiggled loose a door that wasn't properly closed. So unlike the ads ADT shows, cops don't run lights and sirens, they just drive over and check it out at their leisure.
Read the warning on the next DVD you watch; it explicitly says that copyright infringement cases are investigated by the FBI. So, yes, our law enforcement is apparently more concerned about downloading media than prosecuting actual criminals working online.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
Actually probably not.
Studies of how people actually determine whether or not to commit a crime show pretty definitively that it is NOT the severity of punishment but the likelyhood of being caught that factors into peoples decisions.
Thats not to say that increased penalties don't decrease crime, just that the effects are utterly dwarfed by increasing the chance of being caught.
One great example is car theft. An independant study found that a mere 1% increase in lojack sales corresponds to as much as a 20% decrease in car theft. As I quoted yesterday: http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=644159&cid=24582245
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Can anyone comment on "The Center for American Progress" and "The Center for Democracy and Technology" I've never heard of them before and they sound like the sort of names church groups give themselves when they want to sound credible.
There's a lot of think tanks and policy advocate groups with high minded names.
Some of them are more descriptive than others.
http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus (2003)
"Founded in 2003, CAP is headed by John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and professor at the Georgetown University Center of Law. CAP is designed to provide long-term leadership and support to the progressive movement. Our ability to develop thoughtful policy proposals and engage in the war of ideas with conservatives is unique and effective."
http://www.cdt.org/about/ (1994)
"The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media."
It doesn't look like either of these think tanks are church groups trying to sound credible.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Online wise - I know there's some huge jurisdictional problems, because many of the scammers are overseas. I just think we could still do SOMETHING.
That is why we humans, in a fit of brilliance, decided to create something known as the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). To pass on the evidence, and let other countries deal with it.
But the problem with this is that every country says: "Fuck it, it's someone else's problem, let them deal with it. Why should I investigate it just so they get to arrest the perpetrator?". And these criminals get away free as birds.
During driver's ed, the policeman attending told us that they are actually discouraged from turning on their lights when responding to a burglary.
Unless someone's life is explicitly in danger, they aren't coming out in full force.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso