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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."
* because the general populace understand "he killed her" or "he was doing things he shouldn't to children" but tech-crime gets a glazed look from all the buzzwords.
Yeah, but they still understand "he stole $10 million" just fine. Additionally, there's the whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. Remember Mitnick getting solitary because they were afraid he could whistle 9600 baud into a payphone, hack the computers controlling nukes, and start WWIII?
Also, people are paranoid of identity theft. Don't use tech jargon, the prosecutor only has to explain to the public that some dirtbag stole the identities of 200,000 people or whatever. Identity theft is enough of a perceived threat that Visa and other card companies use it in commercials.
I think if it's broken down simply enough, the public will certainly understand.
Anything involving child porn gets people whipped up into a lynch mob mentality. A lot of people even get like that when you have material that involves teens; I've seen people argue with a straight face that a 17 year old is a child, even though that "child" can sign up for the armed forces with parental consent (guess this means we have an army that employs child-soldiers a la Africa...).
Financial crimes... not so much. We're squeamish about sending white collar criminals who really hurt their victims to prison for very, very long periods of time in prisons which are scary. I think part of it is the bias; they don't always look like scary malcontents who should be permanently removed from society even though they are predators.
It's a fact that prosecutors, in general, get points in their career for how many harsh sentences they score; few offices reward prosecutors for showing a sense of mercy and having a real thirst for justice. A buddy of mine was actually prosecuted for assault for pushing away a drunk girl who was trying to beat up him. Thank God the judge ripped up the charges and dismissed them as baseless bullshit. Didn't matter to the prosecutor, who knew on the evidence before him that it was a classic case of self-defense.
The real corruption is in the prosecutorial profession, now the cops these days. The cops get their cues from the prosecutors; if the prosecutors don't want white collar criminals, the cops will focus more on sex offenses.
they are "preferring ... to concentrate on higher profile solicitation and pornography cases."
Would you rather sort through a bunch of bogus domain names, email addresses, offshored servers etc. to catch some pimple faced phisher, or look at porn all day and chat with online babes? For most people it is a 'no brainer.'
Just like in the old days working for the vice squad had certain 'benefits', working porno and solicitation has certain 'benefits.'
Damn I'm cynical.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
...most incidences of online theft are under the magical felony number which makes an individual counts of fraud usually not worth pursuing.
I've had my ID stolen and used to exploit Household Bank's lax policies no fewer than 3 times by the same person, from the same address, in Chicago.
Each time the scumbag ran up just about $4900 then stopped using the account. At $5k it's a felony. They don't even bother sending the police to the guys shipping address because it's not enough for them to get a good case. I expect the next collection call any day now (looks at watch)... You'd think they'd flag my social security number and not give accounts to "me" any more. No they just hand out their money like it ain't no thang.
The people running that bank and working there are scumbags too. The last time around, Household's collector told my wife that I'm having an affair with someone in Chicago. Funny, since I've never been there and I'm home every night, in Maryland, where I live. My wife thought it was hilarious.
Oh well, it's their money I guess. It's kind of a pain in the ass when it happens, but I just tell them "Look you been robbed, again, by the same guy. You might want to flag my social security number and not give accounts to people using my information". Then I call the credit bureau, report the fraud and they take it off my report.
It's the banks causing the problem, not the police. The bank people are stupid. The retail people don't even bother asking for ID. I still can't believe the government is bailing banks out and preventing natural selection from doing it's thing.
This country's laws are written to promote theft and fraud, and our government supports and endorses stupidity. Fraud and socialism is what this country is all about.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
Your point on a local pawn shop is something that struck a nerve with me. I had a laptop and a gun among other things stolen from a van. There are 5 pawn shops in the county and the cops only checked the ones within the city limits. In my state, there is a pawn card submitted to the police detailing the pawned item and the identity of whoever sold/pawned it. But there is no central database or anything making sure that any serial numbers would be accurate or anything.
I actually found my gun, a Dan Wesson .357 magnum sitting in a pawn show just outside the city limits and called the sheriff which should have also had a copy of the theft report. Evidently, the pawn shop entered the serial number wrong on accident but I have my suspicions on that. When I was phoning the sheriff the clerk attempted to take the gun into the back room to make it disappear as if he knew it was stolen. I practically got into a fight with him to keep it out in the open until the law could show up. They ran the numbers and I got it back after they did ballistics tests on it for some reason. The cop wasn't interested in the fact that they didn't report the correct serial number or that the clerk was attempting to remove the gun.
I later found some 2 way FRS radios in a pawnshop inside the city limits that looked like mine. I purchased them as a replacement only to find that they were mine when I was recording the serial numbers. They claimed they did a merchandise swap with the other pawn shop to keep fresh martial in stock. Again, the cop wasn't interested in any details. I went to the state AGs office which lit some fires under the right asses someone from the state was investigating the claims. About 4 months later, My laptop was returned in a broken and unrepairable state- the pawn shop listed the serial number on the battery to get around any obvious number. Evidently, the clerk was buying known stolen merchandise and fudging around with the numbers in order to prevent being discovered. They busted around 10 other people who were stealing the things.
Anyways, all this was possible because the local cops didn't go beyond "local" and didn't do anything more then what was absolutely necessary to get their salary. Oh.. and the person who stole the gun and laptop, they got busted for "possession of stolen property" instead of theft or anything like that. One served 6 months, the other had time served waiting for trial and they both got 5 years probation.
Your right, there should be ways to catch these people. But at least in my experience, they assign those to the least productive member of the force. For all I know, that cop could have been in on the burglary ring and fencing operation but I'm just throwing that out with no proof or anything. I'm Just talking from a gut feeling on how this could happen.
I'm an internet game developer. Posting anonymously for a reason.
I'm not sure what the root cause is, but this is true: unless you make money and the crime is a danger to that, nobody in law enforcement cares. When an online game developer I know had his servers compromised, he had to fax proof of income from the game before the FBI would look into it. In other words, there had to be a certain minimum amount of damage done before the people who are responsible for looking into the crime would do anything.
People bitch about the DMCA, but the part that allows you to inform a host of infringing materials really is a godsend for smaller companies. The FBI may not investigate every case, making the whole, "Take 'em to court!" response a bit of wild fantasy.