F-Secure Calls For "Internetpol" To Fight Crimeware

KingofGnG points out F-Secure's Q3 2008 security summary, in which its Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen proposes establishing an "Internetpol," an international organization empowered to target and root out cybercrime anywhere in the world. Hypponen gives examples of why such a supernational force is needed — and these are not hard to find — but provides few details about how such an outfit could get started or how it would work. He does mention the wrinkle that in some countries malware writing, cracking, spamming, and phishing are not illegal or not prosecuted. Is an Internetpol even possible, let alone practical?

Comments

What kind of crime would it fight?

[calmofthestorm]

I can see some use for this, but I fear like most things it would go after political dissidents and copyright infringers rather than actual criminals. Generally speaking I don't want the government to have /more/ power.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[TooMuchToDo]

THIS!

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that this wouldn't be "a government". For it to function you'd have to have cooperation with ALL governments around the world. And while it's just fine and dandy and even desirable for the US to have this kind of no-borders-drawn approach, it would be give-and-take. Meaning if the other countries can't refuse demands made by the US to turn over citizens or whatever, then the US wouldn't be able to turn down it for other countries.

Of course they would always claim "sorry it's against our constitution." (funny how they'll use that the second it's needed, but use it as toilet paper when it's in their way.) But that would harbour distrust (like it isn't already there anyway) and they'd find that the other countries simply will refuse their own demands anyway.

Net effect. Lots of money wasted (again.) and nothing productive being done.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Rennt]

Whats wrong with simply using Interpol to fight cyber crime? As I understand it Interpol is mostly a co-ordination and information sharing organization used by local police forces to tackle crimes that exceed national boarders. Isn't that exactly what is needed?

Come to think of it, Interpol IS used to target these kinds of crime if all governments involved thinks it is evil. Online child porn for example - and from what we hear on the news, this is kind of successful, with arrests and convictions internationally, so whats the problem?

Perhaps the intention is to target "crimes" in a country where it isn't a crime, and the local government is not very sympathetic. An "international organization empowered to target and root out cybercrime" could well shut down Pirate Bay for example.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[GrpA]

I share the feeling, but I'm sick and tired of receiving all the attempts to socially engineer their way into my bank account or similar, or get me to click on some malware, and no matter how obvious these things are, sooner or later they work ( How often have you clicked on "yes" instead of "no" just to make the stupid window go away, or had a poppup pop up just under where you're about to click?)

They don't need an internetpol - they just need the police.

The problem is that the police don't like dealing with it. It's too hard to understand and they don't get paid enough and they have to deal with stupid paperwork anyway because some kid got caught painting logos on someone's wall, and now some idiot computer user is calling saying "My bank account is being hacked, help me" and the poor cop can't even cope with getting his own email to work, let alone working out how to reverse engineer some genius hacker's work to help some lady who talks like she's on crack and doesn't know why her bank account is empty... And it's the fifth time this morning...

So to fix it, the police department need to get serious about computer crime and just simply establish a department that can deal with it... And keep them separate to fix the issue, and not be a part of the group that deals with local computer crime, etc.

Just one person per state who understands technology at a basic level (eg, like most people who read this forum) is enough.

And then this one person can spend some time networking with cops from around the world (heck, send them to some junket in a hotel once a year so they can meet all the others... Maybe blackhat or something) and then knows how to apply the laws correctly and how to go after these people...

And THEN the problem starts to get fixed.

Ranting aside, I know how the situation works. I've been on the prosecuting end of several cases, in which I did the legwork. I tracked down the evidence, and prepared a one-page brief for the police involved, including details on the exact crime committed, the evidence, who has the evidence and the phone numner to call to get it.

If you give the police a target they can understand, they usually are more than willing to take the case on.

When I last did that, they even sent a raiding party and siezed the guy, his computer and everything else within hours of my sending the details. They had a written confession out of him within two hours!

Most people who are still feeling the umbrage of having been owned don't understand this and it's not suprising the police don't want to help, especially when they don't know where to start.

My experience is that the existing laws are usually sufficient. It's the will and knowledge to implement them that are lacking.

GrpA

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[SL Baur]

It's a stupid idea.

On the one hand, I wish they would pass me the bong/crack pipe they're smoking from, on the other hand, I can laugh at systems that are most vulnerable to attacks like this, on the gripping hand, recall that it was Microsoft that popularized the long discredited idea of executing anything coming across a wire.

The sad thing is that something like this appears to be more or less inevitable.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Antique Geekmeister]

No, 'the police' really can't deal with a lot of it. As soon as it crosses city lines, your local police won't touch it. As soon as it crosses state lines, it gets handed off to the FBI, who seem simply unable and unwilling to prosecute anything below a massive threshold, and seem chronically unable to charge people with the crimes they actually did commit, and tries to leverage people as 'informants' to get the 'big fish'. So they accomplish nearly nothing. Wire fraud should really be the Secret Service's jurisdiction, but they're less interested than the FBI. And when it goes international, as many of the phishing frauds do even if they're actually run from the US, then none of them will touch it.

So what it takes is an agency _willing_ to prosecute. The Secret Service could legally take on a lot of it, but after burning their fingers with the Operation Sun Devil and the resulting Steve Jackson case that led to the creation of the EFF, they seem pretty reluctant to even try.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[calmofthestorm]

Well what do you expect from the geniuses who invented autorun?

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[GrpA]

You're thinking of the events that were detailed in "The Hacker Crackdown" aren't you?...

I'm not saying your wrong, but please re-read my post. I'm saying that a lot of the time, the police are expected to do this because it's their job, except they don't know where to start, which leads to the situation that they can't actually be certain it *is* their job. So they don't do anything.

It doesn't matter if it crosses state or even federal or international lines...

Only committing crimes in another state from your home state is an old trick to avoid the attention of law enforcement. It only works for a while - the police know how to deal with this.

Imagine this. Someone in your state is breaking the law. You report the details to your local police. They arrest them.

Now consider - Someone in another state is breaking the law. You report the details to *their* local police. They arrest them.

See the difference? You can achieve that without being a police officer - but it does knowing who to contact and what to tell them. Giving them an IP address isn't enough. What they are looking for in *evidence* of a crime they can understand. Send them details of which crime is being broken, so they don't have to work it out themselves, and they know it's something they are responsible for.

Speak to their ISP in advance, explain the situation, get the ISPs contact person and let him know his local police will be in contact to collect the evidence. Most ISPs will co-operate that far - to wait for a request from the local police for information.

Learn about evidence collection. Learn what police need to do their job.

That makes all the difference in the world.

And it is the local police's job to do this. Are you some multibillion dollar exec? No, well how can you seriously expect the secret service to do this for you? Seriously?

Do you think I go and call ASIO (I'm in Australia) or ASIS everytime I find graffiti on my car?

Finding my computer's been hacked is no different. Just because they employ people in secret intelligence organisations who understand the situation doesn't make it their problem... You're a small victim, that's what the local police are there for.

GrpA

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Toll_Free]

You make a funny statement.

You want them to go after "real criminals", not copyright infringers?

If it's against the law, and your doing it, it's a criminal act. You don't get to pick and choose which laws you want to follow, unless you're ready to accept the consequences of the actions you are doing.....

I know what your talking about, but I find it funny that people like to state copyright infringement isn't a crime, or at least they like to lessen it.

Tell that to the members of DoD, PWA, WLW, etc., etc., etc.

(God, I dated my scenetime there lol :) )

--Toll_Free

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[calmofthestorm]

It's a reasonable point. More what I'm asking for is that laws be either enforced:

A) Equally regardless of the law. If it's on the books enforce it
B) Proportional to the damage it causes.

It's like going after people swapping kiddie porn instead of those making it (I recognize there is huge overlap and you often catch the first while chasing the second). I see laws intended to stop the viewing of child porn, but what I want to see is laws preventing the exploitation of children.

Of course you do have a point. Consider, however, that there is a copyright czar on the Presidential cabinet. Where's the nigerian bank scam czar, or the spam czar?

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Antique Geekmeister]

You've apparently not dealt with the police nor the laws on fraud, because you state:

> It doesn't matter if it crosses state or even federal or international lines...

This is amazingly wrong. As soon as it crosses the borders of your local police force's jurisdiction, they *must* escalate it to the authority that covers both jurisdictions, or they have little hope of getting a prosecution. This is from my direct experience with spammer and phishing fraud, and DOS attacks against systems I've dealt with. The local police on each end say 'oohhhh, we can't do that' and pass it to the FBI who completely ignore it. This is with names, dates, times, places, and a careful list of exactly what records they need to subpoena to collect the evidence for conviction. The local police on each end simply will not act.

And I expect the Secret Service to do this, for example, because they are the enforcement arm of the US Treasury: fiscal fraud is what they do (or are supposed to do). Guarding VIP's like the President was added to their responsibilities in the 19th century, but their role as fiscal agents is older, and it remains part of their charter.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[bendodge]

We ought to have a poll to see how many of us have read that. Some time ago I found a small, yellow paperback copy tucked away in my library and read it, and then I find out that it's practically required reading in geek-land.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[GrpA]

Yes, I have dealt with federal matters, and it's amazing how the same issues that affect whether or not police will take on your complaint occur at all levels.

I did speak to the federal authorities. I did track down the people whose task it was, and I found out what they needed.

It's a bit like chinese whispers. "I can't do anything if XXXX doesn't do their job." They will tell me that, but they won't tell XXXX directly. (XXXX Being a person, agency, official, whatever). I became the "connection" between them, relaying commitments.

So I did the rounds, learned what they required (specific only to my case) and got them all to agree to what was basically an open-ended commitment. THe problem is that they couldn't discuss anything with me - since they all recognized I had no authority and privacy laws got in the way, but wouldn't start bothering their counterparts to request help, because they couldn't tell their counterparts what was going - they didn't know how to.

However, I could get them to commit to speak to XXXX, if XXXX was prepared to help, so I called *all* the XXXXs and explained the situation, and sent the details through to all of them. The XXXX's were Federal Police, State Police and Telecommunications Regulations Enforcement authorities.

Once I had them all committed, I simply became the "co-ordination" point for the exercise. I learned everyone else's role and broke the task down and sent the appropriate information to each person that was relevant to their job.

The result? As soon as they realised I had handed them a case ready to close, with all the contacts agreeing to their role, they moved immediately. The whole thing took about an hour.

In that case, I had made a slight error with regards to the law that was broken, and they called me back to let me know they couldn't actually prosecute and were helpful enough to provide additional information I needed to know to close that loophole with the way my network was set up ( Guest access can be a real issue - if you let people in, proving tresspass is impossible ).

They also provided a committment to back me up in the future if it ever happened again.

True to their word, they did the next time and I caught the guy. He was prosecuted successfully, although the next time, it was local, so I didn't need to coordinate as many people.

So please, consider my point. You need to co-ordinate *everyone* and make sure they know you have a reasonable chance of prosecution and that you've lined up your ducks, or they won't get involved.

It's no different for a cop doing that job. They need to get everyone involved too. Basically they still have to go through the same process.

Most people will do their job and help you if you remove all the obstacles first. In a perfect world, they would move their own obstacles as well, but hey, if it's your problem and affects you, it's up to you to decide how committed you are to solving it.

GrpA

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[kimvette]

I click "yes" to install the malware, and then submit bug reports to the malware author when it doesn't run under WINE because I feel left out. Linux users are always left out in the cold. ;)

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Antique Geekmeister]

So, in the first case you invested an estimate of 80 hours of worktime, many man-hours of their time, negotiated your way through numerous hierarchies and departmental jurisdictional adventers and got... nothing. You're frankly quite lucky. My reports have frequently been stonewalled, and I've usually lacked the support from my own employers to spend that much time in a fruitless pursuit.

A local prosecution is much, much easier. I suspect that if the second time had not been local, your request would have been dropped again on some other pretext. Really, they're not good about computer crime at any level.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[MindKata]

"For it to function you'd have to have cooperation with ALL governments around the world"

Cooperation isn't required. All they need is common ground to allow common ideas through. The common ideas are what is best for people in power and how to maintain power over the people they rule over.

All governments around the world have hierarchical power structures. People who go into political power seek power over other people, in other words, they seek to dictate terms to other people. Seeking to dictate terms to someone else means they seek to push others down below them, so they are in the position of power. The political process acts like a process of natural selection, selecting the most driven power seekers, who seek dominance over others.

Therefore on this basis, the ones in power in each country have in common the desire to seek to maintain control over their people. They do not want their people to threaten their position of power. This means bring in ways to monitor and censor any threat to their power. The people in power seek this, as a good thing, as they see their own actions as good and in their best interests.

This is why moves towards Big Brother are happening across the world, now they are gaining the technology they need, to maintain power. But then each generation of power seekers, have always sought power over people. Its just now they have the technology to do it. But the point is, that desire for power over others, has always been there, with a minority of people seeking to control the majority. In hindsight, this is why George Orwell was able to predict this kind of behaviour. Because what he was describing was human nature and not simply technology. Its not about technology, its about Psychology. No matter how technology evolves and changes, the desire to maintain power will always be there, for a minority of people, who go into a career of seeking power over others. (Either seeking political power, or if they fail at that, they go into Big Business and seek high positions of power in that area instead).

This is why cooperation isn't required. They already have common ground to seek power over others and simply need to bring in technology and ways to allow them to more easily maintain power. Any attempt to tell them they are wrong, is interpreted by them as wrong and they then label it as near terrorist like behaviour. Ironically terrorists are themselves power seekers. They seek to dominate all with their views.

But is this a Dystopia or a Utopia? ... what's even more disturbing, is that a world which is free and equal is a Dystopia to people who seek power over others. They seek more power than others. They seek more money than others. They seek to be the centre of attention. So a world which is free and equal is a dystopia to the ones who seek power and their Utopia is Big Brother where they are the ones in control of Big Brother.

Its interesting how one person's Dystopia is another person's Utopia... Sadly it explains why the world is so unfair for everyone. No one will get a total utopia or a total dystopia, as the other side will not allow it. But while the people who seek power are the minority in society, (and they are put in power by the majority), this minority is now gaining the upper hand through technology, used to push the world towards their Utopia. This is why democracy is always under threat of being undermined. I had thought that as my ancestors and people like them had fought so long and hard to finally win Democracy. Then surely as we now have Democracy, we therefore much now just keep Democracy. I didn't realize there are people constantly trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain and so over time, Democracy has to be constantly defended against these people. The people trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain are almost by definition people without empathy towards others. They actually choose to violate Democracy for their own gain.

Democracy only exists if balance is m

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[hesaigo999ca]

I agree, but the problem is that the police (regular) not only don't have a budget for this,
but also are as misinformed as the public. They are average joes like you and me who just have a badge and a gun and take risks with their lives on the streets to fight crime.

Put them behind desks they become nothing, web surfing p0rn like the rest of them....
because they are not really tech savy. You need a special ops force for cybercrime dedicated to this sort of thing, which costs lots of money and would not be abel to do just LOCAL , even STATE, they would have to do NATIONAL, this is where the agencies like FBI,CIA,NSA come in. These agencies have budgets and computers for this sort of thing. They don't however have the mandate for them, they prefer catching big fish which will also net them a revenue at the end of the year for keeping their budgets.

You need a big sting operation that will net you a return , where as these scammers usually transfer money out before anything goes down , and even if they are caught, the money is long gone, so no return on investment, per say.

The banks are actually the ones who need to establish a task force, world banks and credit card companies...all working together. They would have the money, and the know how, plus access to what ever info they really need to make a bust, and for them, this actually does give them a return at the end of the year. 4 billion $ revenue for cc fraud per year, I would say that is a small chunk of change if they get to figure out how to close down shops and hack the hackers.

Hopefully someone reads this and passes the idea along!

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[SCHecklerX]

Just one person per state who understands technology at a basic level (eg, like most people who read this forum) is enough.

Ummm. Ever done a forensic investigation on anything related to computers or networks?

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[RobertLTux]

and loose 20% of the geek points for reading a "dead tree" copy

heck this is the reason the Secret Service should have a field office in the same building as the EFF for the

Throw the book and see if any cats yowl EFFect.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[riceboy50]

How often have you clicked on "yes" instead of "no" just to make the stupid window go away, or had a poppup pop up just under where you're about to click?

I can't recall the last time that happened—so pretty infrequently. I believe better technology solutions and user education would go a lot further than more law enforcement agencies.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[DrugCheese]

I agree. Anytime I've had to deal with authorities in this area it's on the federal level. Crossing state lines takes it right out of the hands of your local police department, at least in the rural areas. You still need to file a complaint though, and they take you a little more seriously when you give them the contact number of the federal agent who you've already reported the incident to.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like it would have been faster to post a creepy personal ad expressing the guys interest in "gay kidnap and rape" situations than tracking the rest of that stuff down. That or just "donate" the guys car to those scam* charities.

* from an honest tax payer's perspective, they're all scams.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[bendodge]

I enjoy dead-tree reading, thank you very much. Trees are a renewable resource. You should be happy I'm reading that instead of using an overpriced Kindle which takes all kinds of industrial nasties to manufacture.

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[GrpA]

Yes, but that's a completely different process.

For a start, the person who asks me to do the work is already taking the problem seriously and usually knows exactly what they want.

eg, "This laptop user claims fusion. Please confirm/reject this claim and provide forensic evidence supporting it" along with a laptop for analysis, that doesn't work, and the company's definition of "Fusion".

or even the more open, "Here's a copy of the packet dumps during the hacking incident. Please work out what this person did to compromise the website" which I did more recently.

That stuff is easy - just follow the dotted line. It's just engineering.

It's not the same as working with people and the obstacles they raise in front of you...

And the "One" person per state doesn't need to do the forensic analysis themselves. There are plenty of contracted experts who can do that far more effectively. They just need to know when it's called for and make sure it's been done correctly in a way that can be used to prosecute someone.

GrpA

Re:What kind of crime would it fight?

[lsatenstein]

Interpol appears at first glance to be a good solution to fighting crime. You could also have the countries domain pulled if they failed to stop the crimes involving malware, spam, etc.

I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

Giving new meaning to the term "you got netcopped"

One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

No, don't write me off as a NEW WORLD ORDER!!!! guy.

Interpol is dangerously close to a one-world-government type deal. If you're into "global democracy" and the entire world under one flag, then an international police on the internet is probably no big deal to you.

But if you're afraid of big, monolithic governments as much as I am, then you'll be deathly afraid of any international police body, as Internet Police isn't just a bad idea, it's also a very dangerous slippery slope to be treading on.

Still not convinced it's not a good idea? A lot of nations have insufferable politically-correct speech laws. Germany, for example; there they censor politically undesirable viewpoints (yes, Nazis, but if you believe that freedom of speech of the individual transcends whatever the masses may think...) and in Australia, they censor games like GTAIV and other 'socially undesirable' expression.

And maybe some people aren't bothered by that. Some people think, "hey, if some majority accepted that, then tough luck for the minority, democracy prevails!" but I am just not one of them and I'll never be comfortable with governments treading on individual freedom whether a single ruler or the many stepping on them.

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

Replace "Interpol" with "InternetPol there, I mistyped.

Re:One World Government

[mangu]

But if you're afraid of big, monolithic governments as much as I am, then you'll be deathly afraid of any international police body, as Internet Police isn't just a bad idea, it's also a very dangerous slippery slope to be treading on.

I think the wisest words ever written in a code of law were when the US Constitution stated that anything not specifically allowed by that Constitution was not allowed for the Government to legislate upon.

Government is much more powerful than an individual citizen, therefore it needs many more restrictions than citizens do.

Re:One World Government

[Fluffeh]

Interpol is dangerously close to a one-world-government type deal. If you're into "global democracy" and the entire world under one flag, then an international police on the internet is probably no big deal to you.

Yeah, look, sorry, I can't disagree more. Interpol is not remotely close to a one-world-government deal at all. Those guys are lucky to be able to help a handful of governments catch a handful of criminals when all parties want them in prison.

While I think that an "internet police" is a laughable idea in that it would be impossible to unify all the countries with access to the internet under one police umbrella, I think doing so could have some fantastic opportunities that /. seems to have missed as the "oh gawd, the government is after my rights" folks jumped right out onto the bandwagon here first. Think about these tasks that I would love to see internet police on the case for:

1) Spam.
2) Spam.
3) Trojans on websites
4) Browser Hijacking
5) Fleecing through fake Paypal/Bank/Money websites

I am aware that point one and two may look the same, but I feel it would be in most people's minds enough to warrant those two places. If I could have a "report this as spam" button in my email client and know that it would actually go somewhere to someone to do something, man, that would be a sweet thing indeed. What's this? A website that opens a bazzilion popup windows and refuses to let me close my windows? BAM! Hit that police button right there!

Come on slashies, have a look at some of the positive possibilities here. Don't make me have to use a car analogy!

Re:One World Government

[zappepcs]

You are not a tin foil hat guy, trust me.

Countries have established law against computer crime. An internetpol is not required. The fact that F-Secure is asking for one is quite suspicious to me. You would think they would be in the forefront of telling the police where and who the bad guys are. Maybe they're just jockeying for a fat global contract?

More law enforcement is not needed, more security is. The problem is insecure OS and software platforms, insecure operations processes and policies, insecure user habits and other such things. No manner of Internet police forces will be able to cure those things.

Come to think of it, no manner of thought police would be able to stop me calling F-Secure asshats, and Mr Hypponen chief asshat among them. See how well those thought police work? That's how good Internetpol would work. Just more wasted money, more lost rights, more inconvenience for the good guys, and more fun for the bad guys.

Geez, the DHS at least has physical goals. The Internetpol wouldn't even be able to do that much. How much of the really bad guys on the Internet are hired by governments? by corporations? By people who would thwart the efforts of Internetpol through political means?

Lets just go full tilt into asshatteriness: Make it a capital crime to have an insecure pc operating in your house or under your control. That will ensure it all stops... right?

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

Gee, if people knew for certainty that only the really heinous things would be enforced, and that nothing shady or anathema to people's rights would happen, then sure, nobody would oppose it.

But this is fantasy land, utopian idealism. Saying "See, well, it's not supposed to work like that..." doesn't matter. "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" and all that. Just because it is *supposed* to work great and follow a certain protocol does not always mean it will. Hell, my country, the USA, does not even follow its own constitution.

There's always risks and tradeoffs involved. You could, for example, talk about the virtues of philosopher kings all day but until you show us one man who can truly be trusted to remain an enlightened, virtuous leader, I'll reject that based on what we know happens when unaccountable leaders are put into power.

Sometimes, you just have to accept that shit, bad shit, happens in the world, and no god or government will be able to save you, and if they have the power to, then instead of worrying about other people you'll have to worry about them instead. It sucks but sometimes the only realistic option you have is to watch your own back and take precautions. I got my wallet stolen out of my car (oops) last spring and if cameras and police officers were on every street corner the culprit could have been caught, but I'm not advocating cameras and policemen everywhere for a very good reason.

Re:One World Government

[postbigbang]

The 'one world government' lip fart is a distractive ruse designed to debase thinking that effects all of us. It's a distraction that goes back in origin to the John Birch Society, a ultra-radical right-wing batch of people that also aided the anti-flouride rouse, tried to impeach Earl Warren, and so on. It's a BS contention that's carefully calculated to debase the thought of international controls.

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

Well, if you sympathize the idea of a single world government or view it as possibly positive, just say so! No need to hide behind any ad hominems or guilt-by-associations!

Re:One World Government

[Xaria]

The counter to this of course is that in representative democracy vote-buying is the most important thing. Which means that things that are good for the country overall, but unpopular, are a lot less likely to happen around election time. You can argue of course that if it's unpopular it's not good for the country, and that's a valid argument. But when massive amounts of money are spent on vocal minority groups to buy votes, I don't see how that's representative of the majority at all. Which isn't to say that I don't believe money should be spent on minorities ... just that it's sometimes out of proportion to their needs relative to the needs of others. If you weren't afraid of being voted out you'd be a lot more likely to make the tough decisions.

The perfect nation would be a benevolent dictatorship ... unfortunately you are quite right about that enlightened, virtuous leader. EVERYONE has an agenda.

Re:One World Government

[Xaria]

Lets just go full tilt into asshatteriness: Make it a capital crime to have an insecure pc operating in your house or under your control. That will ensure it all stops... right?

You might be on to something here ... but instead of a capital crime of the consumer, make it affect the ISP. If someone's is *detectably* (i.e. they don't have a decent firewall) running a computer that is easily compromised, limit their internet link to the ISP's personal network. All HTTP requests go to the same webpage with the following (translated into marketing-speak of course): "You are an idiot. Fix your computer."

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

And I say, even listening to the majority is not a good thing. It's not inconceivable to imagine a situation, past, present, or future where the masses, through their own stupidity or bigotry, want to oppress harmless people for something stupid, perhaps "practicing witchcraft" in the past or something.

Nothing really works "well", not a democracy, not a republic, not a monarchy or dictatorship, highly unlikely even anarchy. Everything is a system of tradeoffs. This is why we cannot have one government and why we need separate countries with their own armies: at least there's a possibility of having somewhere to escape. Imagine if blacks on the underground railroad fleeing southern slavery had no Canada to escape to, for example. The world is a mess and putting complete faith in an organization to represent or help YOU is just a bad idea.

Re:One World Government

[postbigbang]

Garbage in, garbage out.

Your question can't be answered because it's a rubric of rightist spew-think.

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

Do you have anything besides ad hominems?

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

And you say, "garbage in, garbage out". Since I was responding to your post, I'd suppose that it was your post that was the "garbage in?"

Re:One World Government

[Fluffeh]

I wouldn't say sympathize and I am happy not to hide behind anything. My point is that it could have benefits that we currently don't have. I can't see it realistically working, but if you put away the fear for a moment, look at these points and please tell me how a single unified government in the world would be bad for the following:

1) Every human on earth is an equal citizen of the world with a right to education, freedom and peace.
2) The third world wouldn't be kept in perpetual debt for the benefit of the first world. It would be beneficial to bring up the technology and bring around a higher level of living for all.
3) Despots and tyrants would not be able to struggle over small impoverished countries to the detriment of the people within them.

I am not naive enough to think that we as a world are anywhere NEAR ready to remove our borders, but I am also not close minded enough to dream that it might not have benefits. The idea itself doesn't HAVE to be totally Orwellian, nor does it needingly walk straight down the path of THX 1138 or the hard to navigate website. If you want to go down the path of oppressive government structures, look at things like A Clockwork Orange where the government for all of its power was still at the mercy of public opinion and a slave to the masses that it sought to control so desperately.

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

Nevermind, wrong person.

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

I agree in spirit that everyone should have an education, and that people should (voluntarily) make that happen, but I do not agree with the idea that it is a "right" in the sense that people have a right not to be murdered or so on. It's obvious where my political leanings are; however, I just think that these things people really should have just shouldn't be within the same scope as the entity that enforces the laws. I don't think the means justify the ends, even though I really and truly do agree with the ends. And before you accuse me of being some "make everything be business-related" person, no, I don't think profit has to or should be the driving force behind everything.

Philosophical differences aside, yes, I never said that there wouldn't be benefits. There would be. The risks are too great, however, and I already generally made my case against these giant governing bodies.

Also, let's think for a moment. What is one group, however large or small, wanted to rule themselves and break away from the monolithic government--the reason can be good or bad, it doesn't matter, because in the end it's the big government that decides and naturally it would always view it as a "bad" reason... does this big government come in to stop them? If so, then I'd say it pretty much violates any principle of autonomy and is probable sign of mob oppression on the few (or, at least, a very likely indication that it can easily exist in such a system), and if not, then one world government is impossible/wouldn't exist.

Re:One World Government

[postbigbang]

The one-world-government rubric is in a way, hate speech, and is designed to polarize. International governance is something quite different. That the US refuses to participate in international laws of many kind, and uses world trade onerously, I'd say that the rubric has infected many, perhaps yourself.

As far as ad hominems are concerned, the fact that I speak directly to your character as a seeming defender of rightist inflamatory diatribe, seems to disturb you. If I'm wrong about that, I apologize, but I get the feeling I'm likely right.

Governance and cooperation are strange things, in that we must submit to them in a civilized existence. I've seen the fear-based rightist rubrics bubble up time and again. They're ill-examined, and debase civil people each time they're raised. You needn't fear governance, you need to take an active part in it to make it successful. On the original poster's citation, there's a great premise involved. The one-world-governance fear rubric then rears its ugly head, and therefore shuts down the validity of all subsequent discussion. Fie.

Re:One World Government

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps "practicing witchcraft" in the past or something.

I don't care what they're doing in the past, time travel needs to be controlled with an iron fist, man!

Re:One World Government

[Antique Geekmeister]

Let's start with this one:

1) Every human on earth is an equal citizen of the world with a right to education, freedom and peace.

Oh, really? What will that 'educaton' be? And what kind of 'freedom'? Freedome to drink alcohol? An education that teaches that the Q'uran or the Bible or the Talmud are the ultimate reference? Freedom for women to wear a chadoor in class, even in a public school, or freedom to practice clitorectomies on girls for religious reasons?

Freedom is too tricky to trust to a single overriding authority. So is peace, when violent resistance is the only way to protect oneself or one's pweople from the abuses of that authority.

Re:One World Government

[ChromeAeonium]

2) The third world wouldn't be kept in perpetual debt for the benefit of the first world.

[citation needed]

Re:One World Government

[Spy der Mann]

Interpol is dangerously close to a one-world-government type deal.

Don't worry. Just jot their names on the sheets i'm going to give to you, and they'll mysteriously die from heart attacks.

Sincerely,
Kira.

P.S. Do you know the Shinigami who likes apples?

Re:One World Government

[Fluffeh]

2) The third world wouldn't be kept in perpetual debt for the benefit of the first world.

[citation needed]

Are you kidding? Fine.

Citation

Quote from the link:
Debtor countries have deprived their people of basic necessities in order to provide the private banks and the public agencies of the rich countries with the equivalent of six Marshall Plans (the programme of assistance offered by the US to Europe after the Second World War). Have these extraordinary outflows served to reduce the absolute size of the debt burden? Not a bit: in spite of paying out more than $1,300 billion between 1982 and 1990, the debtor countries as a group began the 1990s a full 61 per cent more in debt than they were in 1982. Sub-Saharan Africaâ(TM)s debt increased by 113 per cent during this period.

Re:One World Government

[geekgirlandrea]

Which was a good enough idea when they were writing it, and managed to at least slow down the growth of the state for a while, but even the briefest examination of recent US history will show that a written constitution is not sufficient to prevent tyranny indefinitely. Hence the original poster's point, that a monopoly world state would be more dangerous than any national government ever could be, because when it turns authoritarian, there's nowhere left to run before the mass graves show up.

Re:One World Government

[ultranova]

If I could have a "report this as spam" button in my email client and know that it would actually go somewhere to someone to do something, man, that would be a sweet thing indeed.

No, it would be a completely useless thing. Spam comes with forged headers, remember ? And even if it didn't, it would simply trace back to some poor bastards hijacked machine, rather than the spamming mastermind.

What's this? A website that opens a bazzilion popup windows and refuses to let me close my windows? BAM! Hit that police button right there!

What law, exactly speaking, is being broken here ?

Re:One World Government

[rohan972]

Not [citation needed] that it happens, [citation needed] that it wouldn't happen with a world government. That's the way I read it anyway, I was thinking of making a similar challenge to your idea.

While I'm here, the world government controlled education is incompatible with freedom, both in your first point. How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think? For the same reason we need freedom of religion we need freedom of education, in my opinion. That means not government controlled, and ultimately that means not government funded. The closest I would come to government schooling is government provided public domain textbooks available (not compulsory). Perhaps compulsory education for convicted criminals, preferably as part of a program replacing prison for non-violent offenders.

Re:One World Government

[ChromeAeonium]

I guess my post should have consisted of more than [citation needed]. I'm not denying that a small group of elite assholes are keeping third world countries in debt, just that they're doing it for the benefit of the first world. They're doing it for the benefit of said assholes alone, not for the general benefit of first world countries. Same thing happens in the first world countries, small groups of assholes try to suck the money out of the rest of us. Coincidentally, your article points out what happens when power is given to bureaucrats on an international level, which would seem to counter your original point.

Re:One World Government

[Anonymous Coward]

To affect something is an action.
An effect is a result of an action.

Learn the difference and use the right one the next time.

-- Another Slashdot grammar nazi

Re:One World Government

[MindlessAutomata]

Hopefully "international governance" will make that sort of icky speech illegal. I can be dragged before an international court and stuck in an international prison for my rightist, inflammatory hate speech.

Re:One World Government

[Fluffeh]

I don't think that it does counter my original point though. I cannot imagine that a US government would keep a US citizen working for $5 a day and slug them with a $2 a day interest bill for loans given. I can't imagine an Australian government contriving to have me live in squalor while I was working to support other Aussies living in comparable luxury. At the moment we "allow" governments and banks to do this because it's an "us and them" mentality - I would hope that should a single government be in place it would treat all of it's citizens equally well.

While I'm here, the world government controlled education is incompatible with freedom, both in your first point. How can you be free if a government agent tells you how to think?

As for things like government controlled education is incompatible with freedom - how exactly? In Australia education is government controlled and it's (no offense) a much higher standard than most American schools (I am guessing that you guys are American). There are of course private schools but the drive comes from government. The curriculum is set by the state and taught by either public or private institutions.

In most of posts here that are directed against NOT having a central government, the idea is that people would lose various freedoms by having it so. How is a single world government any different to a single USA government though? All the states joined together and decided to be ruled by one bunch of people. From where I stand it seems that the government treats people reasonably well. You vote them in, you vote them out. You have a local council government, then a city/municipality council, then a state government then a federal government. Why would it be any different if there was one in the world? It would simply mean that (given the two countries I assume we come from) there would be the exact same thing as there is in Australia right now, and the exact same thing as in America right now, with one more higher level where all countries were equal and it looked for the good of all rather than for the good of one.

Re:One World Government

[Antique Geekmeister]

With a merely US Internet control, you can leave the country. (Witness www.thepiratebay.org, and www.wikileaks.com.) With international control, you'll have interference both with semi-criminal endeavors (like Bittorrent) and legitimate free speech (such as Wikileaks and Chinese dissidents).

Re:One World Government

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Governance and cooperation are strange things, in that we must submit to them in a civilized existence. I've seen the fear-based rightist rubrics bubble up time and again. They're ill-examined, and debase civil people each time they're raised.
You mean like the european constitution that was so Byzantine no two people could agree one what certain provisions meant? Or did you have some other example where skepticism of govt. debased civil people?

Re:One World Government

[postbigbang]

Building a long-term successful governance infrastructure takes decades and decades. It needs to be flexible to meet the changing needs of the time. Warring tribes (oops, I mean EU constituent countries) need time to absorb and re-shape things. One failure isn't the end, it's the beginning.

Perhaps the EU Constitution was Byzantine. At least it's a start, rather than the hubris and narcissism of governmental superiority.

Re:One World Government

[ChromeAeonium]

I think the problem is that citizens aren't equal even in first world countries, what makes you think they would be equal in a world wide government? It isn't now, and I doubt it would be then. If people were equal, we wouldn't see the poor get shafted in the legal system while expensive hot-shot lawyers get the rich off, we wouldn't see class based education discrimination, we wouldn't have a brain dead chimp running things because daddy was also president. I think if there were a one world government, there'd still be the us versos them mentality (location based discrimination likely, classism indistinguishable from the former guaranteed). Unless you can set up some sort of utopian system, I really don't see a change of government size fixing that sort of problem.

That aside, in a one world government we'd lose the freedom to get the hell out of an oppressive regime. There would be no refugees or asylum because there'd be no where to go. That one government would be all there is, and if it went bad (and most do), something of that scale would probably be really hard to fix. Well, either that or it would be too incompetent to govern, fall apart, and we'd be back to were we started. Either way, it just seems like a really bad idea to put all your eggs in one basket Maybe it would work, but I'm always skeptical when it comes to a large government working the way it is intended.

In Australia education is government controlled and it's (no offense) a much higher standard than most American schools

None taken. Our schools, from what I've seen, kinda suck. btw, the quote in your post came from the other guy.

Re:One World Government

[Fluffeh]

For the most part, I wish that we could fix things with one big government. I really doubt it would be so, but I think what I am trying to say is that I would be at least a little open to the idea that it wouldn't be only bad.

I am aware that there will always be some form of discrimination wherever you go, that there won't truly be a total utopia no matter what - but it would be nice wouldn't it?

Yeah, I did see that the schools bit was from the other dude, but it was really late and I wanted to get out of work, so I killed two birds with one stone.

Re:One World Government

[DrugCheese]

Couldn't you just spam the police button and turn everyone connected to the internets in? Bam! Everyones in cyber jail!

Who cares?

[hobo sapiens]

Is Interpol even relevant? I mean, the only thing I ever know that even mentions Interpol are those stoopid warnings on DVDs. If Interpol has essentially become a copyright enforcement organization, then who even cares?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interpol generally speaking is just an information sharing organization. They do some good, possibly by accident, but they are a bit 'big brother' for my tastes.

If this were to happen

[Centurix]

They should wear uniforms made from lycra, wear bright red codpieces and a cape. That much power should come with a high level of public humiliation.

Re:If this were to happen

[jonaskoelker]

Why do you hate Cory? http://xkcd.com/239/ ;)

RBN?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, are the Russian Mafia types likely to cooperate with this? I think not. Any effort to move towards useful prosecution would be sabotaged.

Re:RBN?

[jonwil]

No the Russian Mafia wont cooperate with this. Which is why you tell Moscow and Putin and Medvedev that if they dont do something about all the internet garbage (malware, spam, botnets, viruses, phishing etc) coming from their country, Russia wont join WTO (if it can work for AllOfMP3, it can work for this crap)

Russia needs the WTO more than the western governments need Russia in the WTO.
The question is, does Russia need the WTO more than they need the Mob?

Re:RBN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid. AllOfMP3 is alive and well, thank you very much. You can reach it at http://mp3sparks.com the usernames and passwords are the same, unused credit has been transfered from the old site.

All this WTO talk can do is cause some things to change name.

Re:RBN?

[dbcad7]

Considering they are probably the ones to be prosecuted, cooperation seems unlikely.. The real question is the cooperation of the government.. again unlikely because they are symbiotic. Corruption and bribery are just facts of life and commonly accepted as normal by everyday citizens.. there is very little, if any, effort to combat these things.. I won't go as far as to say that being a criminal is desirable, however being able to obtain things through often shady methods means you are "resourceful", and that is considered an admirable trait.. It's a cultural difference that will take a long time to change.

May I repeat one of the tags on article:

[shellster_dude]

Oh Fuck No! I hate internet crime as much as the next guy, but I hate the thought of a global government organization policing one of the last bastions of true freedom even more.

We've already lost

[rea1l1]

We've already lost our freedom. Until we rise against our oppressors and reestablish a government for the PEOPLE, who cares? If they wanted they could kidnap any of us and drag us off to Guantanamo and there isn't a single thing anyone could do about it. We have lost!

Re:We've already lost

[gandhi_2]

Are you joking?

If you fire rifles at US soldiers in Afghanistan, you stand a small chance of ending up at Gitmo. Statistically, you have a better chance getting a 5.56mm sucking chest wound in the process.

No one ever ended up in a military detention facility for l33t haxor5 that don't involve military targets or v1@gra spam.

We've lost because Americans prefer creature comforts and speach-codes over liberty; social security and medicare over limited government as a social contract to secure life, liberty, and property. And no one will rebel, because they are dependent on the system. Thomas Jefferson tried to warn you.

Re:We've already lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Your claims only show your own bias and general ignorance of reality.

Re:We've already lost

[gandhi_2]

--verbose please?

Re:We've already lost

[Anonymous Coward]

We've lost because Americans prefer creature comforts and speach-codes over liberty; social security and medicare over limited government as a social contract to secure life, liberty, and property. And no one will rebel, because they are dependent on the system. Thomas Jefferson tried to warn you.

We fought really hard to achieve all of those things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

We simply need a team of highly skilled assassins. You write a virus? You lose your brainpan. EZ.

Whut? Due Process? Izzat some kind of marmalade?

I don't get it...

[certain death]

Are they admitting defeat, that they can't make a good product, or are they asking for the government to create an anti-virus "Oversight Board"???

Turing

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to be the beginning of the Turing Authority, as in Neuromancer.

What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[SL Baur]

The Attorney General's Office in Washington, United States, and Microsoft recently announced that they are filing new lawsuits targeting scareware purveyors. One of the cases is against James Reed McCreary IV, who is accused with sending incessant pop-ups resembling system warnings to consumers' personal computers. The messages read "CRITICAL ERROR MESSAGE! â" REGISTRY DAMAGED AND CORRUPTED," and instructed users to visit a Web site to download Registry Cleaner XP.

"Consumers who visited the Web site were offered a free scan to check their computer â" but the program found 'critical' errors every time," said Senior Counsel Paula Selis, who leads the Attorney General's Consumer Protection High-Tech Unit. "Users were then told to pay USD 39.95 to repair these dubious problems." Microsoft has said that 50 percent of its customer support calls related to computer crashes can be blamed on spyware.

F-Secure notes that Registry Cleaner XP is just one of the increasing number of rogue security applications which also include Antivirus 2009, Malwarecore, WinDefender, WinSpywareProtect and XPDefender.

Um, maybe if Microsoft hadn't "innovated" the long discredited idea of execute anything downloaded over a wire, this would never have been a problem?

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[Anpheus]

Problem isn't execution, problem is access. If I run whatever code the net gives me, I should have fine-grained control over what that code can touch on my computer. That's not yet well implemented on any OS. Don't say SELinux or ridiculous modifications to the Windows user/file access rights are 'well implemented.' No, I mean that by default, I should be able to install a program that thinks it has administrator rights, see what it does, and then say, "Gotcha, you're gone." and delete it.

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[SL Baur]

If I run whatever code the net gives me, I should have fine-grained control over what that code can touch on my computer.

You have been brainwashed. The Real World has never worked that way. No matter what Microsoft has told you.

SafeTCL (and later Java) tried to do sandboxing, but ...

You have only a big ON/OFF switch of which the only sensible setting is OFF. No amount of marketing either from Microsoft or Sun will EVER make it safe.

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[Toll_Free]

Yeah, it's microsofts fault.

Let's not forget the id10t behind the keyboard that has to click on yes for it to actually run.......

--Toll_Free

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[SL Baur]

Let's not forget the id10t behind the keyboard that has to click on yes for it to actually run.......

Let's not forget that it was the idiot behind Microsoft Windows 95 that made this an industry standard long after the idea had been discredited.

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[Anpheus]

Just making posts on Slashdot involved code executing on your machine that you didn't audit. Welcome to the World Wide Web.

Hope you enjoy your stay.

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[Ilgaz]

If Microsoft kept their own tool up to date (Registry Doctor), Registry Cleaner wouldn't happen. Or just a (light cleaning) option in System. It was obvious that registry cleaning craze (which THEY started) would be abused some day.

I think MS got ashamed of registry needing cleaned or something.

BTW look at the "registry doctor" results on Google, that thing is really out of hand
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=tr-tr&q=microsoft+registry+doctor&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 (All results not malware, just 99% of them)

All MS needed to do is keep the GUI tool accessible to user. In System Tools or something. People actually gets tricked by trojan promising a feature which their system already does when it is really necessary.

It is also a good one to show differences between Apple and MS. Since 10.2 (or earlier) Apple and developers deal with needless "permission repair". It was invented mostly as a security tool and the fact that MacOS-->OS X UNIX has huge differences regarding file permissions. You know, evil '666' type of flags. So, they added it to OS X. It became something like phantom fix for every issue, there are people who runs it before and after each update. Apple figured it and instead of fighting their own community (and open door to malware), they OPTIMISED the process. Tiger "repairs permissions" faster than ever! Is it needed? Hell no, in 99.99% of cases. They just improved the mythical "I am fixing my OS" experience of their users (customers).

What MS had to do was provide a basic tool which does the same thing using the Core OS function, a good progress bar. Or perhaps make the own functionality less conservative (scanreg.ini)

For people interested, here is the documentation of actual registry cleaning core command of Windows.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183887/en-us

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[Toll_Free]

You're post had absolutely nothing to do with mine, why reply?

It's been statistically proven, the idiot behind the keyboard is usually the problem.

--Toll_Free

Re:What ye sow, so shall ye reap

[SL Baur]

You're post had absolutely nothing to do with mine, why reply?

Offering to execute pieces of email should never have been an option, let alone an unprompted default. Offering a prompt is a total misunderstanding of the real issue.

I can't think of an appropriate car analogy, so how about a rake analogy? Prompting before executing a file received in email is like attaching a notice to a rake laying on the ground with the tines facing up that reads, "if you step on this rake you could do serious damage to your face, proceed?"

There were good solid reasons why shar messages were distrusted and so somebody wrote unshar so one could unpack such things without executing it directly in the Unix shell. This was all standard industry knowledge about a decade before the release of Microsoft Windows 95.

You appear to grasp the fact that only idiots execute code received in email. Microsoft popularized the misfeature and made it a feature that some people cannot live without. It should never been a feature in the first place. And for that, you most certainly can lay blame to the management chain at Microsoft that signed off on the idea. The US tobacco industry was successfully sued for billions over much less.

Why do we need

[Anonymous Coward]

an InterPol, when we have S.P.U.T.U.M.?

For more information, see The Church of the SubGenius.

One World Acronym

[Ostracus]

"Interpol is dangerously close to a one-world-government type deal. If you're into "global democracy" and the entire world under one flag, then an international police on the internet is probably no big deal to you."

UNATCO

What could possibly go wrong?

[David Gerard]

Somehow I can't see this not being abused or twisted. I'm sure the UK government will happily participate with the current Home Office plans to monitor all emails and phone calls that they're trying to soften us up for. After that, it's a matter of international "harmonisation."

... or I'll digitally sign a ticket!

[SEWilco]

Stop, I'm an Internetpol polinetwork interperson!

Re:... or I'll digitally sign a ticket!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you unplug your cable modem are you 'fleeing from the scene'?

you babies

[skydude_20]

really.. come on.. "the/a government is here to help" b.s. the Internet is as frewheeling as it is for the rest of us, as organizations that cause havoc are formed, equally as well those that can spread advocacy and security will/should just as well rise up. trust me, a bureaucrat will never save you.

How Perfectly American

[DynaSoar]

Invent an entire agency with a specific task, while having various other more or less capable agencies given parts or all of the same task. It'll work terribly at first because they'll only be learning how to do what they do in the context and restraints forced on them. Then to become more effective, they'll share information and then participate in tasks with these other agencies. Later when the government(s) attempt to get these agencies to merge, if not act together as a single task force, inter-agency rivalry that had already been decried by the people in the agencies and probably brought to light in the media when tasks failed because of it, then the administration will insist on an overseer agency to make them work together. This agency will fail in its task as well as others given it, but it will continue to operate so that people know that their Government is trying to look out for them. As the new agency fails to function effectively and the interdepartmental agency frequentely fails in effectiveness, efficiency and in general spectacularly in public, people will be reminded of its necessity (and its Osama FUD Laden alternative), putting everyone in the path of the agency's progress into the line of fire of the agency's mandated tools of its trade.

This is not a prediction. This is historical recounting. Non-US agencies find themselves acting the same way or else they don't get fed Uncle Sam's infomoney teat and counted among the potential bad naughties on the list the US draws up based on the subordinate reports but only with approval from the administrative, security/defense, and state departments of all the payers in this game.

This is not a new game. The first successful application in which its strategy and tactics outperformed those of the gun toting grunts involved was 230 years ago. The true hero of the action was Poland. It gave its all (ie. national solvency and so ability to defend) depending on Washington et al. to come up with a way to return the favor (an army to protect it, or at least money to pay it). Another national leaders himself led a 600 miles march of unarmed people to carry supplies to Washington, which Washington himself said saved him, his army and the war. They carried corn. The leader was Chief Shenendoah. Having won the war with their assistance, Washington oversaw the creation of the war department, tasked with getting things arranged, but credited for arranging them.

Nothings' changed here in 230 years. Considering the influence we have elsewhere, figure the odds they'll go a different route, or at least, for very long.

And its' one, two, three,
Who are we voting for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn,
gimme Iraq or Afghanistan.
Well its' five, six, seven,
open up the pearly gates.
72 vigins can't be wrong,
Let have more cops to help make them strong.

Look, nice idea but it's never going to happen

[99luftballon]

Yes, if the countries of the world could get together to stamp out this shit it would be great, but let's be realistic. Mikko's a nice guy but we can't get together and stamp out genocide (Darfur et al), arms dealing (see the UN security council's arms sales) or world peace what hope do we have with cybercrime. It's a nice idea, similar to mice getting together to decide to put a bell round the necks of all cats, just who's going to do it?

both possible and practical -- desirable?

[ReedYoung]

Hypponen gives examples of why such a supernational force is needed -- and these are not hard to find -- but provides few details about how such an outfit could get started or how it would work. He does mention the wrinkle that in some countries malware writing, cracking, spamming, and phishing are not illegal or not prosecuted. Is an Internetpol even possible, let alone practical?

[snicker] Countries that refuse to punish antisocial 'Net conduct don't get public IPs transmitted over satellites and undersea fiber optic cables, which are US property or property of US [Delaware, probably] corporations. Although some of the tech was put in place via rocketry, this is not rocket science. It's as simple as "play nice, or I kick you off my playground." Yes, it IS mine. I built it and I own it. [my country, that is]

calmofthestorm:

I can see some use for this, but I fear like most things it would go after political dissidents and copyright infringers rather than actual criminals. Generally speaking I don't want the government to have /more/ power.

[shivers] This government is obviously not competent to wield the power it already has!

Following an appeal, Virginia Supreme Court decided that the state Anti-Spam Law violated the First Amendment to the United States Constitution concerning the right to free and anonymous speech.

My copy of the United States Constitution does not include the word "anonymous" in the First Amendment, but I think it's basically a good idea. However, anonymity can be achieved by concealing or withholding identity. Assuming a false identity is not necessary for anonymity, and tends to implicate the individual[s] impersonated, therefore it should not be protected by law, and especially not by the supreme law of the land.

The Court documents show that there was no question about Jaynes' guilt. He used several computers, routers and servers [belonging to other people, thus implicating them, thus committing slander/libel against them, thus criminal and not protected by the Constitution] to send over 10,000 e-mails within a 24-hour period to subscribers of America Online, Inc. (AOL) on three separate occasions. He intentionally falsified the header information and sender domain names before transmitting the e-mails.

The Court confused the right to anonymity with the crime fraud, misrepresentation of identity. Of course, some fault has to be assigned to the advocates, as well, especially the prosecutors. They should make use of statutes prohibiting fraud, not depend on new legislation specific to the Internet. The case is as simple as truth and the right to property, and independent of the medium used to commit fraud.

Obviously, any international "Internet police" should have no greater power than revocation of IP addresses allocated to offending nations, which would literally solve the rest of the world's problems [arising from such cases].

"The Internet has no borders and online crime is almost always international, yet local police authorities often have limited resources for investigations. Even if the locations of online criminals are discovered, the investigations rarely uncover the full scope of the crime. The victims, police, prosecutors and judges cannot see the full picture and therefore don't know the true costs of the crime," says Hypponen.

Any agency that offers computer forensics as requested and does not presume to dictate to sovereign nations would obviously be appreciated. Anything more authoritarian should be refused, but will probably be forced on the world by corporatists, especially within the US, UK and Germany.

Mouse clicks are easier than boots on the ground.

[ReedYoung]

Mikko's a nice guy but we can't get together and stamp out genocide (Darfur et al), arms dealing (see the UN security council's arms sales) or world peace what hope do we have with cybercrime.

Cybercrime is easier to stop, not harder, than crime or warfare in meatspace. Cybercrime is easier to commit, too, of course, but it's not like the FBI & CIA are working with 50kg mice & keyboards preventing them from being as agile as criminals. They're just less motivated and less competent, and "complexity" is a pathetic fig leaf which we citizens must all stop granting our "protectors" ASAP.

Anti Virus Companies == Virus Writers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but this New Cop should close all Anti-virus companies and arrest it's employees and directors since they are the Virus Writers.

Anti Virus Companies == Virus Writers

You just know...

[hyades1]

...they'd spend their entire existence sucking fat salaries and occasionally managing to bust one or two half-wit script kiddies with barely enough knowledge to download the tools from a warez site and sneer at people who ask questions on Linux sites.

Re:You just know...

[Rastl]

...they'd spend their entire existence sucking fat salaries and occasionally managing to bust one or two half-wit script kiddies with barely enough knowledge to download the tools from a warez site and sneer at people who ask questions on Linux sites.

And just where do I apply?

Mikko is spot on

[Anonymous Coward]

As an information security professional, I can assure you the Secret Service and the FBI have been fighting this for years. It is a very high priority but due to the fact a large percentage of the big fish are located in Russia and many forums/services requiring Russian translators, the process is slowed down massively. It is further exacerbated by the levels of corruption within many of these countries. Its a very complicated and very infuriating business they're in. Not a job I would want.

Mikko Hypponen is right about one thing at least - the crime and fraud over the Internet is rising. The entire usage of e-commerce is based on trust. Without trust, nobody will use it (or decreasing users) and it all falls apart.

It's one thing to have a group dedicated and resourced to track down criminals and take action but when users are able to hide within a country that effectively supports their activities, law enforcement are really hamstrung.

I'm waiting for Russia to attempt to join the WTO (since WIPO is all but a joke now). Only then will we really start seeing a change in the current state of play.

valuable humoristic car analogy

[freaker_TuC]

A short analogy ...

1) gas needed
2) gas needed (wouldn't wait for a 3rd time)
3) flyer inbetween windshield wiper and window
4) Carjackers
5) Shady Garagists

Actually ... there are laws against shady practices, still these shady people exist ...
Same goes to carjackers ... do we need a Carpol now ?

kind of like the Justice League of America, no?

[jsepeta]

but it makes more sense to be supranational. i'm sure jackwads like preznit bush would back any kind of extra-national force that could impose penalties on individuals who commit crimes over the intertubes. NOT

anon might do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Leav it to anon

Let us fix this

[zoomshorts]

Simply make Fraud, SPAM, Kiddie Porn etc a crime wherein
perpetrators have their genitalia (dick and balls) cut off and their
eyes removed. Then the word PEDO is branded on their foreheads.

We would see a great diminishment of these things fast. Word gets out.

Add people who respond to these things to the equation. Stupidity will disappear shortly.
Give cash rewards for reporting this stuff. Soon it will go away, when the idiots KNOW
people will report them and PROFIT!!!

Rewards are useful. Naturally, wearing a headband to hide the word PEDO should be
a capital offense.

Watch the fun ensue.

The "safe" internet and the "wild west" internet.

[MarkvW]

I can envision an internet fork where the safe provision of multimedia entertainment is the primary goal. People who care can then argue about "net neutrality" all that they want, but most of the eyeballs will go to the eye candy--and the eye candy will be provided by the copyright-clad establishment media.

In that 'multimedia entertainment net,' security and control will be prime considerations. Commerce will flock there. It will be stringently policed and censored. There will be little need for an "internet police force" because the source of any security breach will have its access cut off with no concern for individual rights (because the applicable rights will have been defined by contract). Anybody who doesn't like that can dwell in the "wild west internet."

This kind of future-model makes more sense to me than the drivel about an internet police force. Prosecutors and Police are busy enough with violent crime; taxpayers are NOT going to pay the very real money to effectively police the internet. Citizens always want more criminal justice than they are willing to pay for.

Viri: 1 outage/4 years; F-Secure: 5 outages/week

[Anonymous Coward]

F-Secure has the nice habit of filling the disk with it's update files, about 5 Gigabyte per week on a normal school workstation.

We had one virus infection (that wasn't even caught by F-Secure), but every week our administrator has to clone at least 5 workstations from their master images. F-Secure provided a patch, that removes all the update files, but fails to repair the glitch, so a week later it's the same problem.

This is how the conversation went

[RandomUsername99]

Hey, I thought of a clever name... internetpol. It's like interpol but for the intern... Wait, that's a pretty cool idea isn't it? Let's run with it.

yo u internetpol

[Anonymous Coward]

fuk u. i got mah 9 an mah botnet and nigga u best not fuk wid me or i bust a ddos on yo azz and chek out som sick sploits, no wut im sayin dog?