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Building a Global Cyber Police Force
dasButcher writes "One of the biggest obstacles to fighting hackers and cyber-criminals is that many operate in the safe harbors of their home countries, insulated from prosecution by authorities in foreign countries where their targets reside. As Larry Walsh writes in his blog, several security vendors and a growing number of countries are now beginning to consider the creation of a global police force that would have trans-border jurisdiction to investigate and arrest suspected hackers."
I foresee this running into a lot of problems. I mean, we can't even get a lot of countries to agree to ICJ (International Court of Justice) jurisdiction. How are we going to get them to agree to let people physically into their countries to investigate crimes and make arrests? Ain't gonna happen ... and this kind of thing is only effective if everyone signs up without reservations.
The trouble with this, of course, is that one man's "hacker" is another man's journalist, or whistle-blower, or what have you.
Proverbs 21:19
Personally I think anything with "trans-border jurisdiction" is just asking to be taken advantage of. I like the seperation of government and jurisdiction, although I definately think that something like th UN should reform some of their policies on extradition. In any case, trans-border jurisdiction means jack squat if you cant get the local government to cooperate.
The real problem is the lack of international cooperation and extradition treaties that would cover not only cyber crime, but crimes of all sorts. Creating a hyper-focused solution for a narrow aspect of a broader problem is only going to create more problems, and ultimately erode more freedoms than the number of crimes it may solve.
Wouldn't that be Interpol? Sounds too much like big brother when someone asks for a police force that already exists. The bigger problem with hackers is they are hard to find regardless of which country they are in. Sure Iranian Hackers are harder to catch but with their bandwidth are they really a threat? Do we need yet another redundant police force?
who will prosecute the suspects? A criminal trial is expensive and ends up importing criminals to whichever nation chooses to prosecute. That's the reason that the Somali pirates get turned loose. A similar situation would arise for trans-border cyber crime. Everyone would hope that someone else would prosecute.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Isn't that pretty much what the International Criminal Police Organization is supposed to do? It's the second largest intergovernmental conglomeration behind the UN, and has almost 200 member countries. Given that cyber crime is crime nonetheless, I'd hope that they were gearing up to be able to handle more and more of it. I feel like more than anything, the laws need to catch up to the criminals in these cases- or they aren't really criminals at all.
Finnally team america will save us! Fuck Yeah!
the MPAA, RIAA and other such scumbags getting in on this. Instead of catching real hackers, they go for the easy fish and arrest students and casual pirates.
Nowadays I don't have trust in any authoritative figure like this. They are usually backed by big corporations, that serve only corporate interests.
The problem here is not a lack of police with the jurisdiction to investigate and arrest suspected hackers. The subject countries have lots of those.
What's missing is a state willingness to prosecute, a willingness that won't change just because the cops are enforcers from Superpol. There is no reason to believe that the US, for example, would let a bunch of policemen from Europe and the Middle East come in and arrest US citizens on the basis of allegations that they broke some Saudi law. They barely tolerate Interpol, and those guys are just librarians.
When you balance the probable damage a "global police force" would do (is anyone naive enough to think that their mandate wouldn't be expanded?) against the damage that expatriate hackers do, the wise thing is to go with the hackers. The proper solution is the one already in place, and that's to have bilateral and multi-lateral extradition agreements.
Sending contract cops into a country that doesn't have laws against hacking may make good TV but the real-life consequences are much more complicated.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
and the parallel holds, since the end of the real wild west consisted of the feds moving into lawless lands and taking over from vigilante, ad hoc systems of justice, just like this proposal. that was pretty much the historical end of the real wild west
so i'm waiting for the internet's version of "dodge city", where tourists can go and experience the vicarious thrill of driveby downloading, phishing exploits, nigerian email scams, and id theft, much like in the real "dodge city", gunfights at high noon and cattle rustling are now recreated for tourist's sake
"wow dad, i was browsing the dancing hamster website with the purple gorilla in the taskbar on the windows ME simulation, and like, i just got pwned! the simulation showed me as the payload modified the registry settings in the simulation! was it really like that in the bad old days?"
"that's right son, when your dad was your age browsing the internet, you always had your sidearm antivirus at the ready. craven desperate men and psychotic outlaws were always just around the corner, a click away. you had to deal with danger and treachery on a daily basis"
"gee dad, did you actually get an email from belarus claiming to be citibank asking for your security credentials out of concern for your security?"
"sure did"
"that's scary dad! how did the early internet pioneers ever survive in such a hostile wilderness. how did we ever make it this far?"
"sometimes i wonder myself son"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You cannot impose yourself into someone else's country as their laws differ from yours. Calling it a "safe harbor" is a bit offensive. Like you want to poke them with a stick but local law, culture and geography doesn't allow you to do what you please with "them"..?
I'll start imposing my local laws on Americans. Then complain you wont allow me to proscecute an American, on American soil, under my terms. Say, I would be an Arab (I'm not) and I consider porn-watching criminal and punishble by death. (I've had to write a report on Saudi servers of a client once, where someone downloaded porn hoping we wouldn't login on those servers. Which became locally a criminal case punishable by death. No joke.)
As long you do not have a consensus, globally or the on what "cyber criminality" is, and the severity which it should be prosecuted and make it equally enforcable (legal backing) this is impossible. Once you have this consensus, globally, there would be no "safe harbor" anymore.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Why do Americans always seem to have this attitude? It always seems like they want all the benefits from being part of international organisations, but none of the responsibilities. When I did International Law at university the running joke when being introduced to a new treaty or instrument was that it had been signed by "basically everyone ... except the US".
One quite shocking example: the only two countries that are not signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are Somalia and the US (and Somalia has announced plans to ratify it soon). I mean for God's sake, what possible objection could the US have against a treaty aiming to prevent the organised sale of children into slavery and child prostitution??
There are quite a few other fairly fundamental treaties that the US is virtually alone in not ratifying. Kinda amusing really when you consider the UN building itself is in New York. Why provide the facilities for all these other countries to come in and make agreements, and not participate yourself? Seems odd to me...
Why do Americans always seem to have this attitude?
Because we value our liberty and sovereignty more than most other countries?
I mean for God's sake, what possible objection could the US have against a treaty aiming to prevent the organised sale of children into slavery and child prostitution??
Because that's not all it does and many Americans hold legitimate concerns about it's passages regarding economic, social and cultural "rights" and are worried that it would intrude into the parent->child relationship?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Like the U.S. law in congress right now forcing foreign banks to provide all information related to American owning accounts internationally, close them, or have 30% of the bank's assets in the United States withheld.
How about the recent EU SWIFT information handover to the U.S.?
I could see the U.S. doing something similar with internet connections of ISPs that run through the U.S., or have buisness in the U.S. Perhaps they will withhold 30% of their bandwidth.
Living in Chile
Why do Americans always seem to have this attitude?
That's a rather broad statement that smells suspiciously of flamebait. One could just as easily ask why other countries constantly want to include the US in agreements that will often require US to shoulder a disproportionate burden of the cost. The question is just as valid (that is to say, a grain of truth but barely scratches the surface).
As far as CRC (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm)...
I mean for God's sake, what possible objection could the US have against a treaty aiming to prevent the organised sale of children into slavery and child prostitution??
This is like when someone attaches a ridiculous rider to a bill related to children, then publishes smear ads when a house member votes the bill down because of the rider. "Jo Schmo is against The Children!" A couple of things that might be objectionable (I don't know this for sure), which aren't covered in your over-generalized "prevent sale into slavery" :
1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.
What does that mean for those who want to give up their children for adoption at birth? In those cases it is possible for the child to know and be cared for by his parents, but also not reasonable if the parents will not be keeping the child.
A child whose parents reside in different States shall have the right to maintain on a regular basis, save in exceptional circumstances personal relations and direct contacts with both parents
And if one of those parents is in prison due to having tried to kill the child? If it were my kid, you can be damned sure I wouldn't allow him/her to visit that parent until and unless they requested it with full understanding of what it means.
States Parties recognize the important function performed by the mass media and shall ensure that the child has access to information and material from a diversity of national and international sources, especially those aimed at the promotion of his or her social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and mental health. To this end, States Parties shall: (a) Encourage the mass media to disseminate information and material of social and cultural benefit to the child and in accordance with the spirit of article 29; (b) Encourage international co-operation in the production, exchange and dissemination of such information and material from a diversity of cultural, national and international sources; (c) Encourage the production and dissemination of children's books; (d) Encourage the mass media to have particular regard to the linguistic needs of the child who belongs to a minority group or who is indigenous; (e) Encourage the development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being, bearing in mind the provisions of articles 13 and 18.
Do I need to explain the potential pitfalls in this one? Particularly "e"? Or the rather ignorant assumptions present in "d"?
2. States Parties shall pursue full implementation of this right and, in particular, shall take appropriate measures: (d) To diminish infant and child mortality; (b) To ensure the provision of necessary medical assistance and health care to all children with emphasis on the development of primary health care; (c) To combat disease and malnutrition, including within the framework of primary health care, through, inter alia, the application of readily available technology and through the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking-water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution; (d) To ensure appropriate pre-natal