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."

Comments

This sounds like wishful thinking

[Cimexus]

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.

Do not want.

[wcrowe]

The trouble with this, of course, is that one man's "hacker" is another man's journalist, or whistle-blower, or what have you.

 

Re:Do not want.

[selven]

I object to this for a different reason: I consider the concept of an organization with world jurisdiction intrinsically dangerous and unacceptable. It's like a monopoly: if you don't like their rules, where else are you going to go?

No...

[ZenDragon]

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 hackers are not the real problem

[prgrmr]

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.

Re:The hackers are not the real problem

[CodeBuster]

and ultimately erode more freedoms than the number of crimes it may solve.

So your proposed solution is international cooperation and extradition treaties to cover all crimes? To me that sounds like a global police state. I like the fact that separate countries have separate jurisdictions and separate laws. If a question of law or right and wrong is strong enough and means enough to you, then declare war; otherwise butt the hell out of other peoples' business. People these days, especially in the United States, have become far too willing to use the power of law and government to crush individual freedoms and "deviants" whom they don't like while at the same time failing to recognize that they could be next. Ask yourself this: are you wiling to pick up a rifle and risk your own life and limb to enforce a law? If the answer is "no" then maybe its not important enough and we shouldn't have that law.

Interpol

[medv4380]

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?

Interpol?

[manyxcxi]

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.

Re:First order of business....

[Anonymous Coward]

Finnally team america will save us! Fuck Yeah!

I can see...

[runyonave]

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.

Would you trust someone this stupid?

[thethibs]

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.

the internet has been called the wild west

[circletimessquare]

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"