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Africa's Coming Cyber-Crime Epidemic
jfruh writes "Those Nigerian spam scams of the last decade may have just been the first step in a looming African cyber-crime wave. Africa has the world's fastest-growing middle class, whose members are increasingly tech-savvy and Internet connected — and the combination of ambitious, educated people, a ceiling on advancement due to corruption and lack of infrastructure, and lax law enforcement is a perfect petri dish for increased cybercrime."
They kidnap people and hold them for ransom. They are the filth of the earth; this is the armpit of the world and why would you expect anything different?
"There's a great chapter from a 1981 children's book called "World of Tomorrow: School, Work and Play" that imagines how computers, in the future, would give rise to a whole new phenomenon: 'Computer Crimes" .. Computer criminals will "work from home, using his own computer to gain access to the memories of the computers used by the banks and companies"
...
I guess it'll be safer to use the BBC Microcomputer in the 'future'
AccountKiller
I can't remember which book it was, I think a William Gibson novel one of the characters made a lot of money exploiting old security exploits on old equipment that the African nations purchased collapsing their economies.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
So why the hell do we not cut them off from the Internet? Politicians want to restrict our Internet, but who give a ratz a$$ about where the real problems are at.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Africa is a huge continent. The US gets flooded with pictures of kids starving on a constant basis, but in reality, there are a lot of countries with a middle class, with middle class problems.
What I wonder about is the concept of small, but agile ISPs, small enough to provide security on their end (firewalls, outgoing port 25 blocking unless it goes through a relay, even perhaps more active IDS/IPS items like blocking C&C hosts.) ISPs small enough that they can handle threats rapidly, but large enough to be fairly profitable.
Defense in depth is critical, but there are places where one gets more bang for their naira on the network topology, mainly the edge routers, as well as different user segments.
Just offering an "antivirus kit" won't help much, because of the difficulty of AV programs in catching zero-days. Ideally an IDS/IPS, with some way to allow subscribers to bypass it if they have some special requirement (like a personal mail server, or running some other incoming process) would help catch the larger attacks, and help protect against DoS/DDoS attacks which won't take down the ISP, but can take down a subscriber on DSL or cable.
Nothing is perfect, but this is better than nothing.
It's a land where TNB is SOP.
The highest growth rates in internet access, during the past 10 years, have been in nations earning about $3000 per year, or 1/10 the average GDP of "rich" nations. As more and more people get internet, we can expect the use of "cybercrime" to expand, just as we can expect car accidents to increase in nations where cars become affordable. Meanwhile, loans to Africans through organizations like Kiva.org are repaid at a higher rate than bank loans in America. I do a lot of business in the developing (or more aptly named, Emerging) world and find the "petri dish for increased cybercrime" alarmist. The rapid, rapid education and rise of geeks of color is a "petri dish" for film, art, photography, software development (see MEST in Ghana), blood banks, laughter, tears, hugs, etc. Yes, cyber crime will increase, like everything else will increase. The article is stupid.
By the way, in case you missed it, the stories about "80-90% of e-waste exports" being burned by primitive African children has also been disproven by 3 separate studies. Africa has had television since I lived there in the 1980s, and the junk filmed burned at African landfills was in use for years, it's the same generation of waste as goes to our own landfills. Three studies showed that 80-90% of used computers imported are successfully reused and repaired. Articles like this one lead to profiling and arrests of good people as "e-waste criminals". The "other-ization" of geeks of color is really shameful.
Gently reply
I don't mean to offend the author of the article, but..., maybe he might have provided more insight than "more people will have computer access in the future, cyber crimes will increase".
COUNT ZERO
Where do these "facts" come from. It was my understanding that it was India that "has the world's fastest-growing middle class, whose members are increasingly tech-savvy and Internet connected — and the combination of ambitious, educated people, a ceiling on advancement due to corruption and lack of infrastructure, and lax law enforcement"...
Anyone losing anything to Nigerian or other African scammers is a nit wit. Africa offers no greater threat than they ever have, which is to say nearly nil.
members are increasingly tech-savvy and Internet connected — and the combination of ambitious, educated people, a ceiling on advancement due to corruption and lack of infrastructure, and lax law enforcement
They talking about us or them? Doesn't seem fair to pick on the africans when its not really any different in the USA or any number of other places.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You said "ambitious, educated people, a ceiling on advancement due to corruption and lack of infrastructure, and lax law enforcement".
Are you sure this isn't the US?
Wait, my bad, right up front you mentioned "ambitious, educated people", not the US.
No brain, no pain.
African cyber-crime wave.
Thats racist(tm)(c) and completely non-politically correct. Not quite as bad as using the N word but still inappropriate. Should have been written:
African-American cyber-crime wave.
There now thats the politically correct term.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
> Africa has the world's fastest-growing middle class
Translation for people who didn't major in math: Africa has almost no middle class.
When something is really really small, even the tiniest amount of growth appears quite large when expressed as a percentage. It's like when I say that the game my friends and I invented is the fastest-growing game in the world, because two nights ago there were only two of us playing it, but last night we had a party and played it with eight of our friends, so it experienced 400% growth in a single night, which if we extrapolate it out (assuming we maintain the same growth rate) would be hundreds of thousands of percent growth per annum.
Now, Africa's middle class isn't quite _that_ small. In fact, I believe there are more than eight people in the middle class in Nigeria alone. Nonetheless, Africa's middle class is excruciatingly small compared to the middle class on any other inhabited continent you care to name.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Let me chip this in before the racist bigots spout . . . And the country with the highest internet crime is . . .*drum rolls*
Why is Africa always having epidemics?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
....kinda backfired on us didn't it.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Drop these networks:
196.0.0.0/8, 154.0.0.0/8, 41.0.0.0/8, 102.0.0.0/8, 105.0.0.0/8, 197.0.0.0/8, 2c00::/12, 2001:4200::/23 DROP
Do the same for APNIC (no chinese): ,2001:B000::/20, 2400:0000::/12
1.0.0.0/8, 14.0.0.0/8, 27.0.0.0/8, 36.0.0.0/8, 39.0.0.0/8, 42.0.0.0/8, 49.0.0.0/8, 58.0.0.0/8, 59.0.0.0/8, 60.0.0.0/8, 61.0.0.0/8, 101.0.0.0/8, 103.0.0.0/8, 106.0.0.0/8, 110.0.0.0/8, 111.0.0.0/8, 112.0.0.0/8, 113.0.0.0/8, 114.0.0.0/8, 115.0.0.0/8, 116.0.0.0/8, 117.0.0.0/8, 118.0.0.0/8, 119.0.0.0/8, 120.0.0.0/8, 121.0.0.0/8, 122.0.0.0/8, 123.0.0.0/8, 124.0.0.0/8, 125.0.0.0/8, 126.0.0.0/8, 169.208.0.0/12, 175.0.0.0/8, 180.0.0.0/8, 182.0.0.0/8, 183.0.0.0/8, 202.0.0.0/8, 203.0.0.0/8, 210.0.0.0/8, 211.0.0.0/8, 218.0.0.0/8, 219.0.0.0/8, 220.0.0.0/8, 221.0.0.0/8, 222.0.0.0/8, 223.0.0.0/8, 2001:0200::/23, 2001:0C00::/23, 2001:0E00::/23, 2001:4400::/23, 2001:8000::/19, 2001:A000::/20
Luckily my house and office have no business with connectivity in these countries. Subscribe and understand who NANOG is...
CyberThanks!
FTFY :P
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
beware of cameroon
Nothing is perfect, but this is better than nothing.
How can anything better than Nothing? You yourself just said Nothing was perfect.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"and the combination of ambitious, educated people, a ceiling on advancement due to corruption and lack of infrastructure, and lax law enforcement is a perfect petri dish for increased cybercrime"
Considering what the West has done to Africa, it's hard to condemn these people for a little retaliation. Nothing they could steal from us will ever come close to matching the damage done by Colonialism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Please offer a substitute for the prefix "cyber"
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
We already had a perfect petri dish for cybercrime: the old Soviet states. Lax law enforcement, rife with corruption, and lots of brilliant young people with internet access.
It's not like scams are a growth market - People who will fall for a scam spam are a somewhat limited resource, and being hit with five different scam in a row will even decrease the chance that one of them will succeed.
The only people who matter are the ones who discover new tricks and vulnerabilities. The rest are competitors for the same slice of the pie. Even botnets have a history of infighting.
Well I was in Africa and did a study; 90% pf people want to be involved in cyber crime. Shoots a hole in your supposed theory.
What other pathway to prosperity does a Nigerian resident have? Sounds about the same as what's available in American slum areas. Or any slum dweller anywhere, for that matter.
As alluded to by the father of cyberpunk himself:
"The Wig reasoned that all that obsolete silicon had to be going somewhere. Where it was going, he learned, was into any number of very poor places struggling along with nascent industrial bases. Nations so benighted that the concept of nation was still taken seriously. The Wig punched himself through a couple of African back-waters and felt like a shark cruising a swimming pool thick with caviar. Not that any one of those tasty tiny eggs amounted to much, but you could just open wide and scoop, and it was easy and filling and it added up. The Wig worked the Africans for a week, incidentally bringing about the collapse of at least three governments and causing untold human suffering. At the end of his week, fat with the cream of several million laughably tiny bank accounts, he retired. As he was going out, the locusts were coming in; other people had gotten the African idea."
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
average about 75. I don't think we have all that much to worry about.
Please offer a substitute for the prefix "cyber"
Shiter... As in - "Man the Shiter-space sure is full of ass-hats today."
Mathematics (Chair?) at Temple University, does a little writing.
Try 'A Mathematician Reads The Newspaper'.
I think the first of his books was 'Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences', great gift book.
No brain, no pain.
Score is now Earth 1, Mayans 0.
No brain, no pain.
The e-waste thing isn't "other-ization" (whatever the F that is) but rather shaming of Westerners for dumping their garbage on Africa. Can we not disturb the narrative? It's useful.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
A discussion somewhere on http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians someone said ever since Europeans drew border lines in Africa and the Middle East, there's been nothing but problems since. An oversimplified answer but generated lively discussion. Of course what I'd like to know is percentage of e-criminals of population compared to other countries. And........ a serious crime is Wall Street types bilking many of their life savings.
mfwright@batnet.com
So what, they go from 10 people to 20 people and have 100% growth? Holy fuck, if we interpolate they'll have first world countries across Africa is no time, better stop sending them a dollar a day.
Except the Westerners didn't dump their garbage there. That was the myth I'm talking about. The math was wrong, just like this math is wrong. Why was it believed? Looks like even smart people like you believed it. Profiling.
Gently reply
http://www.theonion.com/articles/tens-of-thousands-dead-in-ongoing-africa,28201/
The you're missing is that whether the equipment was in use for decades or not burning it in open ditches is not an acceptable disposal method. Laws in the much of the "developed" world don't allow this and increasingly don't allow landfilling either. No one is saying "ship the computers to Africa to burn them" they're saying "ship computers to Africa, some of them might be useful, a lot probably aren't, and there is a definite lack of oversight of proper disposal."
You seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about people you assume are assuming the worst generalities of a continent. I work in ewaste disposal, and I'll be the first to say that it's not an "African problem". You have to understand though that enforcement measures in many African countries are not as broad or defined as in North America or Europe.
I call bullshit on this article. What this is: Cheer-leading and whitewashing for a U.S. government press release that promises more entanglement and "anti-terror" activity (by way of the UN) in foreign countries. Here is the meat of the article, all the way at the very end of the article, if you have the patience to get there:
At least on the African continent, change is coming. In addition to aid from the U.S. and others, groups like the Cyber Security Africa and the International Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) are setting up regional workshops and conventions to address problems like cyber crime in Africa.
Western nations are helping out, also. In December, the U.S. Department of State has granted $250,000 to combat transnational cybercrime in East African nations. That money will be used to train law enforcement, judges and prosecutors on cyber crime prosecution, with cooperation from the US Justice Department. Still, a State Department spokesperson said the money will be spent on "fundamentals" - laying the groundwork for intra-government and international cooperation on cyber crime, as well as 'basic laws that criminalize cybercrime conduct, laws on handling electronic evidence."
It approvingly portrays a Kenyan push to require static IPs on all mobile devices to better permit tracking:
The Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) is pushing for mobile operators to assign static IP addresses to smart phones and tablets to "help track and monitor user activity," according to statements from Bitange Ndemo, the Information and Communication Permanent Secretary there.
It includes delightful broken-window fallacies, basically in support of US-based Microsoft products, like this paragraph:
Pirated software is also used commonly throughout the continent, creating an avenue for malicious software and sapping local economies of money and jobs that would stem from a legal market for business and personal software.
This article is originally based on "State Dept throws $250,000 at UN effort to combat cybercrime in Africa" from the Daily Caller. (link from end).
That article, in turn, is originally based on "U.S. Department of State Funds UN Anti-Cybercrime Training for Africa" from the U.S. State Department website (link from that article).
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Even if it's not true, it's still a useful myth to shame Westerners into doing the right thing instead of dumping their problems on people of color.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I second your call ...
--
MOD ++10
AccountKiller
Waste their time. They can send a million emails at the touch of a button. Set up a bait email account and email them back. Digging through a million replies would bury them Even better is to find ones using Magic jack to pretend to be at the airport with your consignment box. Call them to ask how to use western union, How long can you wait at the airport? etc. Bury them in chaff. I use my bait gmail account with Google Voice to call them. No need to have them call my cell or home phone at all hours. Voice mail hell for them is great. Use the mute button while giving fake WU info to their voice mail. They will call back many times.. Tie them up. Visit a scambait site on how to bait safely. Never give real info.
The truth shall set you free!
I met someone from Nigera who was getting his tech training in another class, in the same school. When I found out where he was from, I asked him:"What about all those scammers." He looked me right in the eye, and said: "No one believes in those scams except complete idiots." "Really."
Been here for years already.
After destroying their economy and driving their countries into civil war in order to squeeze some more precious resources out from their soil, it's about time they retaliate. I for one welcome our new Nigerian Prince Overlords
What? You were in the whole of Africa? Every country? Hats off to visiting Somalia and other charming hotspots and getting the shellshocked citizens to fill out your survey!
Eh westerners did, smuggling e-waste out of the EU is big business. Look up some of the customs reports.
"Geeks of colour"? What colour are they? Blue? Green?
Is it so hard to use the word "black"? I've worked in Africa. Guess what word Africans use to refer to themselves. I give you a clue, it's not "colour".
Racism will only be over when little shit like this doesn't matter any more.
Funny thing: they call me "white" or "pula" in Africa. In my own country or other countries in Southern Europe I'm simply yet another white guy. In the US or Northern Europe, I'm not considered white. Pretty stupid, isn't it?
Please offer a substitute for the prefix "cyber"
"facebook"
After all, that's the internet for most people nowadays.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Count Zero
-kgj
At this stage, it's nothing but precog and profiling. OK
The rapid, rapid education and rise of geeks of color is a "petri dish" for film, art, photography, software development (see MEST in Ghana), blood banks, laughter, tears, hugs, etc. Yes, cyber crime will increase, like everything else will increase.
Fascinating, but this discussion is about cyber crime, not about the other stuff you mention.