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Europol Predicts First Online Murder By End of This Year

Posted by Soulskill on from the need-a-sherlock-to-go-with-watson dept.

An anonymous reader sends this story from The Stack: The world's first "online murder" over an internet-connected device could happen by the end of this year, Europol has warned. Research carried out by the European Union's law enforcement agency has found that governments are not equipped to fight the growing threat of "online murder," as cyber criminals start to exploit internet technologies to target victims physically. The study, which was published last week, analyzed the possible physical dangers linked to cyber criminality and found that a rise in "injury and possible deaths" could be expected as computer hackers launch attacks on critical connected equipment. The assessment particularly referred to a report by IID, a U.S. security firm, which forecast that the world's first murder via a "hacked internet-connected device" would happen by the end of 2014.

4 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Self fulfilling prophecy by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know why it needs "hacked".

    many bombs have been detonated for almost two decades with network connected means.

    USA routinely kills people via network connected flying devices that shoot missiles on network commands..

    oh well I guess they're referring to only networked devices that weren't meant to kill in the first place..

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Re:Self fulfilling prophecy by Tom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mod parent up. The first "online murder" happened the day they put weapons on a drone. TFA is just the usual news-that-try-to-scare-you bullshit.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  3. Re:Self fulfilling prophecy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is talking about the premeditated killing of a civilian by another civilian ("murder") occurring as a cause of specific data transmissions on the public TCP/IP-based internet ("online").

    If you're going to count radio-control systems and military systems then you can go back a LOT further than armed drones, but that's not what this story is about.

  4. Re:Self fulfilling prophecy by jafiwam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is talking about the premeditated killing of a civilian by another civilian ("murder") occurring as a cause of specific data transmissions on the public TCP/IP-based internet ("online").

    If you're going to count radio-control systems and military systems then you can go back a LOT further than armed drones, but that's not what this story is about.

    Does "Swatting" count?

    If so, then yeah I believe it could or has happened already. Skype is being used to call local police forces on the other side of the planet to send the cops to peoples' houses over trivial shit like rivalries in video games.

    Given the nature of many police forces, it won't be long before (or has already occurred) someone gets shot by police over it, or police shot by home owners (if in some states. Not you Texas, your gun laws suck.)