September 15, 2007:
Interpol, the international police organization is trying to establish an
international network of facilities and experts to deal with crime, and
terrorism, on the Internet. This effort
is driven by the explosive growth criminal activity on the Internet. A
major problem with this crime wave is that many nations have weak, or no, laws
against Internet crime. Naturally, the Internet criminals tend to live in
nations where they can't be prosecuted for what they are doing. Well, at least for
some of what they are doing. When Internet crooks steal money, that's theft no
matter where you are. But much of the software creation, and hacking, is done
from these safe havens because local laws don't define these support activities
as a crime.
Russia, long a haven for
cyber criminals, is cracking down. But China is all talk and no action. The
latest talk from China is accusations that American military hackers are
attacking Chinese military networks. No details were given, but China says it
has traced 80 percent of hacker attacks on Chinese PCs, back to the United
States. This is at odds with what Internet security companies (which have many
Chinese clients) are reporting. So these recent Chinese claims are seen as a
response to the accusations that China is behind the dozens of major assaults
on government and military networks in the West.
