Online Crime Seen as Growing Threat to Business, Politics

BobB passed us a link to a NetworkWorld article, exploring the ongoing realization in business circles of the dangers online criminals pose. The piece raises the possibility that criminal elements are gaining access to US research labs in an effort to ferret out corporate and governmental information. One institute referred to in the article states: "Economic espionage will be increasingly common as nation-states use cyber theft of data to gain economic advantage in multinational deals. The attack of choice involves targeted spear phishing with attachments, using well-researched social engineering methods to make the victim believe that an attachment comes from a trusted source." We just recently discussed possible hacker involvement in several municipal blackouts.

It has grown enourmously

Esp. the harrassment of good citizens by the RIAA.

Do You See The Common Thread Here?

This is just like CIA Claims Cyber Attackers Blacked Out Cities [slashdot.org] Do you see the common thread here? Same SANS "expert", too. The guy who gave CIA props for their "disclosure". I remember when SANS was a good, technical security training and education outfit. Now they are on the Richard Clarke / Howard Schmidt CyberTerror disinformation campaign. I would doubt the spook "creds" - if you'd call 'em that - of Alan Paller. The worst theft and correlation of personal data is an ongoing effort by the state - with the telcos CA-CHING! Billing all the while. The crooks and Terra-ists are a joke in comparison. T'rists didn't "lose" several BILLION US dollars in small, unmarked bills in Iraq.

Who loses track of that kind of money? No one. Mistakes aren't made like that. Plans are. But we're supposed to be afraid of teh Internet now. Why? Cos' if we didn't have the 'net, we wouldn't know about that missing cash - or the validity of Operations MOCKINGBIRD, MKUltra, Northwoods, etc.

AirTran? This is a great outfit [msn.com]!

Re:Do You See The Common Thread Here?

While by no means perfect, the folks in the government are generally attempting to carry out the law of the land, as derived from the Constitution and obfuscated by the mound of subsequent documents.
Reform, as with a really nasty codebase, is a matter of simplification.
Which, as recent attempts to improve some sacred-cow entitlements shows, is a mother of a challenge.

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The "Government" is not any one thing - generally. Specifically, there are aspects of the US Government that actively resist and subvert the interest of the American people.

In fact the "government" is not trying to carry out the law of the land - but rath

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This "Government" - including the highest courts in the judiciary - have recently held forth on the proposition, that for legal purposes, prisoners in extra-judicial detention by the military and executive agencies are not "persons".

Therefore, they are not

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KSM was a looney, who admitted to being the man in the moon, once sufficiently tortured.

If justice as persons is not universal, it is a fiction.

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If justice as persons is not universal, it is a fiction.

Sweet, sweet bumper sticker.
Beyond the theological point, in reality, the difference between this theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory.
Who gets to define symbols like 'justice'

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If justice as persons is not universal, it is a fiction.

Sweet, sweet bumper sticker. Beyond the theological point, in reality, the difference between this theory and practice is greater in practice than in theory. Who gets to define symbols like 'justice', 'universal', and 'fiction' is one powerful bloke. Would that one could set an eternal champignon such as yourself up as POTUS, just to get your reaction to the negative feedback of even the simplest acts. ;)

Wouldn't a smaller & more open government, with less power to demand "openness" willy-nilly from citizens, exhibit those symptoms to a lesser degree?

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Is "less power to demand 'openness'" a figure of speech meaning "having diminished legal muscle to invade privacy", then, yes, I'd agree.

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The front page again illustrates "your" Government, struggling to do the best on your behalf:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/20/1747201 [slashdot.org]

"We invoke Executive Privilege to protect our PetroCo sponsors, and the globalists destroying the native ind

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By the way, I'm not exactly a government apologist here. Concentrated government power generates bureaucratic singularities that could out-suck a black hole.
Less is more.
The chief point I want to make is that there are copious smart, dedicated individua

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The electorate has almost no access to information about candidates that is unmediated by corporations with a horse in the race.

The narrow palate of "electable" candidates is not produced by a process in which 'the people' are in any way involved.

"Which of

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Political parties should be abolished, and the judicial decisions that equate corporations as persons AND those that equate spending to speech should be reversed. Then you'll have a beginning. Dream on. :-)

Parties exist due to a requirement to aggregate p

That is exactly why - generally - 'smitty' ...

... is correct.

The "Government" is not any one thing.

I'd tell you to "think about it" but I know you already have. I'm just documenting my own lag behind you both presently.

This is where, presently, I would substantially differ with you:

What is wrong with this picture? If you try and rationalise this situation, you are put in the position of "the good Germans". The worst are American Liberals - completely enabling the subversion of basic rights and law, through rational acceptance of evil.

Try this on for size:
'Left' and 'Right' both complai

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Meanwhile, I declare victory to the doctrine of 'Separation of Powers'

I declare victory to the distracting sideshow - so you can get your pocket picked while figuring out which moving card is the ace.

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Nice try.

I declare victory to the distracting sideshow - so you can get your pocket picked while figuring out which moving card is the ace.

They're all jokers. Get your hand out of my pocket.

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;-)

p.s.: Ron Paul for the friendly face of bank/state fascism!

Shit, Ron! RON!! He's onto us!

Some guy on the Internet has totally figured out our small government fascism scheme!

Good one.

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My point is that ANYONE elected to the office will be someone's favorite face on the fascist machine.

If RP could change that, he'd already be swapping stories with RFK.

Sorry, I'm new here.

Also, that is so far beyond cynical, I wasn't expecting it.

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No prob. I'm actually a realistic optimist!

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That is an excellent example ...

No prob. I'm actually a realistic optimist!

... of why I now only open new messages between posts. You, an optimist? From what I've seen so far, that is hilarious! I look forward to reading more of your work.

It boggles the imagination

The morons that put critical data / control on outward facing servers deserve the hosing they get. Who in their right mind thinks it is a good idea to put a power station's control on a server that is even connected to the Internet? That is just the stupidest thing I have ever read.

I am more concerned about who they give physical access to the data / hardware are. All it takes is one vengeful employee and a thumb drive to lose very sensitive data. Worse, many companies that do lose data won't report the breach unless it involves a threat of lawsuit by irate customers. Then they will report it grudgingly and then only after days or even weeks and months have passed. Plenty of time for massive damage to be done.

More powerful organized crime

The morons that put critical data / control on outward facing servers deserve the hosing they get. [...] I am more concerned about who they give physical access to the data / hardware are. All it takes is one vengeful employee and a thumb drive to lose very sensitive data.

These are both examples where there's at least something individual companies can do about it internally.

Personally, I was extremely unsettled a few years ago when the spammer powers-that-be decided they wanted BlueSecurity shut down [washingtonpost.com], and a bunch of DNS servers, Tucows and 4 other hosting providers, and SixApart/LiveJournal/TypePad [wired.com] fell as collateral damage.

Is that not *scarier* for business? Let's see -- I'm free to conduct my business... as long as I don't step on any toes in the organized crime world. 'Cause if I do, they're shutting me down whenever they feel like it, and there's not a damned thing I (or the supposed "protection" of the law) can do about it.

And of course, no power, once it exists, goes unused for very long. I see more and more stories about botnets used for extortion -- which is a bit trickier to carry out, since it's tough to get paid without a money trail, and law enforcement has more experience dealing with that -- but it's just another example. If they just want to squelch my business, it's incredibly easy.

[Addendum: oh look... the article points to cyber espionage as #3 in the SANS institute's top 10 threats of 2008 [sans.org]; botnets are #2]

'Locate' Osama bin Laden with 'Divining Rods'

The morons that put critical data / control on outward facing servers deserve the hosing they get. Who in their right mind thinks it is a good idea to put a power station's control on a server that is even connected to the Internet? That is just the stupidest thing I have ever read.

Second stupidest, and falling, I believe that is. Perspective matters very much when using the superlative form, dude. Some very, very stupid people have the right to vote, including you.

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Old saying; "Two coincidences indicate intention."

The flaming-feuer Bush, staff, congress, senate, CIA, FBI, NSA, TelCo, OilCo, InsureCo ... have been totally coincidental for over six years now, blatantly conspicuous, overtly obvious ... to all US Citizen

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Brilliant.

Insightful mods should pile on you - even as an AnonCow!

CyberLaw(TM)

Looks like we need to call in Eric Menhart to lay down the CyberLaw(TM)...

The irony of anyonimity

Used to be, mafia guys would have no Social Security card, driver's license, or bank accounts to avoid being traced by law enforcement or the IRS. Now, I feel like having none of those things to avoid the crooks online.

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Yup, I think it is time to move to a shack in Montana to maintain your anonymity. I heard that there is one going cheap - Una, Una Kazomething... Yeah, that's the place...

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> Used to be, mafia guys would have no Social Security card,
> driver's license, or bank accounts to avoid being traced
> by law enforcement or the IRS.

Nowadays the mafia guys have multiple SS cards, drivers licenses and bank accounts -- all belongi

Ironically this is a problem because ....

... of search engines like google.

Not to mention the ease of leaking/bribing information today when combined with google, cam cell phones, etc.

Search engines?

Don't you mean NSA assets? [google-watch.org]

Who needs ECHELON anymore!

Well, obviously ...

Just a matter of time before online crime became a threat to the good old-fashioned kind.

Fixed that for you

Online Crime Facilitates Political, Business Growth.

Seriously, who profits from the stuff that makes the headlines? It sure isn't me; I'm only into grey-area piracy.

Define "Criminal" and "Crime"

With all the whoohaa around hacking, phishing, cyber attacks and copyright infringement, I think it is very important to make sure when one talks about "Cyber Crime" there is a definite understanding of what exactly is being referred to.

If that is not done

Gov needs to shut down the internet

The internet has been an inconvenience to the gov, as it closes our open society and political system, moves to a fascist system.

See the Naomi Wolf YouTube interviews / lectures, read her book. This is one of many commentators who have finally understood

24C3 talks

See also these talks:

Crouching Powerpoint, Hidden Trojan
An analysis of targeted attacks from 2005 to 2007
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/track/Hacking/2189.en.html [events.ccc.de]

Cybercrime 2.0
Storm Worm
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/track/Hacking [events.ccc.de]

read this as..

Online Crime Scene as Growing Threat to Business, Politics couldn't understand what I was seeing for a second there.

Re:Good grief.

Indeed good grief. I saw an article some time ago noting that some Southern California gangs were infiltrating girlfriends into various financial processing institutions to steal credit card information, banking info, and so on. Even into the DMV. So there's certainly low-level activity. At one company I worked at, a crook got a job in the accounting department and somehow stole all the HR data, and some of that was used to get credit cards. How long before serious organized crime runs multiple active efforts for this? And how many Web commerce sites do criminal background checks on IT personnel?

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Indeed good grief. I saw an article some time ago noting that some Southern California gangs were infiltrating girlfriends into various financial processing institutions to steal credit card information, banking info, and so on. Even into the DMV. So there's certainly low-level activity. At one company I worked at, a crook got a job in the accounting department and somehow stole all the HR data, and some of that was used to get credit cards. How long before serious organized crime runs multiple active efforts for this? And how many Web commerce sites do criminal background checks on IT personnel?

The reason that this doesn't happen to a greater extent is because people can do math. The problem is that you can't steal enough to be worth more than keeping the job. There are still some people who do it, but most people who can get jobs giving them ac

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I'm not talking about the multitude of honest workers. All it takes is one bad apple to do a lot of damage, to mix a metaphor. If a gang member steals enough data for the gang to make a lot of money using even just 500 employees' personal data, it can be f

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I wasn't talking about the honest workers either. Give it a little thought, if you were a dishonest employee, how much money would it take to be worth the effort and risk to rip off your employer? If you aren't smart enough to do a decent risk/reward analy

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We need a separate internet for the Anonymous Cowards... separate the inferior & racist minds for the good of humanity...

define separation?

separate the inferior & racist minds for the good of humanity...

So you want the inferior minds in one bus and the racist minds on the other?

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Heh, sure....segregate the inferiors and the racists? Where would our elitist selves find our entertainment? In Soviet Amerika, you segregate racist?

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Please don't feed the troll.

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If these "important discussions" were truly important you would log in at the very least. You truly are an idiot if you believe we can all agree on ANYTHING, so don't expect everyone to agree with your personal fears and hatred.

Re:Wikipedia user IP talk pages, questionable cont

A wiki admin- a real one, not one of the many bureaucrats who's only status symbol is a "This user is an ADMIN" userbox. You could also go to to the copyright phone number, at least you'd likely get an employee... than a redshirt... http://wikimediafoundat [wikimediafoundation.org]

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Journalists need to stop making shit up.

You need to stop reading it first. How will you tell me when you have?