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EU Gumshoe Chases Internet Villains 106

Posted by Zonk from the blam-kapow dept.
Robert Haskins writes "The Pittsburg Post-Gazette is carrying an interesting Wall Street Journal story about a guy who works for Microsoft and chases virus writers, software counterfeiters, spammers and other suspected law breakers. Can companies really make a difference by helping law enforcement like this?" From the article: "Mr. Fifka isn't a cop. He works for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Safety Enforcement Team. Created in 2002, the group is part of the U.S. software giant's intensifying efforts to combat cyber crime at a time when consumers and businesses are becoming increasingly frustrated with fraud and virus attacks on their personal computers, most of which use Microsoft's Windows operating system. As Internet crime proliferates, law enforcement is relying more on the private sector to help counter it. That's because tracking cyber criminals requires a different set of skills than police have traditionally used. Compounding the challenge is the speed at which new online threats are morphing."
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EU Gumshoe Chases Internet Villains More

EU Gumshoe Chases Internet Villains

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  • Not Intimidating Enough? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:45PM (#13467430)
    Well he isn't doing a very good job, maybe he isn't intimidating enough. I hear the reason there are so few Linux viruses is because Tux goes around vigilante-justice-style and beats the hell out of anyone who writes one. I don't know about you but I would crap my pants if opened the door and saw a giant overweight penguin (or an overweight Finnish guy for that matter). Don't even get me started on the BSD devil.
  • Pittsburgh is one of the very rare exceptions to the general rule that towns in the U.S. are spelled with -burg.

    In the 19th century, the U.S. Postal Service pushed to standardize all the towns ending in -berg, -burgh, -berg, etc. to a single spelling. Most switched, but Pittsburgh was one city which resisted the push.
    • In the 19th century, the U.S. Postal Service pushed to standardize all the towns ending in -berg, -burgh, -berg, etc. to a single spelling. Most switched, but Pittsburgh was one city which resisted the push.

      Interesting. Do you have any examples of places that did change their names?

      There's a related issue I started to think about with the recent story concerning the Neanderthals. I'd always thought the correct spelling should be Neandertal (without the H) because the name refers to Neander Valley in G

  • The reason the police do not have the skills (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:51PM (#13467455)

    is they cannot pay 100k+ for dedicated CS people, anybody who has the skills will be working for [somecorp] as they will pay the market rate, cant blame the individual as business is business, why work for the police for 50k when you can earn double in the market.
    Of course if people want to pay more taxes (like corporations for a start) then you will get the police force society needs for a modern world, but until then you will only get alturistic people and alturism is frowned upon in America, greed is good, get rich or die trying

    • Crimes Against Incorporation (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And the reason "law enforcement is relying more on the private sector" is not just that they don't have the skills.

      It's because these are no normal, human-vs-human crimes. These are crimes against IP. These are crimes against corporate America.

      The corporations are just enforcing the laws they lobbied into existence. Don't worry; they'll eventually lobby to have "anti-piracy" police budgets increased enough that they won't have to overtly aid the police.

  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:52PM (#13467463) Journal
    It was a hot dark night when she came in. You know the kind of night, and you know the kind of broad. Both could make you sweat, and knock you on your ass.

    I'd sent my secretary home early. I had no cases, but a half-bottle of whiskey and a revolver. When she walked in, I was a little past feeling good and ready to shoot.

    "I'm lookin' for Porn, Sam Porn. You him?" she asked in a voice that made me melt.

    "What's it to ya, lady?" I asked, half-hoping she'd answer, half-hoping she'd leave.

    "I've got this web site, see." she replied. "It's kinky and cute, straight tits and ass. But now somebody's busted in, all kinds of bondage. I need someone with guts and brawn, and maybe some brain. I can pay. Thousand big ones now, five more if you can catch the perv."

    My smarter half said leave this dame alone. She was trouble, and that was for sure. But the rent had to be paid, and I didn't even have half a bottle of whiskey.

  • P.I.I. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Foobar of Borg ( 690622 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:55PM (#13467482)
    "It was a hot day in Brno and I was hoping to take the day off. I looked out the smudged window of my sixth-story office holding my two best friends in my hands. The first is my .9 mm, I keep it loaded. The other is a bottle of vodka. It keeps me loaded.

    Yep, it was just another boring day until a client showed up. He was all boo-hooing over something that was after his business and acting all irrational, but then clients are like that. It seems some computer virus was out to get his software and I needed this mess like I needed a Windows upgrade. Which made sense in its own twisted sort of way. You see, the client was Bill Gates.

    I'm Peter Fifka, and I'm a Private Internet Investigator."

  • that's worrisome (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cahiha ( 873942 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:57PM (#13467494)
    As Internet crime proliferates, law enforcement is relying more on the private sector to help counter it.

    That's a big concern. People who work in law enforcement should not also have other kinds of interests. Even without deliberate abuse of power, someone who comes from a corporate environment will bring his own set of prejudices and interests to the table. For example, someone working for Microsoft may be more interested in pursuing piracy using Linux and less interested in tracking down people who write viruses that infect Macintosh. It also may lead to a situation where the primary means of getting the police to do something is to pay someone lots of money; it is even more disconcerting that those someones are ex-police, which really is getting pretty close to outright corruption.

    If you think about it, it is also truly bizarre that companies like Microsoft find it easier to finance a private police force to track down virus writers than to fix their software.

    • Re:that's worrisome (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cheesee ( 97693 )
      Even police officers have their own set of prejudices and interests. Everyone does, wether or not they are privately owned.

      And no, it's not bizarre. Is real police tracking down people who break the law bizarre? Why don't they just make it so people can't break the law? See where I'm going here?

      • Re:that's worrisome (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cahiha ( 873942 )
        Even police officers have their own set of prejudices and interests. Everyone does, wether or not they are privately owned.

        The set of personal prejudices and interests individuals may bring to the police force is tightly circumscribed. If they violate the laws, rules, and regulations in those areas, those individuals are reprimanded or let go.

        One of the things police may not have is personal or financial interest in private corporations that are related to their work. The reason those rules exist because
    • It's not just virus-writers that he is tracking down.

      FTA: "It has also filed 243 civil actions related to Internet safety threats, such as spam"

      OK, Spam is annoying, but an "Internet safety threat?" Maybe phishing.

      "Mr. Fifka is also combating traditional crimes like software-counterfeiting"

      This is what Fifka was originally hired to do. It just so happens that tracking down people on the internet applies just as well to virus writers and spammers as it does to software counterfeiters.

      All in a
    • The state of Internet "crime fighting" as a whole is pretty atrocious. You'd think that with fraud and identity theft alone huge issues impacting millions the government would be investing more resources.

      I took a computer forensics course about a year ago. We were lucky enough to have law enforcement officials from numerous sources in to talk with us about the current state of their business. The real motivator for all of them seemed to be limited to child porn, and even in this task they all made it sound

  • Considering the results of the highschool hackers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FauxReal ( 653820 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:57PM (#13467497)
    I think this is a good idea given the ineptitude of most local law enforcement agencies when dealing with high tech crime.

    I could say the same for the FBI, we had a guy post intimate knowledge of a cop killing from our net cafe. The killing wasn't publicised much. The FBI came and bungled the whole computer forensics operation. For one they copied the HDDs w/ some slow crappy program and then took the copies instead of the originals. Luckily some other agents caught the guy after he posted from somewhere else.
    • Corporate law enforcement of any kind is a good idea (try and remember, a corporations sole reason for existance is to generate profits for it's shareholders, the amoral ass wipes even brag about this, THERE IS ALWAYS MORE PROFIT IN BREAKING THE LAW RATHER THAN THE COSTS OF PRESERVING IT)?

      I thought that M$=B$ corporate cops where more interested in rooting out the penguinista's that have infiltrated their redmond re-education facility (where good coders go to have their "source" warped and have an EULA im

  • That is the problem (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @06:59PM (#13467506)
    combat cyber crime at a time when consumers and businesses are becoming increasingly frustrated with fraud and virus attacks on their personal computers, most of which use Microsoft's Windows operating system.

    That is the problem.

    A more secure operating system with tools to identify and filter out malware is the solution.

    This is just paint over dryrot.

  • Nextime Gumshoe, Nextime (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmperorKagato ( 689705 ) * <sakamura@gmail.com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:07PM (#13467536) Homepage Journal
    I bet he can't capture Carmen_Sandiego. No one can catch her!
  • What does the title have to do with the text?
    Little.

    EU?
    Gum?

    • Re:Title has't anything to do with article text (Score:4, Insightful)

      by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender@@@gmail...com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:19PM (#13467574)
      Yeah, I was confused, too. I thought he was actually an EU official, in fact he doesn't really have anything to do with the EU. Apparently EU was just used to meant Europe, not the European Union, the governmental body or even the European Union, the geographic entity.

      Which is interesting, because people around here (inside the EU) routinely make the opposite "mistake" (if you want to call it that way), referring to Europe when they actually mean the EU, or even part of the EU. Although the EU does encompass a large part of Europe these days. Kind of like talking about "America" when you're actually referring to either North America or the USA.

      • Kind of like talking about "America" when you're actually referring to either North America or the USA.

        Very few people in the US use "America" to refer to North America. We do quite often use "America" to refer to the United States of America, but I don't see how that's any more strange than shortening Bundesrepublik Deutschland to just Deustschland. The whole thing together is a mouthful, so we commonly take the part of it that's actually a proper name and leave off all the modifying components like "Unite

        • I could argue that substituting "Germany" for "Federal Republic of Germany" is less problematic because - since 1990 anyway - they really both can only refer to the same thing, different connotations nonwithstanding. But I won't argue that, because I actually think you're right, substitutung "America" for the USA is rarely confusing, either. In fact in discussions I usually argue your side, anyway, pointing out to people they don't properly use the EU/Europe thing either and how that's just a normal feature
    • ... note that as the EU expands eastwards the definition of "Eastern Europe" keeps changing.

      This is because the EU is "clearly" in "the West", so no countries which are part of the EU are in "Eastern Europe", even if they were last year.

      So, whilst "Eastern Europe" used to mean places like Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland etc it now means Ukraine and points east.

  • In other words (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lifewish ( 724999 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:10PM (#13467545) Homepage Journal
    Half the stuff these guys do would probably not be legal for a policeperson to deal with. This is just another case of outsourcing breaches of rights to the private sector.

  • Electronic Crimes Task Force (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xorowo ( 733585 ) on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:12PM (#13467549) Homepage Journal
    In specific response to these types of issues, the Secret Service established the Electronic Crimes Task Force [ectaskforce.org]. I had the opportunity to tour their Los Angeles operations center and was impressed by their technical resources and capability.

    They described how they act as an intermediate body for all law enforcement agencies involved in computer crime. From forensic analysis to crime-scene procedure, they were designed to both advise and participate. I can't speak to any specific crimes that they had been involved in, but it seemed like the idea, if handled properly, was a good one.

    When I visited in 2003, they were just ramping up. They had already been assisting local law enforcement, but seemed to still be moving in. Most of the "tech" was in place, including massive file servers and clean rooms, but the individual offices looked sparse, with boxes still unpacked. I was half expecting it to look like something out of the movies - darkened, secretive, maybe in a cave somewhere - but it was just on the 13th floor of a standard downtown office building with all the harsh amenities of a 30-year old downtown high rise.

    I would certainly hope that what they spared in decoration was made up by the effectiveness at solving these crimes.

  • It's positive to see that companies aren't just out to screw everyone, they can help society by investigating crimes like cracking, spam, piracy, fraud and spying.

    If more companies were this positive, there might not be such an anti-corporate agenda on this site. I know it's Microsoft but they're not all as moronic as Steve Balmer!
    • Please. Rent a clue. It's much cheaper to hire one person to "assist" the police and help them feel "secure" about their own Windows purchases, to leave law enforcement dangling and angry and much more happy to get subpoenas against you and refuse to use your fundamentally insecure products on a governmental level.

      There are certainly good people who do such even work: this guy may be one of them. But with Microsoft's long history of patent theft, copyright theft, and major criminal anti-trust behavior, it's
    • How is this any different than car makers setting up speedtraps outside small towns that may not have the "resources" to buy the equipment and pay the officers?

      Hell, why don't we just turn all security over to the corporations? Look what a great job the rentacops have done for those in New Orleans!

  • Next he'll be chasing.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by postgrep ( 803732 ) <djandercore@noSpaM.gmail.com> on Friday September 02, 2005 @07:25PM (#13467594) Homepage Journal
    Firefox users, those ones with that tricky "unfindable" cache. Surely they are the virus writers since they don't use IE, the number 1 cybersleuth recommended product!?
  • It's rather refreshing to see something like this, especially after the posting about law enforcement and their problems decoding history files on "alternate" browsers.

    For those who missed the rest of the story, a previous thread [slashdot.org] talks about the target in the Czech Republic.

    It is interesting that MicroSoft would allow this fellow's real name (well, at least one that shows up elsewhere) to be released. Kudos to Peter. Of course, anybody who can get a job browsing the internet deserves respect. :-]

  • A bot of some sort came by one of our clients web sites and found a hole in the 'contact us' page. I'm guessing this bot used some sort of a Google search to find likely pages. It submitted the contact us from 5 times, with various values in the fields...each time, trying to send a bcc: email to an aol address. It worked on one of the posts...they found a hole. Later that night, we had a few thousand emails sent through our server via carefully crafted posts to our contact us form. Tracing back the ip

    • (BTW, the spam worked. It was for a particular penny stock that doubled in price over the last few days. Someone just doubled their money.)

      That someone needs to get into hot water, as pump-and-dump schemes are illegal. If you happen to have a copy of the spam, forward it to the Securities and Exchange Commission; they can track down who sold off a big chunk of the hyped company around the date of the spam. Whether or not they'll punish him is another matter, but at least you did your part.

      The address to rep

  • an interview [netlux.org] with Benny.
    More news about Benny's job [theregister.co.uk]
  • Is Windows a Virus?

    No, Windows is not a virus. Here's what viruses do:

    - They replicate quickly - okay, Windows does that.

    - Viruses use up valuable system resources, slowing down the system as they do so - okay, Windows does that.

    - Viruses will, from time to time, trash your hard disk - okay, Windows does that too.

    - Viruses are usually carried, unknown to the user, along with valuable programs and systems. Sigh... Windows does that, too.

    - Viruses will occasionally make the user suspect their system is too slow (see 2) and the user will buy new hardware. Yup, that's with Windows, too.

    Until now it seems Windows is a virus but there are fundamental differences: viruses are well supported by their authors, are running on most systems, their program code is fast, compact and efficient and they tend to become more sophisticated as they mature.

    So Windows is not a virus.

    It's a bug.
  • Coming next summer to a theater near you, Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Safety Enforcement Team: World Police. {ahem}

    Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Safety Enforcement Team... FUCK YEAH!

    Fighting to save the motherfucking world!

    Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Safety Enforcement Team... FUCK YEAH!

  • is MS good or bad now?
  • First you invent a loophole,
    then you hire people to overcome it.

    That's basic software engineering.

  • NEVER EVER HELP THE PIGS -IMPERITIVE READ MY STORY (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This guy is a fool. You never help the pigs. You never talk to the pigs. Anyone who has lived in the ghetto knows that. You fight the pigs with everything you have. The pigs are interested in one thing and one thing only. Projecting power. If everyone hasn't figured it out by now, the justice system is simply a smokescreen and a farce behind which that is done.

    I'm not from the getto. I'm a middle class American computer guy. But I learned a lot about the ghetto, and you're about to hear my story a
  • Can we have Tom Hanks and Leonardo DeCaprio star in this one?

  • a guy who works for Microsoft and chases virus writers, software counterfeiters, spammers and other suspected law breakers. Can companies really make a difference by helping law enforcement like this?

    Yes. Making them "part of The Good Side (that never has anything to hide) [TM] by definition" conveniently takes any contribution by their own security shortcomings out of the equation. Moreover, this finally makes it possible to expose e.g. some freshly-jailed 17-year-old fledgling worm writer as the one singl

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