US Failing To Prosecute Online Criminals 154
Ashlynne9423 writes "A report by the Center for American Progress and the Center for Democracy and Technology has found there is too little action being taken against online criminals, despite rising consumer concern about online safety. The report found that state officials were spending only 40 per cent of case time investigating online fraudsters, preferring instead to concentrate on higher profile solicitation and pornography cases."
Slashdot is just as bad ... (Score:4, Funny)
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They get eaten by grues.
Can anyone comment on "The Center for American Progress" and "The Center for Democracy and Technology" I've never heard of them before and they sound like the sort of names church groups give themselves when they want to sound credible.
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ITYM "Minstry of peace".
Minipax makes war.
Minitrue lies.
Miniluv kicks your face in
Miniplenty makes sure you don't have enough to eat.
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Can anyone comment on "The Center for American Progress" and "The Center for Democracy and Technology" I've never heard of them before and they sound like the sort of names church groups give themselves when they want to sound credible.
There's a lot of think tanks and policy advocate groups with high minded names.
Some of them are more descriptive than others.
http://www.americanprogress.org/aboutus [americanprogress.org] (2003)
"Founded in 2003, CAP is headed by John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and professor at the Georgetown University Center of Law. CAP is designed to provide long-term leadership and support to the progressive movement. Our ability to develop thoughtful policy proposals and engage in the war of ideas with conserv
Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
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And in keeping with the point of this article, copyright infringement can be prosecuted criminally as well. And it very rarely is.
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The reality is, it is simply much harder to investigate and prosecute a fraud case. Your word against theirs, with no physical damage, apart from a empty bank account. Which could of course have been legitimately emptied and it is just a very disgruntled 'conned'sumer. So whilst it the transaction might very well have been completely amoral and even immoral and certainly have been a rip off, under today's modern 'screw the customer' corporate influenced laws, it might have very well have been dishonestly l
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As another poster pointed out, the RIAA and downloading cases are civil cases not criminal like the ones in the article. This means that the government isn't taking them up, who ever was infringed apon or represent those entities are.
But I like the Hate America First attitude in your post.
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Lol.. What does WMDs have to do with it?
The hate America first attitude is what I call the pessimistic crowds who always assume the worst about the US government regardless of any facts. Those displaying that attitude also seem to be lacking in the knowledge department but that isn't always a prerequisite.
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Well duh! (Score:5, Insightful)
So that would be summarised as "Prosecutors go for cases that make them look good" and "Prosecutors avoid cases where the crime isn't as well understood"* then?
* because the general populace understand "he killed her" or "he was doing things he shouldn't to children" but tech-crime gets a glazed look from all the buzzwords.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well duh! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Well duh! (Score:5, Interesting)
* because the general populace understand "he killed her" or "he was doing things he shouldn't to children" but tech-crime gets a glazed look from all the buzzwords.
Yeah, but they still understand "he stole $10 million" just fine. Additionally, there's the whole 'fear of the unknown' thing. Remember Mitnick getting solitary because they were afraid he could whistle 9600 baud into a payphone, hack the computers controlling nukes, and start WWIII?
Also, people are paranoid of identity theft. Don't use tech jargon, the prosecutor only has to explain to the public that some dirtbag stole the identities of 200,000 people or whatever. Identity theft is enough of a perceived threat that Visa and other card companies use it in commercials.
I think if it's broken down simply enough, the public will certainly understand.
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The parasitic scumbags, AKA politicians, really don't know what "the internet" is, and failing that, will not under any circumstances waist time on things that don't give them the opportunity to mug, posture and pontificate on camera!
If it doesn't have the following:
"The Children"
"Gun control"
"Get tough on (the war on) drugs/crime"
"the SURGE (success/failure)"
"EYERAQ"
"Oil"
It probably won't be addressed.
It's all about..
Meee! Meee! Meee! Pay attention to Meee!
worthless whores, all of them, they should all w
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So that would be summarised as "Prosecutors go for cases that make them look good" and "Prosecutors avoid cases where the crime isn't as well understood"* then?
* because the general populace understand "he killed her" or "he was doing things he shouldn't to children" but tech-crime gets a glazed look from all the buzzwords.
That would be somewhat understandable, but you can't tell me the public doesn't understand he hoovered old ladies' bank accounts.
So it would be better summarized as they go after sensational crimes that score political points rather than the ones that do the most harm to society.
Hmmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Second look at becoming an Online Criminal!
Seriously though, as a basically honest person and an IT geek I find it incredibly frustrating to hear stuff like this. It's bad enough that non-specialist IT folk (general net admins and support people) get paid fuck-all despite that they are the backbone of the IT world. But to find that with a minimal amount of study and a willingness to break multiple laws you can essentially double, triple or quadruple your income and NOBODY BOTHERS TO HUNT YOU DOWN FOR IT is incredibly depressing. More and more it seems, honesty is rewarded with a kick in the crotch, and being a societal leech is rewarded with cash payouts and bling.
Why am I an honest person again?
Not just online... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at law enforcement in general, and it's not just a US problem, petty crime has a pretty bad interest by police period.
If a citizen isn't essentially holding the criminal for police to arrive(like in the case of shoplifting), or the crime happens in front of the officer, if it's not violent they really don't do much.
So things like car theft, burglary of unoccupied homes, etc... All low priority. Heck, I've heard of burlary rings that don't even care of a house is alarmed - police response time is so slow that they have time to steal everything they want and leave before the police arrive. One was even spoofing the alarm people, delaying things even more.
This, of coures, irks the heck out of me because I hate to see crime pay, and effective law enforcement is a good way to ensure that it doesn't. Every crime that 'pays off' encourages them in the future.
Re:Not just online... (Score:5, Informative)
So things like car theft, burglary of unoccupied homes, etc... All low priority. Heck, I've heard of burlary rings that don't even care of a house is alarmed - police response time is so slow that they have time to steal everything they want and leave before the police arrive. One was even spoofing the alarm people, delaying things even more.
I have a cop friend who works day and he says the same thing about Alarm systems. They are pretty much worthless except for letting people at home know when their perimeter has been breached. Reason cops don't care about alarms is 4 out of 5 times, it's a false alarm. Kid forgets to shut it off. Dog jumped up at something and set off motion detectors, high wind jiggled loose a door that wasn't properly closed. So unlike the ads ADT shows, cops don't run lights and sirens, they just drive over and check it out at their leisure.
4 out of 5 (Score:2)
If it's real then I'm surprised that 1 out of 5 times it's actually real. That seems awfully high. I did a quick search and although
http://www.policemag.com/Articles/2008/06/False-Burglar-Alarms.aspx
indicates that it's a problem, it doesn't give any numbers.
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Unless someone's life is explicitly in danger, they aren't coming out in full force.
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Hopefully they'll at least respond.
Back in high school, I clerked a convenience store that got robbed. I hit my silent alarm, but got no response. After the robber left, I tried to call 911 - I couldn't. The silent alarm used the phone line to call out and was tying up the line. I had to wait ~10 minutes (may be exaggerating) for the phone line to open up so that I could call in.
The dispatcher told me that she saw the alarm come in but was waiting to hear from me in case I'd hit it on accident...
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If a citizen isn't essentially holding the criminal for police to arrive(like in the case of shoplifting), or the crime happens in front of the officer, if it's not violent they really don't do much.
So things like car theft, burglary of unoccupied homes, etc... All low priority.
Most of the time it would imply that noone saw the person(s) in question, often they don't know exactly when it was committed and even if you could put a suspect near the crime scene it's tough to prove it's your man. I'm sure we'd love to see CSI put on their ass but they're nowhere nearly as effective as on TV and extremely expensive. With alarms there's at least a chance there'll be a free police patrol nearby, adding some risk into it. Better locks might take them longer to get through, as would solid d
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You're right, often there just isn't enough evidence. But when the person has the serial numbers of the stolen stuff, and it shows up in a local pawnshop, who HAS the ID of the seller, what's preventing them from following up at that point?
When the dude with the stolen laptop manages to track it down, going so far as to hand the police an ADDRESS.
Sure, there's lots of petty criminals. I figure that if we were more effective at catching them for a while, there'd quickly be a lot less of them.
Re:Not just online... (Score:5, Interesting)
Your point on a local pawn shop is something that struck a nerve with me. I had a laptop and a gun among other things stolen from a van. There are 5 pawn shops in the county and the cops only checked the ones within the city limits. In my state, there is a pawn card submitted to the police detailing the pawned item and the identity of whoever sold/pawned it. But there is no central database or anything making sure that any serial numbers would be accurate or anything.
I actually found my gun, a Dan Wesson .357 magnum sitting in a pawn show just outside the city limits and called the sheriff which should have also had a copy of the theft report. Evidently, the pawn shop entered the serial number wrong on accident but I have my suspicions on that. When I was phoning the sheriff the clerk attempted to take the gun into the back room to make it disappear as if he knew it was stolen. I practically got into a fight with him to keep it out in the open until the law could show up. They ran the numbers and I got it back after they did ballistics tests on it for some reason. The cop wasn't interested in the fact that they didn't report the correct serial number or that the clerk was attempting to remove the gun.
I later found some 2 way FRS radios in a pawnshop inside the city limits that looked like mine. I purchased them as a replacement only to find that they were mine when I was recording the serial numbers. They claimed they did a merchandise swap with the other pawn shop to keep fresh martial in stock. Again, the cop wasn't interested in any details. I went to the state AGs office which lit some fires under the right asses someone from the state was investigating the claims. About 4 months later, My laptop was returned in a broken and unrepairable state- the pawn shop listed the serial number on the battery to get around any obvious number. Evidently, the clerk was buying known stolen merchandise and fudging around with the numbers in order to prevent being discovered. They busted around 10 other people who were stealing the things.
Anyways, all this was possible because the local cops didn't go beyond "local" and didn't do anything more then what was absolutely necessary to get their salary. Oh.. and the person who stole the gun and laptop, they got busted for "possession of stolen property" instead of theft or anything like that. One served 6 months, the other had time served waiting for trial and they both got 5 years probation.
Your right, there should be ways to catch these people. But at least in my experience, they assign those to the least productive member of the force. For all I know, that cop could have been in on the burglary ring and fencing operation but I'm just throwing that out with no proof or anything. I'm Just talking from a gut feeling on how this could happen.
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Probably the ballistics tests were done because it's not unlikely a stolen gun might have been used in a crime between the time it was stolen and the time it was pawned. I'm surprised you got it back at all... in some places it would have been held as "evidence" until it vanished.
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It took them quite a while to give it back. I kept pestering them and keep asking if I needed a lawyer.
But you probably right, I am very lucky. That gun was a present from my grandfather on my 21st birthday. It was the only time he gave me a gun instead of "letting me buy one" from him. And grandpa isn't around any more. Perhaps that was why I was so persistent with it.
Stole a gun!!! (Score:2)
Oh.. and the person who stole the gun and laptop, they got busted for "possession of stolen property" instead of theft or anything like that. One served 6 months, the other had time served waiting for trial and they both got 5 years probation.
Arggggle!
Yes, I know the gun was likely cheaper than the laptop(this being /.). Still gun theft is a FELONY.
I might be a gun toting libertarian who's bugged various officials, but gun theft is one of the things I support coming down like a ton of bricks for.
Anyways, a
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So if a police department takes even petty crimes seriously, it can have some very good effects. First is the reduction in the crime rate - fewer petty crimes still reduce crime rates and insurance costs.
What do you expect a declining crime rate to do to a police department's budget? Particularly in the area of salaries? It's not clear to me that cops always have a strong incentive to reduce the crime rate, per se.
I'm not suggesting that this attitude prevails, or is pervasive, but the economist in me not
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Online wise - I know there's some huge jurisdictional problems, because many of the scammers are overseas. I just think we could still do SOMETHING.
That is why we humans, in a fit of brilliance, decided to create something known as the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). To pass on the evidence, and let other countries deal with it.
But the problem with this is that every country says: "Fuck it, it's someone else's problem, let them deal with it. Why should I investigate it just so they get to arrest the perpetrator?". And these criminals get away free as birds.
Interpol - good for some things, not for others... (Score:2)
But the problem with this is that every country says: "Fuck it, it's someone else's problem, let them deal with it. Why should I investigate it just so they get to arrest the perpetrator?".
Don't forget that many of these criminals work in states more or less friendly to them. Nigeria, China, etc... Though China might be mostly due to sheer population.
In some countries, it does work pretty well though.
And these criminals get away free as birds.
Besides the hostile country problem, you also get countries wh
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Oh, I agree. Especially about the gun theft.
It is sad but I think the police and prosecution which is spurred by the police's requests, simply aren't proactive in law enforcement. This leads to more serious crimes in which they can claim they need more officers, funding, overtime, and whatever else benefits them. It also leads to the police working on "serious cases" because they let the minor ones escalate into serious offenses. I'm not for a hard line put the screws to everyone who messes up type person.
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I guess I would be considered an authoritarian about right now, but I'm not sure I care.
Well, I'm a libertarian and I agree with you. I just happen to think that a number of things that are crimes now shouldn't be. Specifically: Guns*, drugs**, and prostitution***. There are a few other things that need adjustment, but those are the big ones.
Remaining crime - the ones with actual victims, I want the police to come down on like the angry hammer of thor on.
*Possession and carrying of
**18+, cut with safe m
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Well, I would agree in all of those that shouldn't be a crime but I can see where some laws would need to remain. Drugs for instance, if your under the influence of them and cause harm to me either directly or by reckless and impaired behavior, and the use of those drugs had an influence, you should be punished more so then if you simply had an accident. Unfortunately, there isn't really a test for most drugs like with alcohol were they can say with this amount in your system, you are impaired enough to be
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Drugs for instance, if your under the influence of them and cause harm to me either directly or by reckless and impaired behavior, and the use of those drugs had an influence, you should be punished more so then if you simply had an accident.
Agreed, generally speaking.
Unfortunately, there isn't really a test for most drugs like with alcohol were they can say with this amount in your system, you are impaired enough to be a danger to others.
You'd be surprised on how quickly this would be fixed - we already ha
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I'm not so sure about that. Take something like marijuana for instance. There are a range of things from industrial accidents to operating heavy machinery where is something happens and any drugs are in the system, the person who tested positive gets the blame. In some states, the employer
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I also think that the lack of this test is probably a big factor in why pot isn't legal.
And I don't because while they currently concentrate on tests that test longevity, there are those that don't, just like there are some of the same tests for drinking, but they're hardly known or developed because there's no demand.
Yea, Not good is it. At least with it being against the law, there might be some penalties to anyone forcing someone into this type of situation and there is an attempt to remove it by making
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I would think that anyone being blamed for an industrial accident because they had THC in the system from 2 weeks ago would be demand enough. When you have workers being denied compensation for the same when they are injured on the job and so on, there is a demand for them to
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I could believe it is there wasn't "enough" demand but I refuse to believe there is no demand.
Very good point. Yes, not enough demand is a much better statement
What matters is that the perception of the alternatives is worse then the abuse.
The perception of abused people everywhere - whether they be whore or wife, legal or illegal. Sad but true.
Because you would want specific conditions like disease free girls and such and those addons would end up being luxury items that increase the price.
I believe that
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They do so right now. Well, they don't really go looking for a diseased girls (perhaps someone with a disease already) but they hook up with streetwalkers and lot lizards who aren't certified clean for $50 instead of $200.
Actually, driving is perm
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First, sorry about the 100% italics post earlier. Should have previewed.
They do so right now. Well, they don't really go looking for a diseased girls (perhaps someone with a disease already) but they hook up with streetwalkers and lot lizards who aren't certified clean for $50 instead of $200.
They don't currently have the option.
If you were to ask if it was legal or illegal to drive a car, the only correct answer would be illegal unless you have a drivers license, insurance, and permission from the owner o
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It happens. I just had to remember what I said. NO biggies. I know your not a moron.
Actually, they do have the option. Just not through a legal venue. You can find all sorts
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Maybe it is a difference in english or something
Difference in perspective? In my area saying something is illegal tends to imply a blanket ban.
Not everyone can find a one room studio apartment for $300 a month. I have a sister with 3 kids and it costs her $6 an hour for a babysitter for all three ($2 a kid which from what I understand is cheap in my area).
I actually wasn't figuring on a studio. I was figuring on them sharing an apartment. I share a tent with six other dudes for six months at a time - I figure they can put up with two or three others.
As for the kids, well, I don't believe that minimum wage should be 'sufficient' for a custodial single parent, much less one with three kids. At some point the government just needs to realize that it's cheaper to p
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Perhaps it is perspective. It's just like asking your mom if you can do something when your were five or something. You know your not allowed unless she permits you to. It just seems logical that if you have to get permissions from the government before it is legal, then it is permitted. Maybe I'm looking at it too closely. But legal to me means I don't have to get any permission first like buying alcohol if you
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The cop wasn't interested...
I'm going to lose my spend mod points, but that's ok.
The Police get their funding from politicians that want to show they're being "tough on crime". What if there wasn't crime? There would be no reason to give them increasingly larger amounts of funding. Therefore, it's counterproductive for the police to actually do their job and stamp out crime! They're job is to make sure crime doesn't pass a certain threshold where the public would lose faith in them... and luckily TV shows like America's Most Wanted, C
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Cops in really nice neighborhoods are well-funded. Really nice neighborhoods get that way because the cops are effective, and crime is rare. All they have to do is publicize the occasional burglary or rape (things that will never go away in any neighborhood) and they get the PR they need to keep their budget.
It's completely cynical to think that the system is keeping crime alive for PR benefit. First, they don't have to; criminals are who they are and we can't change that. Second, the cops are almost al
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they get the PR they need to keep their budget.
Not to mention an effective department being able to crow about things like high crime clearance rates, low rates crime rates in general. Being able to respond quickly and competently to demands, giving the citizens a sense of the department being effective.
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Oh.. and the person who stole the gun and laptop, they got busted for "possession of stolen property" instead of theft or anything like that
Probably because they couldn't prove it was the same guy that broke into your van.
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While the cops certainly could have done a better job, I think it also shows that criminals adapt to police procedure. I don't think it was coincidental that the cops routinely check all pawn shops in the city and your stolen goods happen to show up at a pawn shop right outside the city limits. The clerk probably knew that they never got inquries about things stolen in the city. The clerk probably knew that even if you typo'd a serial noone ever complained about it. You messed up their system exactly becaus
Pawn shops and such... (Score:2)
I don't think it was coincidental that the cops routinely check all pawn shops in the city and your stolen goods happen to show up at a pawn shop right outside the city limits.
Very true. Of course, the whole ID thing and entry of serial numbers into databases is because for a long time an alternative name for a pawn shop was 'fence'.
The clerk probably knew that they never got inquries about things stolen in the city. The clerk probably knew that even if you typo'd a serial noone ever complained about it.
Th
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At least they got some jail time. I agrees it sucks. and your probably right in the revenue stream idea. It probably works like that more often then not in most states.
Re:Hmmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
And it's not just "minor" stuff like phishing or spamming, or scamming people with "nigerian" mails that's riskfree, I've had a few cases were we or our customers reported people who used stolen creditcards, people who were traceable since they were stupid enough to use their own home connection (in other words, I had their real IP-address and logs with timestamps)... and the police (in Sweden) basically said "sorry, we don't have the time, manpower or competence to do anything".
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Maybe it's time to get a new job and offer some "cleaning" services.
I just have to buy some large buckets and fast-setting concrete first.
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'Cause they haven't taken your red stapler away yet?
Look on the bright side! (Score:5, Funny)
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If it were possible to smoke pot on the internet(thc/ip?) we would be wasting most of our time prosecuting that.
Posting to slashdot is about as harmful to productivity but I won't tell the narcs if you won't.
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Go get them... (Score:2, Insightful)
When it's as straight forward as this, and they trick people to actualy get their useless software, (which doesn't protect you at all, it just infects other PC's), it's just plain evident that there's no one interested in going after criminals even in plain sight. **sigh**
Just makes Symantec Ghost and Acronis more important to use...
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And then see a hundred slashdot posts insisting that a) it's all Microsoft and/or the user's fault for allowing/installing malware, b) that the young malware creator is just a precocious geek, and companies should hire them for being such brilliant malware creators.
which would you prefer to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spend your day looking at smut or crawling through log files for dodgy transactions?
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Re:which would you prefer to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats because we really need to change name of our country so we can use the more appropriate three letter abbreviation: CYA.
Think TSA security. Why do we have a DHS? Its not because we know we need all this security. Very rational and well informed analysis has been done thats shown that we probably need NO increase in security at airports since 9/11.
What it comes down to is this: If you are a politician who has to be elected every 2-4 years or so, you know that if you oppose funding even the fakest of security measures (like creation of the DHS), and there is an attack, then you are going to have to "answer for" being the guy who opposed protection.
If you vote for it, you can fall back on "we did all we could". If you don't, then you are screwed because you "did nothing". Now... is a person who is in that situation of literally risking their jobs for not "looking tough" is the person who SHOULD be in charge of budget decisions?
Look at judges. In many places they are elected. So, if they let some guy off, and he goes out and rapes a child, guess who isn't getting re-elected?
Now... do you think that if you are standing in court, do you want to have your fate decided by a guy whose very job could be lost if he goes too easy on you? Of course, "man wrongly jailed" gets some ire up, but it seldom gets anyone, much less judges, tossed out in elections.
Never mind an innocent man, how about a guy who is guilty of making a stupid mistake that looks worst than it was (like someone who was caught taking a piss in an alleyway by a mother and her kid, and is then charged with exposing himself to a child)... seriously... do you expect a judge to risk his job going easy on you?
Its sad that we have made justice such a game. I know they say lovers of sausage and law should watch the creation of neither, but, man.... how can people know whats going on and still have ANY respect left for this system?
-Steve
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Start with some known criminals (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me when Sony have been prosecuted [wikipedia.org] for the crime [wikipedia.org] of contravening the Computer Misuse Act [wikipedia.org] in my country... and maybe then I'll care.
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You forget the United States is owned and operated by media companies.
Big Fish (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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It get's too seperated out.
The police just want to meet their quota for arrests without getting in trouble for really blatant wrongful arrests.
The prosecutor is expected to try his hardest for a conviction even if it's clear to him looking at the evidence that he's got that the defendant is innocent.
The judge is supposed to be the one who is impartial and decideds but at the same time isn't really required to understand the crime or how it was commited so crimes which involve technology or hard to understan
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Financial crimes... not so much. We're squeamish about sending white collar criminals who really hurt their victims to prison for very, very long periods of time in prisons which are scary. I think part of it is the bias; they don't always look like scary malcontents who should be permanently removed from society even though they are predators.
Prison isn't just a punishment but a way to protect society. Pretty much the only way to protect society from rapists and murderers is to lock them up.
Some dude who makes fraudulent mortgage applications is much easier to control without keeping him physically contained. Putting his name on a list of people banned from banking is good enough. Why should he go to an actual prison?
There might be a few financial crimes that are prison-worthy but it's hard to come up with examples. They're pretty much limited t
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They're pretty much limited to small time scammers who go around and personally scam people.
I'm less worried about those. While it is a cliche, it is true that it's much harder to con an honest man, and thus most of the face-to-face scammers come up with scams that would be illegal to participate in if they were legit. Or at least most 'long cons' are.
They do this because people are a lot more likely to be secretive, and a lot less likely to report the crime afterwards, if they believe their actions are
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If your buddy had had a worse lawyer (and he could easily have) or a less coherent judge (and he could easily have; some jurisdictions have no minimum qualification for judgeship other than "he was elected") then that prosecutor could have put him in jail.
The legal system isn't about right and wrong. It's about the perception of the person making the decision between guilt and innocence. If that's a biased judge or juror, you have your work cut out for you.
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Financial crimes... not so much. We're squeamish about sending white collar criminals who really hurt their victims to prison for very, very long periods of time in prisons which are scary. I think part of it is the bias; they don't always look like scary malcontents who should be permanently removed from society even though they are predators.
I think the Chinese are actually a bit ahead of us on prosecuting white collar crimes.
Headline: Four executed in China for bank fraud.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3657708.stm [bbc.co.uk]
No great mystery why (Score:4, Interesting)
they are "preferring ... to concentrate on higher profile solicitation and pornography cases."
Would you rather sort through a bunch of bogus domain names, email addresses, offshored servers etc. to catch some pimple faced phisher, or look at porn all day and chat with online babes? For most people it is a 'no brainer.'
Just like in the old days working for the vice squad had certain 'benefits', working porno and solicitation has certain 'benefits.'
Damn I'm cynical.
Online babes? (Score:2)
Umm, well in the cases of illegal porn they're most likely not targeting online babes, so more likely they'll be chatting we "fat dude in mom's basement pretending to be an online babe" while simultaneously posing as a 14-year-old talking to online pervs.
Doesn't really sound like all that much fun to me, and I *really* don't think that the pictures/porn traded in those situations is going to be all that pleasant.
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"Napoleon, don't be jealous because I've been talking to hot babes on the internet all day."
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LMAO. Thanks, I totally forgot about that line.
It isn't about "high profile" (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are a few other considerations to make:
First, most of our laws were written well before the advent of the internet, and determining how to apply them wisely in contexts that they were never designed for is difficult for even the best judicial minds.
Second, of those laws written with the internet in mind, nearly all were heavily influenced by politics and corporate interest, and are either ineffectual or biased.
Third, there is a difficult time applying the US Federal Rules of Evidence [cornell.edu] as regards expert
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You can sue the thief.
Probably because... (Score:5, Interesting)
...most incidences of online theft are under the magical felony number which makes an individual counts of fraud usually not worth pursuing.
I've had my ID stolen and used to exploit Household Bank's lax policies no fewer than 3 times by the same person, from the same address, in Chicago.
Each time the scumbag ran up just about $4900 then stopped using the account. At $5k it's a felony. They don't even bother sending the police to the guys shipping address because it's not enough for them to get a good case. I expect the next collection call any day now (looks at watch)... You'd think they'd flag my social security number and not give accounts to "me" any more. No they just hand out their money like it ain't no thang.
The people running that bank and working there are scumbags too. The last time around, Household's collector told my wife that I'm having an affair with someone in Chicago. Funny, since I've never been there and I'm home every night, in Maryland, where I live. My wife thought it was hilarious.
Oh well, it's their money I guess. It's kind of a pain in the ass when it happens, but I just tell them "Look you been robbed, again, by the same guy. You might want to flag my social security number and not give accounts to people using my information". Then I call the credit bureau, report the fraud and they take it off my report.
It's the banks causing the problem, not the police. The bank people are stupid. The retail people don't even bother asking for ID. I still can't believe the government is bailing banks out and preventing natural selection from doing it's thing.
This country's laws are written to promote theft and fraud, and our government supports and endorses stupidity. Fraud and socialism is what this country is all about.
-Viz
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Identity theft with criminal intent should be a capital crime...
Yes - flaimebait, but it will sure stop them from repeating...
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No, just a felony.
Apparently, they only apply the same $5k limit as applies to any white-collar theft.
The law needs to be changed so that identity theft, which causes more than just the $5k in damages, is a felony at a much lower monetary level.
Since a smudge like that on a credit report can cost $tens of thousands of lost access to credit, using someone else's identity in the commission of a fraud should immediately be a felony.
Simple to do. Call your state legislator and tell them to change that portion
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I've done it. The guy just calls the credit bureau and removes it. He has the necessary info to do so. The last time, it was re-unfrozen in less than 3 months.
My identity is a tug of war with this guy. I get the feeling from the people at the bureaus that they have no way to know whether or not *I'm* the ID thief.
I appreciate the effort of you trying to help me though.
Calls to Chicago PD are usually met with "What is it you want us to do again?". Nobody gives a shit. Even if they did, I'd have to go to Chic
No surprises here (Score:2)
Of course the authorities don't bother to prosecute online criminals, any more than most metro police departments bother to investigate non-violent property crimes nowadays. You have too many criminals and too few people available to hunt them down. The government gives priority to violent crime and high-profile pubic cases, and everything else falls by the wayside. On top of that, the government won't bother with crimes where no one (including the judge, jury, or prosecutor) can understand the facts of
Cops do what we reward them for (Score:2, Insightful)
Somehow the cops get better publicity for arresting someone for child porn than they do for busting the SOB that stole your grandmother's life savings.
Some years ago, before all porn moved to the internet, someone dumped some porn videos in the river. That led the cops to arrest someone and seize all his tapes. The police chief made a big deal of it. He said we needed a pornography task force. He said he needed more officers. He said he needed a much bigger budget. The trouble was that the vast majori
Police apathy (Score:2)
I recently had someone fraudulently use my credit card info to open accounts in my name on Netflix, Blockbuster.com, and Stamps.com. They were using identity theft to create sock puppet referrals to online services, then use those bogus referrals in one of those Transcendent Innovations promotions (free iPod, free PlayStation, or whatever).
The police took down my information and gave me a case number, but that was the extent of their investigation. The case was never assigned to anyone to actually work, a
Lazy, underfunded, or uncreative? (Score:2)
Porn, you set up a kiddie porn front and nab the downloaders. Sit back for easy fishing. How do you effectively set up a site that says, "Over here, I'm a rube. Phish me! Fleece me! Pwn me!"
I've been waiting for a story like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a cyber/white collar crimes detective for a medium-sized agency. There are so many problems with online crimes right now that I don't even know where to start. But one of the most important things is that people realize some of the problems we face...
1) I know it's popular (especially on slashdot) to bitch about how "Big Brother" is always trying to violate your civil rights for fun. But I will tell you that the red tape is one of the biggest factors in why a lot of online crimes don't get solved. For nearly every online crime, the first step is sending out subpoenas to every company involved. In a fraud case, this means: banks and the company where the order took place. Then once you get those returns, you have to subpoena the ISP to find out what the physical address is. All of these companies take anywhere from a week to 3 months to get you the information back.
2) Once you get all your basic background work on the case done, now you have to physically drive to the address where the activity took place. You want to know what happens to 90% of my cases at the point? Dead end. The idiot has an unsecured wireless router, which means that anyone could have perpetrated the crime. And of course, anyone that is dumb enough to leave their wireless network wide open isn't smart enough to have turned on logging in their router (which is off by default in almost all routers).
3) OK so now what. No we try to look at where the item was shipped, assuming it was an online purchase. Guess what? Nobody ships it to their home address. They ship it to a neighbors, or an abandoned house down the street, or one of the thousands of "work from home repackaging" businesses. OK, so do I go to a judge and try to get a search warrant to search a house where a package was delivered just on the off chance that they were stupid enough to use their real address? NO I can't! Judges want more hard evidence than that.
4) In non-purchase fraud cases (i.e. a person is transferring money around), we follow the money trail just like we do with any other financial crime. Guess where I dead-end here? Stored Value Cards. Get one from overseas, and now they don't have to comply with my subpoena. Dead in the water again.
OK so those are some of the issues in investigating online crimes, specifically fraud cases. Wanna know what the biggest issue is after all of that? I just spent about 30 man-hours investigating that $500 fraud case. I contact the victim to let them know what's going on. They've already been reimbursed by the bank simply by making their initial police report. The bank doesn't give a shit because $500 is nothing to them and they get to turn it in to insurance as a loss.
These are some of the reasons that online crimes aren't getting solved. For every one that I make an arrest on, I have 10 that I've dead-ended on. Unless the credit card companies and banks decide to take a stand and make their financial methods more secured, they're going to continue losing money. So the original story says that only 40% of time is being spend on fraud cases. Yeah that's probably about right. Kiddy porn and child solicitation cases may not seem as serious to some people, but they're so much more cut and dry. That's like saying that more robberies are solved than burglaries... they're 2 entirely different crimes with different sets of parameters.
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Thanks for posting this. I now have something to point to when I tell people why I'm slightly paranoid about my information and people collecting data on me they don't need.
Because ... (Score:2)
... when they go after real world vice cases, the cops have to spend their time (and public money) working undercover, buying lap dances at the local strip joint.
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Actually probably not.
Studies of how people actually determine whether or not to commit a crime show pretty definitively that it is NOT the severity of punishment but the likelyhood of being caught that factors into peoples decisions.
Thats not to say that increased penalties don't decrease crime, just that the effects are utterly dwarfed by increasing the chance of being caught.
One great example is car theft. An independant study found that a mere 1% increase in lojack sales corresponds to as much as a 20%
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What do you have against Marlon Brando?