Top cop: e-crime is the new drugs

Forget guns, gangs and porn - one of Britain's top cops has said that e-crime is the most significant criminal threat facing the UK, and that the government is failing to respond effectively. Chief Constable Ian Johnston, Head of Crime at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and boss of the British Transport Police …

[Anonymous Coward]

"it would be easier to shut down the Stock Exchange electronically than to do it with a bomb"

I doubt that; evidence?

[b shubin]

Soft round

"...no golden bullet." perhaps a silver one would work better, against that terrorist werewolf hacker you seek; and for the vampire trojan mastermind, may i suggest a wooden stake?

if the Home Secretary's speech is any measure of government understanding of technology, perhaps the UK should go back to paper and pencil, so as not to wind up in the clink due to some absurd laws that Labor hastily created (to address a huge public outcry stoked by the police, not that they would ever...). who needs IT, when it may lead to prison?

[FlatSpot]

Die Hard 4

I see the FBI have passed on their copy of Die Hard4 to the Chief Constable....

[Anonymous Coward]

....lacked cohesive government backing.

When we get a cohesive government then you can have cohesive backing.

[Slaine]

can I just add

if you re-read that article you can probably find 20 or 30 different reasons why I'm not going to say anything relevent at all... It's a complete waste of my time and that of the dear censors because not one of the comments, however valid, astute or humerous will be permissible. However... now that I AM here... I did just notice a comment about a need to instill fear in the government. Now THAT is a VERY good idea.

Finally, to end the week and take the article completely out of context, I quote...

We need to terrify, encourage or excite them ... the government ... currently has a budget of £1.3m ... to ... spend ... on pornography

And a very happy weakend to all my helicopters.

[Matt]

Perhaps

PC plod get get his thumb out of his backside ans sort out some real crime instead of wasting time on this. In fact isn't wasting police time an offence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarification needed

"Some [UK police] forces don't have a high-tech crime unit at all," he said. "Those that do spend 90 per cent of their time on child pornography."

Investigating or downloading?

[davenewman]

All fraud uses computers

According to a digital forensics specialist from Deloitte's in Dublin, today all fraud is e-fraud. If you are going to do a fraud, you would be stupid not to use computers. Fraudsters are not stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

The close the stock exchange at 5pm

"It would be easier to shut down the Stock Exchange electronically than to do it with a bomb," said Johnston.

Well no, the easiest way is to turn the clocks forward to 5pm so the dealers all go home.... since nothing bad happens when the stock exchange closes, they close it each night and at weekends after all.....

As a terrorist plot, closing the stock exchange early is not very terrifying!

[George]

Top cop: e-crime is the new drugs

And also not forgetting:

"Getting headlines is the new work"

[Jonathan]

Nothing to see here

He's holding a broom, standing over a rug with a strange lump in it and no dirt in sight. Nothing to see here folks, lets tackle e crime and global warming.

"Whats that you say? People getting stabbed and shot? Youths beating up people and getting away with it? No, those are minor crimes. Transport For London not safe? I'm a Transport Police officer, of course its safe. As I was saying, e-crime is where its at."

Right. This is so sad. Wake me when they admit there is a problem.

[Solomon Grundy]

Police Terror

Think the police are scary now? With this new initiative they have obviously decided that terrorizing the general public isn't good enough, they've got to terrify the government too.

While I'm all for terrifying the government, that fear should come from the people, not a vigilante force disguised as defenders of those in need.

Pseudo-military organizations are usually the groups that end up causing the most civil unrest. Leaders must have the foresight to cut off the head of this snake before it is too late and Parliament is staffed by appointed "police". Disband the police now, or at least reorganize it and install some more bureaucracy.

[Rob]

@ Slaine

Indeed. As the man said: "People shouldn't be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

[Anon Koward]

@AC "It would be easier to shut down the Stock Exchange..."

From a point of view that is correct but one must remember the scale here:

It would only be marginally easier to spend the vast amount of time and energy to either insert some malicious worm into an Exchange feed or some extremely elaborate DoS attack than it would be to obtain enough C4 to blow out multiple DC's that contain the core of the various Exchanges.

Either route would require a large amount of money, planning and knowledge

[Andy ORourke]

Where do I report e-crime

I know of 3 large organisations that are about to start intercepting users’ data without their knowledge or permission and use it for personal gain.........

[Anonymous Coward]

"Some [UK police] forces don't have a high-tech crime unit at all,"

Ah, that's why Phorm are getting away with it then.

[Anon Koward]

@AC "The close the stock exchange at 5pm"

So true, in fact at one Bank I worked at they found one day when our trading systems went down the bank in fact made money because all those pesty traders weren't adjusting their positions constantly!

Traders, bless em..

[Peter Ingram]

Computer searches at the train stations?

We are having unprecidented amounts of stop and searches at the railway stations in Scotland under the direct orders of Ian Johnston, using the Terrorism Act - so is he now pushing for the powers to search our computers, phones and MP3 players as well - in the off-chance they might catch a baddie?

It gets more like 1984 all the time.

[ImaGnuber]

Here's your opportunity

"McMurdie suggested that the PCeU would benefit hugely from IT industry involvement, perhaps extending to staff on secondment from the tech biz."

So here is an opportunity for all the expert nay-sayers here to rush down there and tell them what should be done and how to do it.

Should I stand clear of the stampede?

Didn't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ImaGnuber

you ever dealt with any of the public services?

Better off drowning yourself before hand to save yourself the demoralising, dehumanizing experience.

[ImaGnuber]

@AC Re:Ima

"you ever dealt with any of the public services?"

Oh yes. I understand your sentiment. I just get tired of people whining about, or criticising, things you know they'd never do anything about.

Bitching is just useless noise in that situation.

Also there are some quite competent people in public service and some of them are police officers who would be quite open to competent help. I know - I've met them.

Perhaps it's different situation in your country... but I doubt it.

[Brian Miller]

@AC: Squirrel shuts down NASDAQ

The first thing I thought of was when a squirrel shut down NASDAQ in 1994 by chewing through some yummy electrical insulation. Same thing happened to Microsoft a couple of years ago when a squirrel brought down part of the campus' power for a day.

[Schultz]

Do Panic,

and give all your money to law inforcement!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great joy, I feel safer already.

Is that e-crime like online fraud? Oh no, that's the bank's responsibility to police financial transactions. Assuming you don't have to take them to court to admit it.

OK, how about ISPs who promise unlimited broadband and then fail to deliver? Oh no, that's Ofcom's job. Like they're actually going to do anything for the consumer.

So the police are going to do what exactly? Or is this just them trying to justify why, in a free society, they have to monitor all electronic traffic, like they would if it was a police state, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state).

As has been noted on these forums before, Chief Constables are the new all powerful Czars. And also, "our government" isn't trying to protect us - it's trying to control us.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Flatspot

"I see the FBI have passed on their copy of Die Hard4 to the Chief Constable...."

The real crime is that they did that to the Die Hard series.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear

Last week I recieved an email from one of our clients (a bank) with the passwords for 5 zip files of client data (their current security policy dictates that emails are secure). The following day I recieved 5 CD's via courier containing the zip files (of about 3M each so god knows why 5 CD's), plus to be extra helpful they'd included the passwords on a post it note stuck to the front of each cd case.

If anyone wants to know why data crime is rife then look no further than the banks themselves. They implement data security policy which no one bothers to follow. We've set them up password protected HTTPS upload functionality and SFTP connections but apprarently it's not covered in their current security documentation so zip encrypted CDs are the way forward.

[Anonymous Coward]

Johnston of the (goods) yard

Could it be that the British Transport Police (incorporating the Royal Parks Police since 2005), is one of those forces without a hi-tech crime unit? And is it conceivable it doesn't actually need one?