back to article Europe to assemble crack cyber-intelligence nerve centre

Brussels hopes to establish a European Cybercrime Centre within the continent's police agency Europol by the start of January. The centre proposed by the European Commission will focus on thwarting online banking fraud, attacks against smartphones, and large-scale coordinated assaults on public services and infrastructure. …

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  1. Bristol Dave
    Thumb Down

    Familiar

    "The centre proposed by the European Commission will focus on thwarting online banking fraud, attacks against smartphones, and large-scale coordinated assaults on public services and infrastructure. Other priorities will include protecting social network profiles, halting ID theft and combating the sexual exploitation of children online."

    Mmmmm, smells like EU-wide "great firewall of China" to me.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      crack squad

      Led by politicians who have no idea

  2. Jop
    Coat

    Oh noes

    So the next time I do a few 'security checks' on a small company website before thinking about giving them my credit card number for a purchase.....it could land me in jail for 2 to 5 years?

    As with everything, it will start out as means to fight crime/terrorism/other evil and then will be used to curb freedom of speech and spy on us all.

  3. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Unhappy

    And their definition of 'hacking' is what, precisely?

    1. Martyns

      quite. they use the word as if it means something evil. twats.

  4. Turtle

    Does not suffice.

    "the maximum penalty set at two years or more, or at least five years if there are aggravating factors - such as financial motivation or attacks that cause widespread disruption."

    It is very easy to imagine "cyber-crimes" for which those penalties are grossly insufficient.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Works 4 me

    Hack and go to prison for a long time - five years minimum.

    1. Jop
      Facepalm

      Re: Works 4 me

      You get less time for murder.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Works 4 me

        Murders should be executed to make room for hackers and pirates in prison.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Works 4 me

      I hack every day. And all I get for my efforts is a lousy pay check at the end of every month :(

  6. Graham Wilson
    Black Helicopters

    It's time for a new MkII internet.

    Leave this one intact. There has to be somewhere for the myriads of government agencies and security experts to hang out and annoy the masses.

    Now, when I surf this internet, I get an uneasy squeamish feeling my scrotum is covered with crabs all spying on me with evil intent.

    It's time for a new crab-free on-line experience (like it was 15 years ago).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's time for a new MkII internet.

      It's called Tor. It's slow, annoying, and it takes forever to download a jpeg. It's just like surfing the web pre 1990.

  7. The Cube
    Stop

    Won't change anything for normal people

    I'll bet the local plod still won't let you report a crime if it was in any way electronic, you'll still get the usual BS "report it to your bank sir" even though it is your bank or credit card company who are most likely responsible for the feeble security that allowed the non-crime to happen and will spend months dicking you about before you get a single penny back from them.

    Cybercrime laws are there to protect rich companies and governments, not the people they are elected to serve, I won't be holding my breath waiting for this one to be any different.

    If there is the slightest sign of this law being halfway decent then the banks and other lobbyists will be all over it like a rash to derail it before they have to learn how to spell "security". Here's a suggestion to make the criminals running the banks and credit card companies pay attention, whatever is stolen from their customers every year due to their feeble security comes off the personal bonus pool for the board of directors. We can apply this to the extortion scam that is "credit reference agencies" too, the total national losses from identity fraud where a "credit reference agency" sold credit check data to support the fraud without the permission of the person whom the data refers to should be paid by the "credit reference agencies". That would get rid of the leeches fast enough.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dunno about anyone else; but I'm seeing some really well-funded mission-creep as a problem with this.

  10. Crisp
    Go

    It's just like Cyber Intelligence

    But on crack!

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