In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon likens
history to “little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes
of mankind”. And when the history of the Internet comes to be
written—hopefully not after a demise of Roman proportions—crime will
certainly figure big time. So much so that the US government has just earmarked
an incredible $2 billion to fight cybercrime—and US Attorney
General Janet Reno wants a big slice of it to set up a Net crime squad
(www.naag.org/features/011500reno.html).
Her zero-tolerance round-the-clock online
army would comprise detectives, lawyers and FBI agents all sworn to protect the
innocent while eradicating jurisdiction disputes. Allegedly.
Reno’s reasons are clear: only last week, a hacker based in Russia
attempted to blackmail the online music store cdUniverse.com, saying he had dug
out credit card details on 300 000 of its customers from the firm’s
website—and would post them on the Net unless he got $100 000. The
firm called his bluff—follow the story at www.antionline.com.
To succeed in fighting cybercrime, poachers will have to turn gamekeepers.
The Pentagon is keen to enlist hackers to protect its computers, so some of
those currently sniffing their way through the back doors of systems will soon
be lying in wait for their former online associates
(www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,33443,00.html).
Advertisement
Some Israelis have a cool fix for Net crime: pull the plug. A group of
orthodox rabbis has forbidden the use of the Net among their brethren, reports
The Jerusalem Post
(http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/01/13/Columns/Columns.1273.html).
“The Internet is a danger a thousand times
greater than television, and is liable to bring ruin and destruction upon all of
Israel,” says the Council of Torah Sages. But following its edict, the
Post notes that not a single computer was to be seen gracing a dustbin.
