Cyber-Crime

1) Police are going to popular online communities to see if people are dumb enough to post evidence online. And, Y'know what? They are.

2) An interview with Chris Painter deputy chief of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Department of Justice:

When I started doing this, society wasn't as dependent on computers and computer networks as it is now. The kind of attacks we saw were more singular -- they used to be the result of lone gunmen, if you will, who were more interested in doing it to show they could. But more and more we are seeing a couple things. One is a merger between the criminal groups -- the groups who were using the Internet as a new tool to reach new victims -- and the more sophisticated hackers. What that means is that these kinds of hacking attacks are more and more done for a monetary motive. And we've also seen the rise of organized criminal groups. There have been some examples recently where organized criminal groups were hacking into systems and then extorting companies.

3) Some people are surprised by the amount of online crime:

''When I took this job a year and a half ago, I didn't think we would find any computer crime. But there are a lot of individuals out there,'' said Special Agent Brett Banner, administrator of the Mid-Michigan Area Computer Crimes Task Force, based in Bay City.

4) From Nigeria:

There is need to devise means to stop perpetrators of internet crime. There is need to secure the present global village, mega businesses and the posterity from the protracted evil of cyber crime without delay.

5) Maine's Legislature is trying to expand it's cyber-crime task force.

6) Some departments are trying to even the odds with better software.

7) In the UK they're trying to update their computer law.

8) And finally, how can we expect normal people to obey the law when Best Buy is stealing software?