QuickLinks - Computer crime

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Issue no. 198 - 28 May 2001

• CEO of Lernout & Hauspie arrested (AP)
  The former chief executive of a Belgian-based speech recognition software company was arrested on fraud charges. U.S. Marshals arrested Gaston Bastiaens on a Belgian warrant charging insider trading, stock market manipulation, and violation of bookkeeping laws associated with the collapsed Lernout & Hauspie.

• Cybercrime Fighting Requires Cooperation - Law Enforcers (Newsbytes)
  Local, state and federal authorities must find a way to overcome jurisdictional stovepipes if they want to have any hope of keeping up with the increasing incidence of cybercrime, a panel of law enforcement officers told members of Congress at the first of three hearings on cybercrime.

• La loi belge sur la criminalité informatique (Droit et Nouvelles Technologies)
  Auteurs: Severine Dusollier et Florence de Villenfagne - nouveau dossier, consacré à une analyse complète de la loi belge du 28 novembre 2000 sur la criminalité informatique. voir aussi Pornographie enfantine et Internet : comment réprimer ? Auteur: Thibault Verbiest.

• Les projets d'Enfopol inquiètent la Cnil (Yahoo FR)
  Difficile de trouver un équilibre en matière de criminalité informatique au sein même des instances officielles de chaque pays de l'Union européenne. Face aux volontés démesurées des policiers qui s'expriment au sein du groupe de travail "Enfopol", les différentes commissions nationales "informatique et liberté" tentent de calmer le jeu

• Paedophiles 'in terror plot' (Daily Telegraph)
  Six suspected paedophiles accused of planning "terrorist" attacks on people engaged in Italy's fight against child sexual abuse were arrested. Among those detained in dawn raids were two former policemen and the porter at a primary school in Rome.

• Pioneer Cybercrime Pact Tightens Privacy Rules (Reuters)
  The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online,to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks. see Draft Convention on Cyber-crime (Version No. 27 Revised - Word only). This text prepared by Committee of Experts on Crime in Cyber-Space (PC-CY), will be submitted to the European Committee on Crime Problems (CDPC) at its 50th plenary session (18 - 22 June 2001) . The text then will be submitted to the Committee of Ministers for adoption.

• Russia arrests 'grandfather of cybercrime' (BBC)
  Russian police have dealt a severe blow to the image of computer hacking - by arresting a gang of computer hackers led by a 63-year-old pensioner. His gang of five apparently worked from Moscow internet cafes to steal money from western credit cards.

• Germany - Computerkriminalität drastisch gestiegen (Heise)
  Die Computerkriminalität in Deutschland ist im vergangenen Jahr um 25 Prozent gestiegen. Das geht aus der Polizeilichen Kriminalstatistik 2000 vor.

• USA - Computer crime unit suffers from lack of staff, expertise (CNN)
  An anti-cyberterrorism unit operating within the FBI is failing to provide timely warnings of computer attacks, according to a government report.

• USA - Priest Faces Charge in Internet Sex Case (New York Times)
  In its continuing investigation into pedophilia on the Internet, the Westchester district attorney's office has charged a Roman Catholic priest with sending sexually explicit messages to an investigator who was posing as a 14-year-old boy.

• USA - Supreme Court to review child porn law (Reuters)
  The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Justice Department appeal aimed at allowing the federal government to enforce a 1998 law intended to protect minors from Internet pornography. The justices agreed to review whether a U.S. appeals court properly barred the law's enforcement on constitutional free-speech grounds because it relies on community standards to identify online material harmful to minors.

Issue no. 197 - 21 May 2001

• Automatisierte Netzpatrouille (Heise)
  Das Bundesinnenministerium setzt im Kampf gegen Extremisten und Päderasten auf ein neues "Internet-Ermittlungstool" (INTERMiT), das das Web automatisch auf strafbare Inhalte hin scannen soll.

• Die Gefahren des Niemandslandes (Heise)
  Auf einer Veranstaltung des österreichischen Innenministerium wurde die Cyberkriminalität für gefährlicher als das Organisierte Verbrechen erklärt

• EU condemned over planned 'snoop laws' (BBC)
  Proposals are being put forward to the European Union to make communications companies keep records of all phone calls, e-mails, faxes and net use for seven years, just in case police forces need to search them during criminal investigations. Civil liberty groups and net watchdogs have condemned the plans and said the laws, if passed, would give law enforcement agencies powers denied to repressive regimes. Lack of legislation weak link in EU cyber crime battle (Europemedia.net), Privacy scandal: Dodgy data laws on the way (Silicon) and Statewatch Observatory on Surveillance in Europe (S.O.S. Europe).

• Kinderpornografie im Internet nimmt weiter zu (Heise)
  Knapp zwei Drittel der Internetkriminalität sind nach Angaben von Bayerns Innenminister Günther Beckstein der Kinderpornografie zuzurechnen. Vordringliches Ziel sei, Kinder vor dieser "widerwärtigen und menschenverachtenden Ausbeutung" zu schützen. Bayern hat nach den Worten des CSU-Politikers eine Vorreiterrolle im Kampf gegen die Internetkriminalität

• UK - New curbs on internet paedophiles pledged (Guardian)
  Jack Straw committed Labour to fresh curbs on paedophile activity by introducing stringent new regulations which would allow parents to restrict their children's internet surfing habits - and impose prevention orders on known offenders who "groom" youngsters for potential exploitation in online chatrooms. But the home secretary's intervention on a hyper-sensitive topic during the election campaign drew criticism from both left and right.

• UK - Phone thieves warned: UR4it (Observer)
  Police are to get a new weapon in the fight against the menace of mobile phone thieves: bombardment by text. They will send stolen mobile phones a text message every hour reminding the new owners of the error of their ways.

Issue no. 196 - 15 May 2001

• Australia To Toughen Computer Crime Laws (Computer Daily News)
  The Australian government is planning to get tough on cyber crime. Stepping in to replace laws that were originally drawn up in the 1980s, a bill to go before Parliament shortly will lift the maximum penalty for computer crime to at least ten years in jail.

• Dark side of cybercrime fight (FT)
  An international treaty on law enforcement for the web poses unsettling questions about civil liberties. European negotiators will finish the final draft of a treaty on law enforcement in cyberspace under the auspices of the Council of Europe, a 43-nation intergovernmental body. Several other non-European governments, including the US, have worked on the treaty with the aim of eventually signing it.

• Swedish teenager faces fine for 'unknowing' video game piracy (Ananova)
  A Swedish teenager has appeared in court after allegedly copying PlayStation games on CD copying equipment he received for his birthday.

• France - Un réseau pédophile sur internet démantelé dans 27 départements (AFP)
  Un réseau organisé de trafic d'images pédophiles sur l'internet a été démantelé dans 27 départements français, dont La Réunion, et a donné lieu à 66 interpellations. Les investigations des gendarmes "ont d'ores et déjà permis l'arrestation de l'auteur d'un viol sur mineur qui a été écroué", a précisé la gendarmerie dans un communiqué.

• UK - Home Office may criminalise chatroom 'grooming' (ZDNet UK)
  The Home Office is to propose a controversial "anti-grooming" order, making it a criminal offence for paedophiles to solicit children in Internet chatrooms.

Issue no. 195 - 8 May 2001

• Attorneys General Fear Tech Speed (AP)
  At a National Association of Attorneys General meeting devoted to online legal trends, the chief complaint: The law simply cannot catch up with technology.

• Be very afraid, the cyber cops may be watching (Guardian)
  Barely a week goes by without a report of terrorists or paedophiles misusing the internet, adding to its image of a vast lawless forum. But police are now starting to see the benefits the net can bring. The upbeat chairman of the internet crime forum, detective chief superintendent Keith Akerman, believes it offers police as many opportunities as problems in the fight against crime.

• Deux ans et demi de taule pour un site porno (Transfert)
  Un Français installé en Grande-Bretagne est actuellement en prison pour avoir édité un site porno hard hébergé aux États-Unis. Depuis sa cellule, il proteste contre ses conditions de détention.

• draft Convention on Cyber-crime (Council of Europe)
  (Draft N° 25 REV.)

• IWF crackdown on Net paedophiles gets £100,000 (ZDNet UK)
  The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) announced over £100,000 of additional funding to help implement some of the recommendations contained in the government-backed Chat Wise, Street Wise report.

• Polizei in Niedersachsen braucht Nachhilfe fürs Internet (Heise)
  Auf einer Fachtagung in Hannover forderte die Gewerkschaft der Polizei-Landesbezirk Niedersachsen die Einrichtung eines Internetzugangs für alle Polizeidienststellen. Weil es besonders in den Kommissariaten an Hintergrundwissen über das Internet und die Internet-Kriminalität fehle, forderte er darüber hinaus dringend entsprechende Aus- und Weiterbildungsmassnahmen.

• Russland und Deutschland gemeinsam gegen Kinderpornografie (Heise)
  Russland und Deutschland wollen gemeinsam den kriminellen Missbrauch des Internets unter anderem für die Verbreitung von Kinderpornografie bekämpfen.

• New Zealand - Court rejects appeal by hacker (New Zealand Herald)
  In Crown v Borislav Misic (PDF) The Court of Appeal has ruled that existing laws are sufficient to prosecute hackers committing internet or electronic fraud using hacking software. The appeal raised the question of whether a computer program and a computer disk on which the program was stored comprised a "document".

• UK - Man jailed for internet sex assault (BBC)
  A man has been jailed for 18 months and put on the sex offenders register for 10 years for having sex with a 15-year-old schoolgirl he met via an internet chat room.

• USA - Debating the Ban on Virtual Porn (Wired)
  A federal law that prohibits creating erotic images of minors should be upheld, antiporn groups told the U.S. Supreme Court. The organizations filed a set of amicus briefs saying the Child Pornography Prevention Act, which outlaws even Photoshop-morphed images that "appear" to depict minors, does not violate the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression.

• USA - FBI turns tables on Russian hackers (MSNBC)
  Reflecting a growing frustration with the inability or unwillingness of some foreign governments to fight cybercrime, U.S. authorities have for the first time vaulted across borders and hacked the computers of two suspected Russian computer criminals to obtain evidence against them.

Issue no. 194 - 23 April 2001

• Judge calls for Internet controls on Net paedophilia (ZDNet UK)
  A British judge has called for greater checks on unlawful Internet content after sentencing an Oxford University scholar to five years for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy that he met in a gay Internet chatroom. The judge expressed his concern over the lack of controls in place to monitor Internet content, and to protect children from paedophiles operating in chatrooms.

• Police Say 80 People in Global Child Porn Ring (Reuters)
  Police in Spain working with Interpol broke up the 21-country child pornography network, arresting 7 people in Spain and with one more detention due. Spanish police believe around 80 people were involved in an international child pornography ring.

• UK - New force to tackle cybercrime (BBC)
  A specialist police unit designed to tackle computer-based crime is being launched by the Home Secretary Jack Straw. The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHCTU) will be responsible for tracking down the growing range of criminals who operate in cyberspace. They include organised criminal gangs who use computers to commit fraud, paedophiles who exchange obscene images on the net, and hackers who wreak havoc by writing computer viruses which can disable systems worldwide. See also Launch of the United Kingdom's first National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NCIS : National Criminal Intelligence Service Press Release)

Issue no. 193 - 3 April 2001

• Opinion 4/2001 on the Council of Europe's Draft Convention on Cyber-crime (European Commission)
  Document adopted by the Data Protection Working Party. see also Cybercrime-Konvention: Verstoß gegen Menschenrechts-Abkommen.

• Russia lacks laws to fight child porn explosion (Reuters)
  Over the past few years, the Internet has helped bring about a global explosion of child pornography. Perhaps nowhere has the law proved as inadequate as Russia. Not only does Russia have an unusually low age of consent (14), it also has no law whatsoever against the possession or procurement of child pornography. see also Russians Want Laws on Child Porn (Guardian) Russian police lament lack of laws to combat child porn (Fox News).

• Russian child porn Web site closed (AP)
  Law enforcement officials in the United States and Russia have shut down a Russian Web site that sold videotapes worldwide depicting children performing sexual acts. Many of the tapes, costing $200 to $300, were shipped to the United States. see also U.S. Customs Service, Russian Police Take Down Global Child Pornography Web Site (Press Release) and International child porn ring smashed (BBC).

• UK police swoop on 45 net paedophiles (Silicon)
  Police have used net filtering software to track down a massive ring of suspected paedophiles. The three month investigation, called Operation Appal, led police to the homes of 45 men believed to be involved in the possession and distribution of illegal child pornography. The police used filtering software from SurfControl to help track down users trading illegal images online. see also Boy among 17 held in paedophile swoop (Ananova), Police smash child porn network (The Guardian) and Gardai quiz teen as Net closes in on porn (Irish Independent) .

• UK - Straw launches taskforce to tackle online child porn (Silicon)
  Home Secretary Jack Straw has announced the formation of a taskforce to tackle the thorny issue of paedophiles and child pornographers operating over the internet. The taskforce will be chaired by Home Office minister Lord Bassam, and will include representatives from the government, police, child welfare organisations and the internet industry. The taskforce's aim is to educate parents and children about 'safe surfing' and to improve the lines of communication between police and service providers. In achieving this end, the taskforce will also review internet content rating systems and implementing a 'kite marking' scheme for chatrooms that are deemed safe for children's viewing. see Home Office Press Release.

• UK - Two Sentenced Over Laptop Child Porn Blackmail (Ananova)
  Two men who blackmailed the owner of a stolen laptop computer after finding pornographic pictures of children on it have been sentenced.

• UK - Welsh hacker pleads guilty to deception and theft (The Register)
  A teenage computer cracker, whose efforts sparked a worldwide manhunt and brought FBI investigators to a sleepy Welsh village, faces a possible jail sentence after pleading guilty to deception and theft.

Issue no. 192 - 26 March 2001

• Child pornography on the Internet : Victim identification (DAPHNE programme)
  The Internet has become the primary medium for the publication and exchange of child pornography. No reliable information exists about whether the children abused and pictured in photographs online have been identified and if so whether these children are aware of the publication of pictures of their abuse, and have received counselling and support. This pilot study will offer preliminary advice and guidance to professionals concerned about how to identify and support children who are abused and pictured online.

• Datenschützer zur Cyberkriminalität (Heise)
  Der schleswig-holsteinische Landesdatenschutzbeauftragte Helmut Bäumler versucht jetzt die rechtstaatlichen Grundsätze bei der Bekämpfung der Cyberkriminalität zurechtzurücken. Mit seiner Stellungnahme wendet der profilierteste deutsche Datenschützer sich aber nicht nur mahnend an den Europarat, sondern vor allem an die EU-Kommission.

• Interview with a Net pedophile (Register)
  first in a series of stories examining firsthand how pedophiles use the Internet.

• Jail term for net paedophile is cut in half (Daily Telegraph)
  A man who used the Internet to lure a girl of 13 to his home for sex could be out of jail in five months after the Appeal Court halved his five-year sentence. Patrick Green's lawyers argued that the Crown court judge who sentenced him had not taken proper account of his remorse and lack of previous convictions. Campaigners for more controls over the internet said the Appeal Court had sent out the wrong message to paedophiles. UK - Warning as net predator sentenced

• Net-Enforce (Press Release)
  An initiative to support Law Enforcement against the Sexual Exploitation of Children promoted by the Centre for Europe's Children, University of Glasgow. This web site co-financed by the European Commission's STOP Programme offers a range of up to date information, news and links to relevant resources in its open area and provides a forum for the exchange of expertise in a secure area. Guests and concerned user groups are welcome to use Net-Enforce as a tool of working against child sexual exploitation in a European context. see also New tool to protect children from Net exploitation (ZDnet UK).

• Thus to bust Demon child porn (Silcion)
  Thus, the owners of Demon Internet, are to take down another 96 newsgroups it believes contain paedophilic content.

• USA - Man Broke Into Accounts of Celebrities, Police Say (New York Times)
  Using simple tools and public library access to the Internet, a fraudster was able to gain access to the accounts of many of the 400 richest people in America.

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