I'll call for UK law shakeup to cuff global web crime lords - new top cyber cop The head of the computer security branch of Blighty's new National Crime Agency has said British laws need to be improved in order to combat today's online criminals. Andy Archibald, head of the National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) told The Register that he didn't want to go into details, but there were areas of legislation the …
Whoa! there Dobbin...that's rather off-piste. While you're poking and prying around dusty old law books and bothering your pretty little head about due process, CRIME IS HAPPENING! Take a lead from your colleagues - the standard opening gambit in modern policing is to demand unlimited discretional detention on grounds of reasonable suspicion of suspicious reasonableness.
"The vast majority of those we're really interested in are overseas and often they're in hard to reach jurisdictions. So international collaboration, international relationships with trusted partners are key to our success."
Sounds like he plans on doing "an American" by sending in the troops to snatch those on "the wanted list" irrelevant of small details like national borders and sovereignty.
'Web crime lord'? Perhaps they could start with Ian Livingston and the illegal interception of personal communications by BT when they ignored the privacy of hundreds of thousands of their customers when they started spying on web activity flowing through their systems and didn't even have the decency to tell their own support staff what was going on.
The government is quick to protect big business but when it comes to the general public we're expected to just bend over and ask for more if it means more money for the government...
or Sony BMG for their estimated 75k* years worth of crimimal offences under CMA90, for their rootkit loading "music" CD
UK has no statute of limitations, so it's still good if the police want to do their job eventually
* - 1 dodgy CD - 150k sales at 6 months each for unauthorised modification of a computer (S3/CMA90)
PS
you could argue for S2 (unauthorised access) as well, but it would be down to the judge and briefs arguing whether the the punter not knowing the rootkit was there vs them voluntarily putting it in their computer to listen to the music they bought
It's not the job of a policeman to say we need more laws. Just like it's not the job of a doctor to call for more illnesses. Obviously, the more laws there are, the greater the need for enforcement and therefore the more police - so the self-interest is apparent.
Although it's unfashionable to say so, the job of government is to say what should be legal and what deserves having your front door smashed in at 6 a.m. It's the job of the police to do that smashing, not to choose who's doors.
As for The vast majority of those we're really interested in are overseas, well good: let it stay there. Not our problem.
"It's not the job of a policeman to say we need more laws."
Indeed, but in fairness to the Police bod they did stress that they were going to be looking into whether they were making full use of the existing law *first*, which seems reasonable to me.
"Just like it's not the job of a doctor to call for more illnesses."
In my experience doctors usually ask for better facilities and more staff to help them keep more people in better health. Sometimes they argue for new legislation as well...
Some policemen & doctors really do care about the well being of the flock and sometimes they really are asking for the tools to help them do their jobs better. The pity is that the bad stuff like shooting brazillians that are pinned to the floor and beating newspaper sellers to death tends to muddy the waters a bit.
Due to it not being a vote winning subject, the UK actually ended up with two very good pieces of legislation.
Computer Misuese Act 1990 and Data Protection Act 1998.
The are clear, coherent, and without to many contradictions of other laws (e.g. the Planning Acts where not catered for with DPA98 and contradict each other over public registers)
The only problem is enforcement.
The ICO thinks it should only process complaints and self referals, and do no investigations, hence the complete lack of action over the Universal Job Match website, which provides crooks with a free identity theft facilitation service, paid for by the UK tax payers.
Most police officers have never heard of CMA90, and if you ask the question of a senior "cyber crime" police officer what can a company do if a former employee deletes all your customer records, you get a response of;
long pause, uh.........criminal damge
rather than violations Sections 1, 2 & 3 CMA90, on conviction upto 6 months and a £5k fine.
If the new unit can claw back the ground lost with the disalution of the old NHTCU, then I will be very happy, I will be even happier if they get an appropriate number of resources, rather than a token number of bodies, just so the minister can say he's doing something.
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