European Cyber Police Get Five Year Plan

[The_root_of_all_evil]

European Cyber Police Get Five Year Plan

Over the next five years, European Police Forces will be working together to combat cyber crime, and may be looking directly at your hard drive.

In an attempt to quell the growing menace of cybercrime, Europol have invested 300,000 Euros in creating a system to correlate cybercrime reports. The five-year plan already has plans for tackling issues such as spam, malicious attacks and trade in child pornography.

As well as the correlation of data, a new cyber-police force will be created whose remit is in creating virtual patrols across international borders. The Cyber Police will also be trained in making 'remote searches' in order to track down criminals, within the limits of the various Data Protection Laws.

One of the main attacks will be against images of children being sexually abused. In their strategic statement the EU has said "half of all internet crime involves the production, distribution and sale of child pornography".

Scary, I'll think you'll agree. But is it worth the potential for privacy invasion to combat a far worse crime? Big Brother may be downloading from you.

Source : BBC News [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7758127.stm]

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[DamienHell]

They should team up with the pirates and hackers, they know the back corners of the internet. And take down 4chan, that'll help too.

 

[Cousin_IT]

I wonder if alot of those 'cyber patrollers' will lose enthusiasm when they realise cyberspace does not look like it does in hackers/johnny mnemonic

 

[Miral]

As long as they don't go installing botnets/trojans on people's PCs so they can sniff their files, then more power to them. If someone is intentionally sharing kiddie porn from their PC then they deserve to get kicked.

(Although there reportedly are trojans around that download and share crap without the user knowing about it. I wonder how they're planning to tell the difference?)

 

[Hunde Des Krieg]

They're gonna need a bigger budget...

 

[stompy]

While I do wish that child porn is gotten rid off, this sounds like an easy way to start a Big Brother- like network, where the government can see the files of anyone, regardless of permission granted or not.

 

[Novajam]

1984 references galore!

Anyway, it's good that they'll try and combat child porn, however I would hope it doesn't come at the cost of so many spyware programs being installed on your computer that it's not funny.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

As long as they truly stay within the current privacy laws I think this actually is a good development. However, countries might be able to abuse this network for other goals. I really hope that doesn't happen.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Ugh...

Ideas like this make me paranoid enough to start using insane security measures, like full-drive encryption and other over the top measures.

Honestly, anyone who says "If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" needs their head examined, and think through the consequences of the incessant attack on people's privacy.

At this rate, we'll have compulsory mind scans at regular intervals to ensure we aren't thinking any 'bad thoughts', before long...

 

[Pilot Bush]

Five Year Plan...hmm...where have we heard that before? Watch out Europe

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

'spam, malicious attacks, and trade in child pornography' Wow, nice to see the priorities are right. Hackers, internet piracy, all the shit kicked up on the internet, and spam rates above child pornography?

Also, to be more to the point, what the fook? I can see the need for taking down child pornography and all but at the expense of people's privacy? It makes you paranoid as to whether your files are being poked around in. Sure I don't have any child pornography on my computer, but that doesn't mean I want someone shifting through personal letters, university details, diary stored data.

 

[scotth266]

Forget the spam, focus on everything else. It's more important.

Odds are that this won't do much, but hey, at least it's an attempt to do something.

 

[Joeshie]

Mwhahahaha, now Europeans have no pedestal to stand on when they criticize American violations of privacy.

 

[Pilot Bush]

Mwhahahaha, now Europeans have no pedestal to stand on when they criticize American violations of privacy.

Sadly, i actually somewhat agree with this.

Destroying kiddie porn is all very well, but there ability to "look at peoples hard drives" leaves me worried.

What if sometime in the future some stupid ass politician goes and says: Well ya know what? I think ALL porn is both offensive and backwards for our society and thus it should be censored (in other words removed) from our society! And then get's enough support to actually make it happen? Then will they be able to use this new technology to literally scan peoples PC's and delete all of there porn?

Then the internet will rise as one and smite him

 

[AceDiamond]

Yeah I'm against any authority having access to anybody's hard drive without probable cause, and this sounds like it could be easily abused.

 

[Flames66]

They will probably end up storing thousands of peoples details on a laptop then loosing it on a bus again.

 

[Amnestic]

Couple that with the new laws that say cartoon/anime or drawn images can now constitute child pornography, things start to look rather spooky.

Last I checked (which was admittedly a while ago) wasn't that only in the US? I didn't read anything about such a law being passed in Europe. Got a source? That really does put a new spin on this story for me.