Tenth Prediction for 2008
International cooperation on computer crime and information security will grow substantially
This blog entry covers the last of my ten predictions about events and trends that I expect to occur in 2008. My final prediction is:
10. International cooperation in dealing with computer crime and information security issues in general will grow substantially due to the increasing realization that the overall lack of cooperation that has been too widespread over the years has gotten law enforcement and countries nowhere.
International cooperation with respect to fighting any kind of crime is almost without exception difficult to achieve.
Different laws in different countries, different values concerning what is worth prosecuting, different levels of authority given to various law enforcement entities, lack of up-front agreements, mistakes made during investigations, the elusiveness that criminals can achieve by crossing international borders, and sometimes just plain everyday pettiness within law enforcement entities have all proven to be significant hurdles to prosecuting international crime.
Fighting computer crime is no exception to the rule, although success in prosecuting international Internet-based child pornography rings has occurred more frequently than in prosecuting other types of computer criminals. Interpol and Europol are at least in theory coordinating the investigation and prosecution of computer crime in Europe, but no matter how well they have tried, neither of these organizations has racked up many significant victories in their efforts.
What Robert Courtney said well over two decades ago, mainly that most computer crime does not result in prosecution, and most computer crime prosecutions do not result in convictions, still very much holds today. The elusiveness of electronic boundaries over which the Internet crosses has only made things worse.
In recent years, however, international efforts to track computer criminals and bring them to justice have started to produce a greater number of success stories.
Recent arrests followed by convictions in countries such as the US, UK, Russia and Romania have involved coordination among law enforcement officials from a variety of countries.
Slowly but surely countries are passing new anti-computer crime legislation and sometimes also updating old legislation such as the UK’s Computer Misuse Act (which was originally passed in 1990) to make its provisions correspond more closely to the nature of today’s computer crimes. Additionally, law enforcement officials are becoming increasingly computer savvy, something that has become necessary because of the ever growing sophistication of computer crime.
Finally, the growing concern over terrorist attacks has contributed considerably to growing cooperation among law enforcement entities in different countries. It is thus not at all difficult to predict that cooperation in fighting computer crime will increase considerably in 2008.
