Topic: the economist, biodun iginla, bb
Cyber-crime
by Tamara Kachelmeier, Tech Analyst for the BBC and the Economist, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla
International efforts to police the net remain deadlocked
Apr 22nd 2010 | From The Economist print edition
WHEN people talk about the digital divide, they usually mean the gap between people who are benefiting from the information revolution, and those who through lack of education or money are missing out. But at a United Nations conference in Brazil that concluded on April 19th, a different (though related) sort of divide was on show, and ten days’ chatter by over 100 countries failed to bridge it.
If there was one thing on which almost everybody agreed, it was that criminals are mastering computer technology much faster than most governments are learning to foil them. Rich countries say they are beset by fraudsters, pornographers and hackers operating from poor places where they will never be caught—because their “host” governments can’t or won’t stop them.
One response is the Budapest Convention, an accord launched at the Council of Europe in 2001, and ratified by the United States in 2006. One of its aims is to let authorities in one country give chase, at least electronically, to criminals in another.
But Russia has opposed the principle of “transborder access”, especially since 2000, when American agents hacked into the computers of two Russians who were defrauding American banks. Instead, Russia is backing a UN treaty which would be respectful of borders while also giving police more powers to shut down websites dealing in “propaganda.” Many countries like that idea—but not enough to push it through. For now, the only winners are the criminals.
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