BBC News: Crackdown on computer criminals

[David Hansen]

On 8 Jul 00, at 10:16, Owen Blacker wrote:

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_823000/823614.stm

> He predicted a rise in the numbers of fraudsters, drug dealers and
> pædophiles using the internet to carry out crimes.

Gosh, nobody else thought of that:-) The real question is how this 
can be prevented and the only way I can see is by the widespread 
deployment of encryption, especially against fraud. Unfortunately 
the people who should have recommended this decades ago have 
done everything in their power to prevent encryption being adopted, 
except for themselves.
 
> Some use encryption techniques to scramble data that could be
> intercepted.  Mr Castell cited the example of David Copeland who
> anonymously surfed the web for bomb-making instructions from a
> cyber-café.

Does this reveal sloppy journalism by the BBC, or at best a 
misunderstanding of the technology by Castell? Encryption and 
anonymity are different animals. I doubt very much if Copeland 
surfed anonymously, if he had done the forces of darkness (the 
Home Office) would have trumpeted this every day.



 David Hansen | davidh@spidacom.co.uk  | PGP email preferred
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