recent rise in crime

[Ross Anderson]

There is an interesting point made in today's Telegraph, that much of
the 26% rise in violent street crime over the last year is due to the
number of mobile phones used by children, who are easy prey for
muggers. It is estimated that such thefts accounted for almost 10 per
cent of the increase in robberies in London last year.

Long-time list members will recall that for many years I've been
trying to tell everyone who'd listen that the real problem for law
enforcement was not going to be crypto, but anonymous communication.
Villains have always found ways of making anonymous phone calls: pay
phones, blue boxes, hacked PBXes, cloned analogue mobiles, GSM phones
bought with stolen credit cards, prepaid mobiles, and now this.

The view I've had from one of the half dozen or so ministers who've
passed this buck was `yes, we know that they can be a problem but
crypto is something we can actually do something about'. This is a
classic case of Freudian displacement activity, of which grep finds
me two beautifully apt definitions, both by Nick Bohm:

- `inability to solve a hard problem causes frustration, which is 
   vented by energetically solving an irrelevant but easier one'.

- `making up some easy crimes to prosecute instead of confronting 
   the hard ones that matter'

Is it reasonable to expect that the Home Office will stop b*****ing
about now that the issue is doing severe and direct political damage
to both the Home Secretary amd the Prime Minister?

Ross


http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000323637725360&rtmo=lnSu77ot&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/7/18/ncrim18.html