We have all become used to identity fraud scams coming from the daughter of the late Prime Minister of Burkina Faso; or lottery winning addresses for the UK National Lottery mysteriously coming from Yahoo Hong Kong addresses. I have just received a first, which I thought I would share with Read more
Three people are being held under suspicion of murdering British exchange student Meredith Kercher in Perugia. What makes this murder investigation different to others is that it comes with a Web 2.0 angle, as investigators trawl through Facebook and Myspace accounts in order to obtain clues. The use of social Read more
Back in August we reported on a surprisingly visionary paper from the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, which requested urgent government action against cybercrime. Last Friday Blogzilla commented that the official government response was disappointing. The government’s response has been that all is well, all legislation is Read more
USA Today reports about a man in Seattle has been arrested for conducting wide scale ID theft through P2P networks. Gregory Thomas Kopiloff used Limewire to have access to people’s personal files in order to gather financial information to be used in online fraud and ID theft. Kopiloff used this Read more
John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, has vowed to clean the Internet by “blocking pornography, upgrading the search for chatroom sex predators and cutting off terror sites.” The PM plans to achieve this by giving all Australians a free content filter. What is it about politicians and the Internet? We Read more
The BBC reports that the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee has issued a paper prompting the government to take tougher action against cybercrime. It is refreshing to see a policy-making body taking the problem seriously, as lack of enforcement has been a problem in the past. One Read more
The idea that the Internet is filled with sexual predators has received a boost as MySpace has admitted to having found and removed 29,000 registered sex offenders on its site. The admission comes amongst attempts by North Carolina’s Attorney General to change the law so that social networking sites require Read more
I think we could all agree that cybercrime is a growing threat. Online fraud, phishing, viruses, hacking, DDoS, and spam, consumer are increasingly at risk from online security vulnerabilities that could translate in financial loss. What is the UK’s response to the threat? “Call your bank”. The Guardian carries a Read more
(via Suw Charman) A man in London has been arrested for being the UK’s representative of AllofMP3, the Russian infamous for selling subscription services at a fraction of “legal” downloads sites, but that does not pay royalties to artists. According to the IFPI, the arrest is part of a growing Read more
This is a thorough yet slightly panicky report from the New York Times about online paedophile chat rooms and fora. We are told about the strange world of the paedophile support groups online, where participants exchange stories, fantasies, technology tips and discuss job offers. Some experts are called to give Read more