Information technologies and organized crime
Date: November 05, 2003Source: Computer Crime Research Center
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There are three aspects of the given problem: information technologies used by law enforcement bodies in fighting against crimes; scientific and technical progress applied by criminals, criminal groups and communities; lawful control over processes connected with criminal use of computer technologies.
Let us consider them more narrowly.
The “traditional” way of using IT in law enforcement agencies and special services is a producing of various electronic card-files, databases, automated data banks, information and search systems of regional, national and international level (Interpol and other international police organizations, in particular). This approach has been literally realized since the first days of computer emergence and gives a definite positive effect, but does not exhaust resources of up-to-day information technologies.
The fact is that new information technologies allow dynamically tracing the activity of delinquent communities at the fundamentally new level. In our opinion, considerably interesting is the US special service experience in developing and using “Oasis” (CIA) and “Magic Lantern” (FBI) systems, which permit not only controlling criminal communities? exchange of information but also “breaking” computers of suspected persons, incorporating “Trojans” (program viruses that allow following information in the given computer), and so on.
Thus, Office of Advanced Information Technology (AIT), which belongs to CIA Science and Technology Administration, uses “Oasis” to convert television and radio broadcastings to the text. This program allows recognizing speech and voices of different men and women. There are such remarks as “Man 1”, “Woman 1”, and «Man 2” and so on in the final text. If the computer has once identified a voice, further it will know and mark it in a proper way. In addition, “Oasis” searches “dangerous” words (for example “terrorism”, “bomb”) and their synonyms in the text. “Oasis” technology processes only the English speech but Arabic and Chinese will be soon supported.
“Fluent” technology searches information in documents written in several foreign languages, the knowledge of these languages being not obligatory. A user can enter for example the expression “nuclear weapons” into the search field and tick off languages, which are required to explore. The system will find documents with requested words and translate them into English.
Now “Fluent” system can translate from Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Ukrainian. If the document is considered “useful” for further revision, a person makes a more exact translation.
FBI officers can read codified information from computers by means of “Magic Lantern”. So far, FBI had only “Carnivore” program, which appeared to be powerless against those criminals who were quick-witted to encipher their files.
“Magic Lantern” software installs computer program, which registers all keystrokes thereby establishing information entered into the computer even when codified.
“Magic Lantern” program sends viruses to the suspected person through e-mail. When impossible, it can be carried out on behalf of his relative or good friend. “Magic Lantern” uses also known holes in the spread software to be introduced into the computer.
It is not quite clear how “Magic Lantern” will send collected information back to FBI – through Internet or FBI officer will come and take it from the computer personally. In any case, the current “Key Logger System” requires an officer’s personal visit.
FBI declares that a using of “Magic Lantern” will conform to all constitutional norms and will not violate the right to private life and commerce secrets. This statement raises some doubts but it is another problem.
Scotland Yard suggested an interesting approach to using Information Technologies against crimes. It will send e-mail to London inhabitants with a detailed description of criminals operating in their district. Thus, the police want to protect London residents from pickpockets, burglars and hijackers. Now this system passes a test in one of London districts where 40 thousand people live. If it justifies hopes, such messages will be sent to the inhabitants of other London districts.
Scotland Yard counts on that this project, which costs just two thousand pounds, will drastically change the criminal situation in the city. In police officers’ opinion, townspeople will receive information on criminals through e-mail more quickly than newspapers or street posters.
As to computer networks and databases of law enforcement agencies themselves, it should be noted that it is necessary not to forget improving the security of proper information (4) because criminal communities possess modern hardware and sometimes recruit highly skilled hackers.
The first problem consists in that up-to-date technologies stimulated not only a free trade and economic activity but also delinquent one. Modernization and integration of various means of communication and telecommunication made it easy to establish contacts between criminal groups and communities from many countries and continents. Modern banking business, which widely uses different means of computing technique and new information technologies, favors closing international delinquent transactions. The revolution in the field of electronics gave criminal groups an access to the new technical means, which allow them to misappropriate huge funds, avoid taxation and launder great revenues obtained in a delinquent way.
The second problem is “a computer criminality” itself, the youngest and the most dynamically developing sphere of criminal activity.
According to the Computer Security Institute, in 2002 about 90% US companies were exposed to computer attacks and approximately 80% of them suffered damages because of hackers’ activity.
In 2002, more than 80 thousand cases of illegal penetration into computer networks (hackers’ attacks, attempts of stealing information and etc.) were fixed in the world. Their number was abruptly increased in comparison with 2001 when about 58 thousand such violations were registered (hardly more than 20 thousand in 2000). Deliberate criminals more often aim at US networks. In 2002, nearly 27 thousand computer attacks were fixed. British computer networks were exposed to less than 5 thousand attacks, German ones – about 4.6 thousand.
Members of organized delinquent communities – «mafia hackers», commit roughly 10% computer attacks. FBI experts think that the most active are “gangsters” from the former USSR and East Europe countries (15).
The single aim of these hackers is to win profits. Therefore, their targets are banks, financial and trade companies. Terrorists also use services of mafia hackers. For example, the terrorist organization “Republican Army of Ireland” (RAI) formed special groups from hackers-sympathizers, who stole money for RAI and collected information for future acts of terrorism.
There are some suspicions that special services and terrorist organizations sometimes use hackers to find weak places in computer systems of other countries. For example, in 2001, Chinese hackers fiercely attacked scores of American sites including those of US Defense Ministry.
There are many analytical materials of such a kind. For example, according to American Society for Industrial Security and Price Waterhouse Coopers Company, just in 1999 (6), corporations belonging to Fortune Top-1000 lost $45 billion because of information thefts. Increasingly vulnerable becomes the system of cashless settlements. Accounts of more than 5 million Visa and MasterCard holders in the USA have been broken recently owing to the hackers’ attack on the center processing payments of trade organizations (7).
Some analysts think that cyber-terrorists threaten the USA’s economy as a whole (8). Ronald L.Dick, a new director of US National Infrastructure Protecting Center (NIPC), stated that on-line terrorism and other kinds of cyber-crimes could negatively influence the USA’s economy if federal agencies and corporations will work more closely in this direction.
Mr. Dick said that many parts of the country with “critical infrastructure” including power stations, offices of federal organizations and vital centers of computer systems can be exposed to attacks on the part of anybody – from the representatives of nations-outcasts to offended company officials. In his speech to colleagues who are former FBI and US Defense Ministry officers, Mr. Dick said that just now about 1400 cases of crimes in computer networks were investigated and their number constantly increased, on average up to 50 computer viruses with different destructive forces emerging every week.
It is clear that “criminal resources” of Information Technologies are not exhausted with what has been mentioned. This sphere is characterized by wide copyright and related...
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