The Future of Net Crime

Thanks to Peter Sommer at FIPR for his pointers to a new Home Office report on the future of Internet crime.

Euractv says EU members have been slow to implement the framework for electronic commumications. Belgium, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Spain are highlighted.

The EU Telecommunications Council have decided to fund a "Safer Internet Plus programme" to "empower" (I hate that word!) parents and teachers to protect children. It seems the funding is to go to hotlines (like the Internet Watch Foundation presumably), filter software (called censorware by critics), self regulation and awareness raising.

Bruce Schneier has some sound advice, as you would expect, on safe computing.

"I'm stuck using Microsoft Windows and Office, but I use Opera for Web browsing and Eudora for e-mail. I use Windows Update to automatically get patches and install other patches when I hear about them. My antivirus software updates itself regularly. I keep my computer relatively clean and delete applications that I don't need. I'm diligent about backing up my data and about storing data files that are no longer needed offline.

I'm suspicious to the point of near-paranoia about e-mail attachments and Web sites. I delete cookies and spyware. I watch URLs to make sure I know where I am, and I don't trust unsolicited e-mails. I don't care about low-security passwords, but try to have good passwords for accounts that involve money. I still don't do Internet banking. I have my firewall set to deny all incoming connections. And I turn my computer off when I'm not using it.

That's basically it. Really, it's not that hard. The hardest part is developing an intuition about e-mail and Web sites. But that just takes experience."

And if you'd like a little more detail try the Open University's 10 week protect yourself from cyber-vandalism course, T187, written by my colleagues Dave Phillips and John Naughton.