Interpol may enlist AtomicTangerine to help with hackers

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http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500224981-500322993-501825413-0,00.html

By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press

PARIS (July 6, 2000 12:56 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -
Acknowledging international law enforcement's inability to combat
computer crime, Interpol is considering letting a Silicon Valley
security company help it protect businesses from malicious hackers.

If the partnership is reached, it would be the first time the
international police agency has paired with a private company to fight
Internet crime, Interpol secretary general Raymond Kendall told The
Associated Press.

The company, AtomicTangerine of Menlo Park, Calif., has approached
Kendall with an idea to create an "early warning system" that would
help private sector businesses protect themselves from cyberattacks,
he said.

In turn, information gathered by private companies could be made
available to Interpol, says AtomicTangerine, a consultancy that spun
off from SRI International, formerly the Stanford Research Institute.

Kendall said he was willing to consider AtomicTangerine's offer
because cybercrime is largely uncharted territory for most law
officers - and governments have found it difficult to coordinate
cross-border efforts to combat this new phenomenon.

"In police terms, usually when you come across a new type of crime,
the general reaction is to create a special group," Kendall said in a
telephone interview Tuesday from Lyon, where Interpol is based. "But
there's a limit to how you can transform police officers or detectives
into technicians."

Interpol currently has about a half-dozen investigators devoted to
Internet crime.

"It's my personal opinion that everything that's done in this area
develops very quickly," Kendall said in explaining the reasoning
behind a possible partnership with AtomicTangerine. "So the response
has to be very quick."

Cybercriminals do leave the digital equivalent of fingerprints, but
investigators need to move quickly to encounter them.

"Governments are no longer in a position to be all things to all
people," Kendall said. "The response of the private sector will be
fast because they have an incentive to be fast."

Law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Justice Department,
currently lack the staff to investigate and prosecute most cybercrimes
- from break-ins to data destruction and theft to damaging viruses.

As a result, cybercriminals are breaking into or paralyzing Web sites
with little fear of retribution, costing the private sector hundreds
of millions of dollars.

AtomicTangerine said in a statement last week that any information it
would make available in a possible partnership with Interpol would be
offered to legitimate users for free and would not intrude on
individual privacy.

Kendall said Interpol hoped to decide by mid-October on whether to
accept the company's proposal. He said the agency needed to explore
its legal and technical implications.

Simon Graveling, AtomicTangerine's European marketing director, said
Wednesday that some news media last week misinterpreted a statement,
giving the impression that an agreement already had been reached with
Interpol.

AtomicTangerine approached Interpol with the idea after Kendall spoke
by satellite link to an Internet defense summit that it co-hosted in
Silicon Valley in May.

An AtomicTangerine spokesman said that because the company is linked
to SRI, one of the world's leading research labs, it has access to an
immense database containing decades of highly sought-out Internet
information and is thus a natural partner for Interpol.

Graveling said the partnership, if agreed upon, would likely expand.

"I think more private companies will be invited into this relationship
as it opens and becomes more of a working structure," he said.

Interpol, known formally as the International Criminal Police
Organization, was founded in 1923 to track fugitives and investigate
international crime.

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