G8 Hems and Haws on Cybercrime

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36398,00.html

PARIS -- The world's main industrialized countries called for faster,
more innovative responses to cybercrime on Wednesday after consulting
tech industries about viruses, hacker attacks, and Internet fraud.

The Group of Eight (G8) countries found no quick fix for "Love
Bug"-type attacks but stressed they wanted to crack down on digital
crime rapidly spreading across the globe, but without stifling the
growth of electronic commerce.

Industry representatives said the three-day meeting, the first
international session on public and private sector responses to
cybercrime, highlighted the need to bring the lightning speed of the
Internet to traditional cross-border police work.

The session drew up talking points for the July summit in Okinawa of
the G8 -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy,
Canada, and Russia -- but did not propose a global "cyberpolice" or
other new crime-fighting agencies.

"International cooperation within and beyond the G8 is indispensable
to combat effectively high-tech crime," the final communique said.
"There must be no safe havens for those who abuse information
technologies."

The encounter between tech industry types and government officials,
some of whom did not even have email addresses on their business
cards, highlighted the gap between two groups concerned about
cybercrime.

Industry representatives said the session mainly helped them learn
what law enforcement officials needed and explain their concerns to
government officials unfamiliar with new technology.

"We moved from the discussion only of traditional crime committed
through the new technology, whether that would be money laundering or
drugs or pornography and pedophilia, to beginning to realize hacking
and viruses are very serious criminal issues," said Gaylen Duncan of
the Information Technology Association of Canada.

The G8 statement said further government-industry work in fighting
cybercrime had to improve existing law enforcement procedures while
taking into account issues such as privacy.

It supported "effective industry-initiated voluntary codes of conduct
and standards" without specifying where or how tech firms should do
this.

The statement did not indicate how this new public-private approach to
cybercrime would continue, but a French diplomat said Paris would
pursue the issue within the G8, the European Union, and at the
Strasbourg-based Council of Europe.

The 41-member Council of Europe is currently drafting a convention on
cybercrime that would create minimum legal standards and practices
among signatory states and require them to collect information on
hackers and extradite suspects.

France strongly backs the draft, Britain supports it with less vigor,
and the United States -- which with fellow non-members Canada, Japan,
and South Africa is helping draft the Council document -- says it is
too early to say if this is the way to go.

The tech industry is wary about a treaty written by bureaucrats that
could add extra costs to their operations.

U.S. Assistant Attorney General James Robinson poured cold water on
talk by French officials that Washington wanted to a global
"cyberpolice" that could be a threat to civil liberties.

He said U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno had never even suggested to
him that she was interested in this idea and added: "That's certainly
not been anything we have proposed here."


*-------------------------------------------------*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
---------------------------------------------------
C4I Secure Solutions             http://www.c4i.org
*-------------------------------------------------*

ISN is sponsored by SecurityFocus.com
---
To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of
"SIGNOFF ISN".