Call to rally against cyber crime

A San Francisco conference organized by security firm RSA has called for concerted effort in fighting the highly organized cyber criminals of the world. Recent reports showed that cyber criminals had infiltrated everything from the US power grid to the Pentagon. Statistics revealed at the conference indicated that the internet is increasingly being used by online fraudsters. Sophos revealed that a web page was infected every 4.5 seconds and every day more than 20,000 new samples of malware were discovered. Symantec also said it had blocked roughly 200,000 attacks every half hour in 2008. Its CEO said that the attackers are shifting from random attacks to targeted ones, making every person a potential of victim. Cyber attacks can take many forms, such as stealing medical records, stealing financial data and stealing state secrets.

RSA President Mr Coviello outlined three key practices to combat cyber crimes. They included collaborating on standards, sharing technologies and integrating technologies and controls in the infrastructure. Developing new security technologies is also important, as Microsoft revealed its pilot new identity-based security technology in Washington State Schools for teachers and students to access grades and class schedules securely.

Cyber crimes are quite different from other crimes. The target of cyber criminals is essentially information rather than money or people as in non-cyber crimes. The key feature of cyber attacks is that they are not subjected to constraints of border, time and rule of law. It is encouraging that the conference urged for collaborative efforts in combating cyber attacks because cyber crime is by its nature a global crime. These collaborative efforts require participation of four different parties. Software security companies must develop and share new security technologies to outcompete cyber attackers. Individual users must stay alert from any potential cyber attacks and report promptly any attacks to the software security companies. Institution users must integrate security technologies into their infrastructures. The law enforcement agencies must cooperate intensely with the abovementioned three parties to effective combat cyber crimes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8011160.stm?CFID=64838319&CFTOKEN=89511862

7 arrested for anti-gay crimes in New York City

The New York City Police has arrested 7 people who were allegedly involved in a serial of brutal, anti-gay hate crimes against four men. Two more suspects are still at large.

The suspects are members of a street gang calling themselves the Latin King Goonies. The string of attacks began on 3 October when the suspects learnt that an aspiring member of them (the first victim) was gay. The 17-year-old teenager was forced into an unoccupied apartment around 3:30am, questioned about his contact with a 30-year-old man, thrown into a wall, stripped naked, hit in the head with a beer, cut with a box cutter and sodomized with the wooden handle of a plunger. He was then released with physical threats from the suspects.

Later on the same day, another 17-year-old victim (the second victim) was beaten, questioned about the same 30-year-old man and robbed of jewelry in the same apartment. About an hour later, the 30-year-old man was lured to the apartment, stripped naked and tied to a chair. The suspects then forced the second victim to beat the tied man, burn him with cigarette and sodomize him with a small baseball bat. The last victim was the 30-year-old man’s older brother, who was robbed by the suspects, who forced into his home with the key taken from his abducted brother.

The acts done by the suspects were astonishingly brutal. Why did that happen? The crime against the first three victims was motivated by group hate towards homosexuality. Such hate is so strong that it even overrides the importance of membership, as can be inferred from the fact that the first victim was originally a member of the gang suspects. Group pressure is another factor that led the suspects to carry out the acts. I believe that individuals do not have the courage (and are not able to) put hate towards one particular group into brutal and criminal action. Given this, it is not difficult to understand why many gay people are reluctant to declare themselves gay, an act of expressing one’s self-pride and confirming one’s identity.

Source:http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/08/new.york.hate.crimes/index.html?eref=rss_crime&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_crime+%28RSS%3A+Crime%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Freshman committed suicide after his sexual encounter broadcast online

A 18 year-old male student committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his sexual encounter with another man was streamed online. Tyler Clementi, who was a freshman, was having sex with another man in his dormitory room on 19 September evening when his roommate Ravi, also 18, surreptitiously placed a webcam in the room and broadcast the video of Clementi's sexual encounter on the internet. Clementi committed suicide on 22 September, leaving his wallet and cell phone on the bridge. The New Jersey prosecutors are determining whether to prosecute Dharun Ravi and another Rutgers University student for bias intimidation, which is a criminal offence under New Jersey law. Any person who commits a crime with the purpose of intimidating someone because of race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or ethnicity, or if the victim or victim's property was selected as a target because of the same factors, is guilty of bias intimidation in New Jersey.

The suicide incident of Clementi should not have happened; it is tragic, unfortunate and outrageous. As a university student, Clementi has very good career prospects and his life should not have ended so abruptly due to somebody else’s mischief. It is outrageous because the mischief-makers are also university students and they do not have the sense of respect for the other person’s privacy, personality and dignity. The case may also illustrate that discrimination against sexual orientation is common and serious in American universities and even the society. The local authority and the Rutegers University should take concrete actions to make sure that the same tragedy will never happen again.

Source: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-30/justice/new.jersey.student.suicide_1_bias-charges-sexual-encounter-sexual-orientation?_s=PM:CRIME