European Cyber Police Get Five Year Plan

Over the next five years, European Police Forces will be working together to combat cyber crime, and may be looking directly at your hard drive.

In an attempt to quell the growing menace of cybercrime, Europol have invested 300,000 Euros in creating a system to correlate cybercrime reports. The five-year plan already has plans for tackling issues such as spam, malicious attacks and trade in child pornography.

As well as the correlation of data, a new cyber-police force will be created whose remit is in creating virtual patrols across international borders. The Cyber Police will also be trained in making 'remote searches' in order to track down criminals, within the limits of the various Data Protection Laws.

One of the main attacks will be against images of children being sexually abused. In their strategic statement the EU has said "half of all internet crime involves the production, distribution and sale of child pornography".

Scary, I'll think you'll agree. But is it worth the potential for privacy invasion to combat a far worse crime? Big Brother may be downloading from you.

Source : BBC News

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They should team up with the pirates and hackers, they know the back corners of the internet. And take down 4chan, that'll help too.

I wonder if alot of those 'cyber patrollers' will lose enthusiasm when they realise cyberspace does not look like it does in hackers/johnny mnemonic

As long as they don't go installing botnets/trojans on people's PCs so they can sniff their files, then more power to them. If someone is intentionally sharing kiddie porn from their PC then they deserve to get kicked.

(Although there reportedly are trojans around that download and share crap without the user knowing about it. I wonder how they're planning to tell the difference?)

They're gonna need a bigger budget...

While I do wish that child porn is gotten rid off, this sounds like an easy way to start a Big Brother- like network, where the government can see the files of anyone, regardless of permission granted or not.

1984 references galore!

Anyway, it's good that they'll try and combat child porn, however I would hope it doesn't come at the cost of so many spyware programs being installed on your computer that it's not funny.

As long as they truly stay within the current privacy laws I think this actually is a good development. However, countries might be able to abuse this network for other goals. I really hope that doesn't happen.

Ugh...

Ideas like this make me paranoid enough to start using insane security measures, like full-drive encryption and other over the top measures.

Honestly, anyone who says "If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" needs their head examined, and think through the consequences of the incessant attack on people's privacy.

At this rate, we'll have compulsory mind scans at regular intervals to ensure we aren't thinking any 'bad thoughts', before long...

Five Year Plan...hmm...where have we heard that before? Watch out Europe

'spam, malicious attacks, and trade in child pornography' Wow, nice to see the priorities are right. Hackers, internet piracy, all the shit kicked up on the internet, and spam rates above child pornography?

Also, to be more to the point, what the fook? I can see the need for taking down child pornography and all but at the expense of people's privacy? It makes you paranoid as to whether your files are being poked around in. Sure I don't have any child pornography on my computer, but that doesn't mean I want someone shifting through personal letters, university details, diary stored data.

Forget the spam, focus on everything else. It's more important.

Odds are that this won't do much, but hey, at least it's an attempt to do something.

Mwhahahaha, now Europeans have no pedestal to stand on when they criticize American violations of privacy.

Joeshie:
Mwhahahaha, now Europeans have no pedestal to stand on when they criticize American violations of privacy.

Sadly, i actually somewhat agree with this.

Destroying kiddie porn is all very well, but there ability to "look at peoples hard drives" leaves me worried.

What if sometime in the future some stupid ass politician goes and says: Well ya know what? I think ALL porn is both offensive and backwards for our society and thus it should be censored (in other words removed) from our society! And then get's enough support to actually make it happen? Then will they be able to use this new technology to literally scan peoples PC's and delete all of there porn?

Hardcore_gamer:

Joeshie:
Mwhahahaha, now Europeans have no pedestal to stand on when they criticize American violations of privacy.

Sadly, i actually somewhat agree with this.

Destroying kiddie porn is all very well, but there ability to "look at peoples hard drives" leaves me worried.

What if sometime in the future some stupid ass politician goes and says: Well ya know what? I think ALL porn is both offensive and backwards for our society and thus it should be censored (in other words removed) from our society! And then get's enough support to actually make it happen? Then will they be able to use this new technology to literally scan peoples PC's and delete all of there porn?

Then the internet will rise as one and smite him

Yeah I'm against any authority having access to anybody's hard drive without probable cause, and this sounds like it could be easily abused.

The road to hell, yada yada...

Their hearts are in the right place, but their brains are far up their ass. There has never been a case where privacy or liberty has been sacrificed carte blanche that didn't end poorly for a great many innocent people. Case and point, Guantanamo Bay.

Couple that with the new laws that say cartoon/anime or drawn images can now constitute child pornography, things start to look rather spooky. I wouldn't be surprised if people start getting arrested for owning copies of South Park episodes, because there are a great number of scenes where one or more of the boys are naked. By the new laws, that's child pornography. And you say "Oh, that's different. That's just a cartoon", boy will you be surprised when the feds come for you...

Join the European Cyber Police! Sit at a computer, look at porn and get paid for it.

I often think that I'm the only person that sees such correlations.

They will probably end up storing thousands of peoples details on a laptop then loosing it on a bus again.

Khell_Sennet:

Couple that with the new laws that say cartoon/anime or drawn images can now constitute child pornography, things start to look rather spooky.

Last I checked (which was admittedly a while ago) wasn't that only in the US? I didn't read anything about such a law being passed in Europe. Got a source? That really does put a new spin on this story for me.

If don't particularly care if some police looks through my files for child porn, or any other illegal stuff, I mean all it could possibly do is prove my innocence. If it helps an investigation, then I almost feel a responsibility to provide help.

I suppose it's ok in theory. The problem comes about when you're trying to figure out what constitutes pornography. People having photos of their own children in swimming costumes have been in trouble for that kinda thing before, so this might lead to more people being accused of hideous things they're innocent of.
Other than that, I don't really see the problem, this kinda thing really needs cracking down on and I don't see how it's going to be possible without something drastic being done.

Amnestic:
Last I checked (which was admittedly a while ago) wasn't that only in the US? I didn't read anything about such a law being passed in Europe. Got a source? That really does put a new spin on this story for me.

Don't know if it's only the US or not. I do know multiple nations were considering the law, no idea who passed it or not.

DayDark:
If don't particularly care if some police looks through my files for child porn, or any other illegal stuff, I mean all it could possibly do is prove my innocence. If it helps an investigation, then I almost feel a responsibility to provide help.

Ah, but wasn't the rule "Innocent until proven guilty"? This reverses that and puts everyone guilty until proven innocent. I know that stopping the sexual exploitation of children is a very important and noble task, but it still shouldn't give any authority the right to annul your rights or freedoms without evidence to merit it. Proof then search, not search for proof.

Khell_Sennet:

Ah, but wasn't the rule "Innocent until proven guilty"? This reverses that and puts everyone guilty until proven innocent. I know that stopping the sexual exploitation of children is a very important and noble task, but it still shouldn't give any authority the right to annul your rights or freedoms without evidence to merit it. Proof then search, not search for proof.

That's not what I meant, I mean it will indirectly prove my innocence. If I'm a suspect, then the police will obviously only look for things that will prove guilt. They should have a reason before looking of course, but I'm not gonna halt an investigation just because of my privacy.

Noble intentions, to be sure, but in the end I get the terrible feeling they might have opened Pandora's box with this move...

DayDark:

Khell_Sennet:

Ah, but wasn't the rule "Innocent until proven guilty"? This reverses that and puts everyone guilty until proven innocent. I know that stopping the sexual exploitation of children is a very important and noble task, but it still shouldn't give any authority the right to annul your rights or freedoms without evidence to merit it. Proof then search, not search for proof.

That's not what I meant, I mean it will indirectly prove my innocence. If I'm a suspect, then the police will obviously only look for things that will prove guilt. They should have a reason before looking of course, but I'm not gonna halt an investigation just because of my privacy.

All right, now say they plant stuff on your hard drive. I mean they can monitor it what's to say they can't alter the content?

Or better yet, what if they start, NSA-style, to monitor hard drives regardless of suspicion in the hopes that they do catch something? Now again you don't have anything that is incriminating but just think about it. Think about the principle. They now have the belief that nobody is innocent and at anytime you or anybody else is a crime waiting to happen. I.E. Guilty until proven innocent.

Now again I'm not saying they're going to do any of these things, but at the same time I don't have enough faith in any authority to not abuse a system that sounds Orwellian in nature.

AceDiamond:

All right, now say they plant stuff on your hard drive. I mean they can monitor it what's to say they can't alter the content?

why would they do that. That wont stop or reduce the illegal activity, since it's not catching the criminal. I'm getting a feeling you don't trust the integrity of the police very much.

Or better yet, what if they start, NSA-style, to monitor hard drives regardless of suspicion in the hopes that they do catch something? Now again you don't have anything that is incriminating but just think about it. Think about the principle. They now have the belief that nobody is innocent and at anytime you or anybody else is a crime waiting to happen. I.E. Guilty until proven innocent.

Why would they do that? that just sounds like an excellent way to waste resources. why do you persist with the guilty till proven innocent, I don't see it, we also have to keep ourselves in reality, they aren't monitoring something, unless they get a reason to, otherwise they are just wasting resources. I actually think they want to solve problem, not just make it seem so.

Look, I can't help but think that you're doing exactly what you fear they are gonna do. You mistrust them, because you fear they will mistrust the people. Aren't you assuming they're guilty too?

Now again I'm not saying they're going to do any of these things, but at the same time I don't have enough faith in any authority to not abuse a system that sounds Orwellian in nature.

Of course, I agree that there should be a way to self correct the system, Internal Affairs, stuff like that. The Police are human, with human flaws, and whatever system that they wanna put up should be mindful of that.

Anyways I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see a circle of mistrust here.

You:

"I don't have enough faith in any authority to not abuse a system that sounds Orwellian in nature."

Paranoid Policeman:

"I don't have enough faith in any citizen to not abuse there rights, when we're not looking!"

EDIT: Reading through my post, it might come off as if I'm trying to jump you, it's not the case though, I mean no offense.

DayDark:

Khell_Sennet:

Ah, but wasn't the rule "Innocent until proven guilty"? This reverses that and puts everyone guilty until proven innocent. I know that stopping the sexual exploitation of children is a very important and noble task, but it still shouldn't give any authority the right to annul your rights or freedoms without evidence to merit it. Proof then search, not search for proof.

That's not what I meant, I mean it will indirectly prove my innocence. If I'm a suspect, then the police will obviously only look for things that will prove guilt. They should have a reason before looking of course, but I'm not gonna halt an investigation just because of my privacy.

Aha, but how can you prove they had just cause to inspect your hard drive? Sure, they found nothing so you aren't going to have any trouble from them, but what gave them the right to dig in there anyways? Normally, they need reason to suspect you, and a warrant. Normally, they don't dig through the private affairs of random people on the hopes of finding something to bust them on. That is the violation in question, and helping their investigation is irrelevant as they shouldn't be investigating you without cause.

I don't care if it's a crusade to stop pedophiles, tax evaders, serial killers, or suicide bombers... You can't invade someone's privacy or step all over their rights without something concrete to justify it. And "because he's on the internet" is no more justification to search hard drives than it is justified to suspect someone of terrorism simply because they're middle-eastern.

The introduction of EU Cyber police comes at a time when this act was passed through the EU parliment-
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091105/ttc-eu-agrees-on-internet-user-rights-e1d36ba.html

Seems like where already seing results of this act. This act does give EU citizens some liberities however such as- (quoting from the article here)

authorities would no longer be able to immediately cut off internet services to users without providing evidence of illegal downloading.

includes efforts to bolster privacy and consumer rights

What this exactly entails in terms of privacy i don't know, the article is rather vague. The BBC states that the police can make "remote searches" which may mean they can look through peoples hard drives, hopefully that is only if they think they have child porn or any other illegal files on there.

Still, not keen on the way this is going. A better way of dealing with the child porn problem would be to find the actual people making it and arrest them through conventonal methods rather than go around chasing the illegal images which are being passed through the internet.

Khell_Sennet:

Aha, but how can you prove they had just cause to inspect your hard drive? Sure, they found nothing so you aren't going to have any trouble from them, but what gave them the right to dig in there anyways? Normally, they need reason to suspect you, and a warrant.
Normally, they don't dig through the private affairs of random people on the hopes of finding something to bust them on. That is the violation in question, and helping their investigation is irrelevant as they shouldn't be investigating you without cause.

How do you know they just dig through private affairs of random people is to find something to bust them on? What makes you think it is even about you, and not someone you have talked to/bought the hardware from/who has planted something on your PC?

I don't care if it's a crusade to stop pedophiles, tax evaders, serial killers, or suicide bombers... You can't invade someone's privacy or step all over their rights without something concrete to justify it. And "because he's on the internet" is no more justification to search hard drives than it is justified to suspect someone of terrorism simply because they're middle-eastern.

What in your private life, is so important that it is worth stalling a search for pedophiles, tax evaders, serial killers, or suicide bombers?

DayDark:
What in your private life, is so important that it is worth stalling a search for pedophiles, tax evaders, serial killers, or suicide bombers?

Oh, how about MY FUCKING PRIVACY?!

Are the concepts of due process or personal privacy completely lost on you?

Let me put it to you very simply. If the government came into your house, cut up your furniture, trashed the walls, and broke open all your possessions in the search for drugs, it would probably piss you off righteously, right? Now if they did this because they had proof you were selling coke to school kids, with a warrant from the proper authorities, then boo-hoo to you.

But if the police came, did the same thing as above, but DIDN'T have a warrant, didn't have any kind of indication you were selling or in possession of drugs, would that not bother you? Can you tell me that what they did is acceptable?

It doesn't have to be as extreme as a house raid, but by law and principle, ANY unwarranted invasion of someone's personal privacy by the police or government is an attack on the very foundation of what our nations stand for, the rights we supposedly possess, and the personal security we hold dear. If you can't understand that, then you should try a couple years in a dictatorial police state. Maybe that will give you some perspective.

Remote searches? on my machine?

If it happens, I'm suing, that's a breach of my personal privacy. I'm British, I'm very private you see.

HALF?? REALLY? Wow, I guess they don't consider file sharing to be a crime, which would almost make them alright, except that they consider spamming a crime (wait how many people are trading CP if spamming is not even half of all internet crime when considered one?) and that they will SEARCH YOUR DRIVE?!?

Khell_Sennet:

DayDark:
What in your private life, is so important that it is worth stalling a search for pedophiles, tax evaders, serial killers, or suicide bombers?

Oh, how about MY FUCKING PRIVACY?!

Are the concepts of due process or personal privacy completely lost on you?

Let me put it to you very simply. If the government came into your house, cut up your furniture, trashed the walls, and broke open all your possessions in the search for drugs, it would probably piss you off righteously, right? Now if they did this because they had proof you were selling coke to school kids, with a warrant from the proper authorities, then boo-hoo to you.

But if the police came, did the same thing as above, but DIDN'T have a warrant, didn't have any kind of indication you were selling or in possession of drugs, would that not bother you? Can you tell me that what they did is acceptable?

It doesn't have to be as extreme as a house raid, but by law and principle, ANY unwarranted invasion of someone's personal privacy by the police or government is an attack on the very foundation of what our nations stand for, the rights we supposedly possess, and the personal security we hold dear. If you can't understand that, then you should try a couple years in a dictatorial police state. Maybe that will give you some perspective.

I agree. Those fuckers better tread lightly if they start searching my shit and invading my privacy. And I had better not see anyone type "If you are innocent you have nothing to fear" because if you actually post that you are a moron that deserves the police state that is coming.

Khell_Sennet:

DayDark:
What in your private life, is so important that it is worth stalling a search for pedophiles, tax evaders, serial killers, or suicide bombers?

Oh, how about MY FUCKING PRIVACY?!

Are the concepts of due process or personal privacy completely lost on you?

Let me put it to you very simply. If the government came into your house, cut up your furniture, trashed the walls, and broke open all your possessions in the search for drugs, it would probably piss you off righteously, right?

Then I would be pissed off that they trashed my stuff, but not because they searched my place for drugs. If they came in and not trashing my stuff, but still searching, then I really couldn't care less.

Let me put it to you very simply. If they destroy my property, I'm gonna be mad, and they will need to replace it. However, if they search my for drugs without destroying my stuff, then who gives a shit?

Now if they did this because they had proof you were selling coke to school kids, with a warrant from the proper authorities, then boo-hoo to you.

But if the police came, did the same thing as above, but DIDN'T have a warrant, didn't have any kind of indication you were selling or in possession of drugs, would that not bother you? Can you tell me that what they did is acceptable?

Destroy my stuff, and we have a problem, just going through my stuff because you wanna rule me out of a drug trade, that I have been in proximity of? Sure, go right ahead, please return everything to the place you took it, want some coffee while you're working?

It doesn't have to be as extreme as a house raid, but by law and principle, ANY unwarranted invasion of someone's personal privacy by the police or government is an attack on the very foundation of what our nations stand for, the rights we supposedly possess, and the personal security we hold dear. If you can't understand that, then you should try a couple years in a dictatorial police state. Maybe that will give you some perspective.

I thought the problem with a police state, was that the police could charge you for nothing, not go through your laundry. There's a long way from trashing your home, and charging you for an opinion, to simply go through your stuff.

I'm also not a US citizen, so maybe it's a cultural thing, I'm just not aware of the USA ever having experienced a dictatorship police state.

DayDark:
Let me put it to you very simply. If they destroy my property, I'm gonna be mad, and they will need to replace it. However, if they search my for drugs without destroying my stuff, then who gives a shit?

Obviously you don't give a shit, but most people, self included, DO. If you want to allow the cops to investigate you on anything they like, without probable cause, a warrant or any of the other constitutionally / legally required articles, good for you. But the rest of us don't, and will stand up for our rights.

I thought the problem with a police state, was that the police could charge you for nothing, not go through your laundry. There's a long way from trashing your home, and charging you for an opinion, to simply go through your stuff.

A police state is also applicable when one is under constant surveillance, having no privacy in their lives. That would apply here.

I'm also not a US citizen, so maybe it's a cultural thing, I'm just not aware of the USA ever having experienced a dictatorship police state.

Well I know little about culture in Denmark, or the law there. Maybe it isn't a big deal for your way of life. In North America, unwarranted investigation is tantamount to a crime itself. Police can lose their jobs, even face civil or criminal charges and prison time for prying into the private affairs of a citizen without cause. At the very least, evidence gathered by such illegal/unconstitutional means would have any case thrown out of court, making it a pointless effort. This only serves to make things worse as the guilty go free on technicalities while the innocent have irreparable harm to their reputation.

It becomes a witch hunt. Those never end well.