The Government should protect us from e-crime

[Rik]

At least, that's what the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee think.

According to the BBC, ""We are firm believers in the internet. It is a huge force for good. But it relies on the confidence of millions of users," said Lord Broers, chairman of the committee that published the Personal Internet Security report.

"You can't just rely on individuals to take responsibility for their own security. They will always be out-foxed by the bad guys."

Personally, I would rather take responsibility for my own protection than rely on the Govt to do it for me. Somehow, I trust myself rather than a department of civil servants. I know, though, that there are many people online who have no idea about securing their machines, and who wouldn't take the time to do it even if they understood the dangers. Perhaps we need some sort of 'certificate of competence' before people are allowed to sign up for internet access?

I do agree with the idea of a central system for reporting e-crime. You cannot, for example, report credit card fraud to the police, you have to notify your bank and it's up to them whether they report it. To my mind, this is not a good idea.

[zimmerframe]

I've always considered myself savvy with regard to on-line protection and am somtimes amazed when I speak with friends for instance, as to how unprotected their machines are.  They go on-line without even rudimentry protection and then complain that thier machine isnt as fast as it used to be

Some think that just running an out of date antivirus program that came with their machine whn they bought it, is also OK.  " Why would I want to pay for updates"?  "Firewall! Whats that?"

With regard to reporting e-fraud, wasnt that a recent change?  I remeber thinking at the time that this is not a good idea as the banks have a vested interest in hushing up e-fraud.  The police on the other hand, can now report a reduction in total crime reported.  More smoke and mirrors?

[Rik]

With regard to reporting e-fraud, wasnt that a recent change?  I remeber thinking at the time that this is not a good idea as the banks have a vested interest in hushing up e-fraud.  The police on the other hand, can now report a reduction in total crime reported.  More smoke and mirrors?

The change was made earlier this year, possibly April? I disagree with it, it means that we can no longer report a crime, it's up to the banks whether or not that happens. The banks often fail to report instances of fraud, preferring to keep things 'in house'. As you say, that reduces the number of crimes reported and hides the extent of the criminal activity. Good for the Govt's targets.

[Inactive]

With regard to reporting e-fraud, wasnt that a recent change?  I remeber thinking at the time that this is not a good idea as the banks have a vested interest in hushing up e-fraud.  The police on the other hand, can now report a reduction in total crime reported.  More smoke and mirrors?

Indeed, the public should be able to report any and every crime to the police, Banks are hardly the best people to deal with these matters.

This government counts it's achievements via a very distorted calculation of the facts.

[Rik]

The Govt has a history of creating and manipulating statistics to prove it's doing its job. 

[Sibe]

So the government wants to police the Internet and take away more of peoples liberties, cctv Internet style   assuming that everyone is stupid and we need help from the bad guys, what a heap of nonsense!! what next microchiped people   another new world order  Ploy from the Illuminati Puppets.

i mean yeah reporting online fraud etc but i can see where this is trying to go...

[Rik]

You're going to fit in around here just fine.