The fallout from the Lori Drew case continues. The St. Louis Dispatch published an article about seven people recently charged with the new cyber-bullying law in Missouri. In the article there were some quotes criticizing the new law. Wired.com sums up the arrests:

• A 21-year-old woman named Nicole Williams was charged for allegedly sending harassing text messages to a 16-year-old girl and allowing others to use her cell phone to leave vulgar voicemail messages for the victim threatening her with rape, among other things. Williams allegedly targeted the teen over a jealous dispute involving a boy, according to the Post-Dispatch.
• Two St. Louis men were charged separately with sending harassing text messages to their ex-girlfriends.
• A man protesting the development of a proposed resort was charged with sending a threatening e-mail to city hall staff.
• A 28-year-old woman was accused of sending harassing text messages to her ex-husband’s girlfriend.
• A 19-year-old man was charged with sending some 17 text messages to his mother’s husband.
• A 17-year-old involved with a classmate in a dispute over a girl is accused of sending the classmate death threats via text messages.

Bruce Schneier said there haven’t been any new crimes invented in a millennia. He’s probably right. Look at the descriptions of the seven people arrested – harassment and threats! The only difference between these descriptions and the “traditional crimes” is the medium the threats took place on.

What some are calling a “knee-jerk reaction to one case” is simply legislation trying to catch up with technology. Laws have to be changed to adapt to to the tools criminals use. If cell phones and email are the instrumentality of the crime and there is currently no law that defines this usage as a crime, the laws need to be updated to reflect that.

Looking at Nebraska Statutes as an example, you quickly see that everything is defined within the law and statutes contain very specific language. Numerous officers in Nebraska had successful online enticement arrests. During the course of these types of investigations, officers would have contact with potential offenders who would show themselves engaging in lewd acts on their webcams. There was no law that prohibited this act. Even though an adult male thought they were “putting on a show” for an underage female (under the age of 16), there was no criminal act committed according to Nebraska Criminal Statutes. A new law was passed to address this issue.

The seven people arrested based on this new cyber-bullying law aren’t doing anything new. The law has simply been adapted to help prosecute a traditional crime. If anything, using a cell phone may make it easier for police to collect evidence. An officer can observe the entries on the phone and subpoena the call detail records to back the observation up. A threatening email can often include the sender’s IP Address. Text messages, voicemails, and emails leave a nice transcript of the actual content of the threat. What used to be a “he said / she said” situation is now being proved in court via the technology used.

Sadly, the new technology can always be used to manipulate new laws. Look at the Maryland situation with speed cameras. People who were not at fault were sent citations. It is possible to send a threatening text message with a spoofed phone number. Will the officer investigating this crime ever get to the true sender or will the unknowing “suspect” be charged? Lawmakers and police officers need to take these things into consideration when dealing with laws based on new technology.

Ideally, any new law that is passed quickly is done so with little emotion playing into the decision. Lawmakers should have clear heads and rely on outside expert opinion when needed. Emotionally charged laws could become bad laws, but all new laws are tested out in the courts. This is why we have case law, good or bad. If it is determined that the law doesn’t work well enough, it will be updated or a new one will be enacted. While some have criticized the Missouri lawmakers for acting too quickly, at least they are taking steps to catch up with technology.

As a follow up to the carder post, I thought I would link to a post regarding methodologies that are being utilized on attacks against banks. Going back to the know your enemy series, these sorts of write ups have always fascinated me.

The article includes a lot, from malware to money laundering (if you ever wondered what some of those “work from home” items were, this is for you). The points made in the article about two factor authentication are very valid, and we have seen multiple situations lately where that would have been helpful.

Nice thing is, the article end with suggestions for improving the situation. This is always refreshing, as it is easy to point out what is wrong, but much more difficult to improve the situation.

PC World asks if the internet needs its own police force:

It has been an interesting year…

There is a decent write up on Wired about CardersMarket.

Settling into his chair and resting his fingers on his keyboard like a concert pianist, Butler began his attack. Most illegal online loot was fenced through four so-called carder sites—marketplaces for online criminals to buy and sell credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and other purloined data. One by one, Butler took them down.

This is a very entertaining read. Matt and I have ran into some of the fall out from this investigation and its all pretty amazing. Sometimes it is nice to see how the press spins some of these stories.