From The BBC
10th March 2017
Technology is now at the "root" of all serious criminality, says Europe's police agency. The returns generated by document fraud, money laundering and online trade in illegal goods helps to pay for other damaging crimes, said Europol. The wider use of technology by criminal gangs poses the "greatest challenge" to police forces, it said in a study. It revealed that Europol is currently tracking 5,000 separate international organised crime groups.
The "comprehensive" study of organised crime in Europe found a wide range of crime groups ranging from loose networks of individual criminals up to large trans-national bodies that generate profits which rival those of legitimate multi-national corporations. Common among all groups was their affection for technology, said the report. The ease with which cybercrime campaigns can be set up and run as well as the proliferation of online crime services had driven this adoption. Many groups now use cybercrime campaigns, including ransomware, to generate cash that is then used to bankroll people and drug trafficking operations. "These cross-cutting criminal threats enable and facilitate most, if not all, other types of serious and organised crime," said the report.
In addition, said Europol, many gangs were turning to technology to help make well-established crimes more lucrative. For instance, said the report, drones were now being used to transport drugs and many burglars now track social media posts to work out when people are away from their home. The steady increase in the number of reported burglaries across Europe was a "particular concern" for many nations, it said.
[Criminals have always been early adopters of technology in all its forms so it should come as a huge surprise that technology enables crime as much as it enables everything else today. That being the case we all need to be much more tech savvy to protect ourselves from often very avoidable technical issues. I know that sense is increasingly less common but maybe we need to Think more and Tweet less. Just a thought……….]
5 comments:
i bet if the authorities could get a handle on the political groups, the rest would fall in line...
I think we're generally too rebellious to be forced into line on anything.... or by anyone. I think the only thing that will unit us is an external enemy. Even then some will side with them rather than side with their historic foes.
unfortunately that does seem to be the nature of the so-called civilization we live in...
This is not surprising. In the end, I believe that technology's benefits far outweigh its negatives. However, like many things in this world, technology leads to a lot of bad things.
I tell all my friends to be careful about posting when they are away from home on social media.
I have a few books coming up on the darker side of technology - just as a counterbalance to all the 'technology will save us all - no matter what we do' rhetoric we are bombarded with.
Post a Comment