No More "Mr. Trusting User"

According to the 2006 Internet Crime Report from the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, auction fraud and non-delivery are the cause of nearly sixty-five percent of all internet crime complaints. No other category of complaint amounts to even five of the remaining thirty-five percent. What jumps out to me is that these two categories of internet fraud do not represent technological cunning and manipulation but merely a regrettably faulty reliance on a stranger’s discretion.

So often we picture the perpetrator as one who takes advantage of the anonymity of the internet or one who uses a superior understanding of computers and programming to achieve an immoral purpose. However, these statistics tell us that sixty-five percent of those “bad guys” aren’t hiding and aren’t particularly cunning; they’re just dishonest. And as relatively little has been done as far as regulatory efforts, these criminals are largely successful.

This reflects how difficult it is to adapt to the very new and different world of the internet. People are used to dealing with people face to face or at least in a way that leaves a physical path for crime fighters to follow. With the internet, we’ve been slow to recognize and utilize what paths exist (many times for political reasons) and thus many mischievous malefactors (who may be more cautious and less present in “offline” markets) are making their debut in a realm that has yet to learn how to properly raise or deal with a red flag.

Perhaps someday we will each have a universal account; an account with our global identity, all of our financial assets, all of our credit and credentials. Then the consequences of bad behavior online won’t be so easy to evade or ignore. But until that day, our motto must be, “be safe or be sorry”. We can’t assume anything but the worst about an online newcomer. Such an attitude may put a damper on business and commerce, but these negative effects will have been worth it if they causes us to recognize the need to focus our attention as much on securing the internet as on building it.