IP: here's a switch! -- Hong Kong Police Calls For Stronger Encryption To Fight Hackers

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

X-Sender: richard#goodread.com () mail samnet net (Unverified)
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 1999 13:38:05 -0400
To: farber () cis upenn edu (David Farber)
From: "Richard J. Solomon" <richard () goodread com>



Hong Kong Police Calls For Stronger Encryption To Fight Hackers 
HONG KONG, CHINA, 1999 JUN 27 (Newsbytes) -- By Neil Taylor, IT Daily. The Hong Kong Police Force has called for an 
increase in encryption levels and key escrow policies to help battle rising levels of computer crime. 
The force is also pushing for an increase in fines levied on hackers. According to the Commercial Crimes Bureau, 
reports of computer-related offenses increased from just 25 incidents in 1997 to 89 in the first five months of this 
year. 
Although acts of criminal damage and PABX fraud have fallen, other crimes, particularly hacking and publication of 
obscene articles online, have increased sharply. The number of Internet porn cases has risen from six cases in 1997 to 
28 this year, while reported hacking incidents have shot up from seven to 51. 
However, Detective Chief Inspector Hilton Chan, who heads the bureau's Computer Crime Section, said most incidents of 
hacking were not reported, as companies feared the damage to their reputations that could result from a prosecution. 
"The reporting of those cases is very low," Chan said. "In general, this is a world-wide problem. Companies are 
reluctant to report the cases. They have to consider the consequential loss on the corporate image and public 
confidence." 
In cases of criminal damage, victims reported crimes in order to claim compensation from their insurers, but when a Web 
page could be restored from a back-up, or data was simply copied, financial losses could be very hard to gauge and the 
crime was rarely reported. 
Detective Senior Inspector Martin Purbrick said existing laws were not sufficient to deal with modern, hi-tech forms of 
crime. 
"If you're a group of hackers or if you're a very good hacker and you just take a copy of some files and there's no act 
of criminal damage, no act of destruction, no actual loss to the victim, then the only offense could be unauthorized 
access by the telecommunications line," he said. "Your benefit from that could be millions if you sold that data to 
their rivals, but the fine would be HK$20,000 (US$2,578)." 
Purbrick added that jurisdiction was another serious problem for the police. Although Singapore and the United Kingdom 
had written laws to cover international computer crime, Hong Kong, along with most other countries, had not. As a 
result, many cross-border crimes committed over the Internet cannot be prosecuted. 
Singapore police had the power to prosecute a Singaporean hacker who commited a crime in Hong Kong, but a Hong Kong 
hacker could operate with relative impunity unless an offense such as theft, fraud or obscene publication could be 
proved to have had taken place. 
Most cases the section has dealt with involve local hackers breaking into local systems, and until now there has been 
little evidence of professional hacking in Hong Kong. 
Up to 70 percent of cases involved teenagers and students in their early twenties - the most recent Internet related 
crimes to have been prosecuted involved music piracy and fraudulent use of credit cards online. 
Along with stronger fines, the Police are hoping for stronger encryption and the use of key recovery systems in the 
fight against hacking. Chan said the use of key escrow systems would enable companies to access their employee's 
e-mails and the police to access suspects' files. Meanwhile, stronger levels of encryption would make hacking more 
difficult and enhance public confidence in the network. 
"We definitely support strong encryption for e-commerce," he said. "The stronger the better; the greater the public 
confidence. We also support the individual's right to encrypt their data." 
Exchange Rate: $1 = HK$7.76 
Reported By Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com 
Inc. 



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