France: We must close 'hacker havens'

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2569414,00.html

By Tom Heneghan, Reuters
May 15, 2000 4:55 AM PT

PARIS -- The world's leading industrialised states, struggling against
Love Bug-style computer attacks from the most unexpected places,
opened a cybercrime conference on Monday with a call to prevent
lawless "digital havens" from springing up around the globe.

French Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, addressing officials
from the Group of Eight (G8) nations and private industry, urged
countries to agree on a world convention on cybercrime and harmonise
their laws to crack down on hackers, virus writers, software pirates
and other Internet fraudsters.

Governments and high-tech companies should develop a "co-regulation"
of the Internet, he told the three-day conference aimed at launching a
dialogue on computer security between the public and private sectors.

Drawing a parallel to international measures against tax havens that
hide hot funds and launder money, Chevenement said a cybercrime
convention being drawn up by the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe
should become a global treaty.

Close the 'digital havens'"The idea is to produce a global text so
there cannot be 'digital havens' or 'Internet havens' where anyone
planning some shady business could find the facilities to do it," he
said.

Countries also had to make clear to their citizens that the Internet
was not a lawless zone, he added.

"An adolescent should know that, even if he is very gifted in computer
science, the tricks he can play on the Internet could be serious
crimes that land him in prison. Internet isn't a toy anymore."

The high-tech blitz that flashed around the world in an e-mail
entitled "ILOVEYOU" this month showed how vulnerable computer systems
are to attack from anywhere. Unlike earlier viruses from the United
States and Canada, the "Love Bug" was launched from the Philippines.

Hopes to enlist global cooperation The Paris conference, part of
longer-term efforts by developed countries to fight cybercrime,
brought together about 300 judges, police, diplomats and business
leaders from the G8 states -- the United States, Japan,
Germany,Britain, France, Italy and Canada plus Russia -- and private
high-tech firms.

G8 leaders will take up its recommendations at their annual conference
in July in Okinawa.

Chevenement said he hoped countries such as India, China, South
Africa, Israel and the East European states would join in the effort.

In his speech, Chevenement highlighted the trans-Atlantic gap by
rejecting the idea of an international "cyberpolice" supported by U.S.
officials eager to crack down quickly on computer crime.

"Nothing could be more wrong," he declared. "Sovereign states can
develop the capacity to act, first at home and then in international
cooperation."

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said in a message to the
conference that "freedom is the most precious gift the Internet brings
us."

All states should "fight the digital divide" between high-tech haves
and have-nots, he said, but at the same time "restrain the excesses of
an unfettered freedom."

Cybercrime has risen rapidly in recent years as the World Wide Web
lives up to its name.

A recent survey showed total losses to U.S. companies last year more
than doubled to over $266 million.

Chevenement said France registered more than 2,500 Internet-linked
crimes last year "but that figure surely does not cover all big or
small infractions."

Experts say high-profile attacks like the ones which paralysed major
commercial sites like Yahoo! and Amazon.com in February are likely to
multiply as online services migrate to new platforms such as mobile
phones.


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"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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