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List:       cryptography
Subject:    [Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>] IP: here's a switch! -- Hong Kong Police Calls For Stronger   E
From:       "Perry E. Metzger" <perry () piermont ! com>
Date:       1999-06-28 23:57:49
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>From Dave Farber's list.

The formatting is a bit mangled, but it seemed interesting.



Message-Id: <4.2.0.56.19990629073830.00973a70@linc.cis.upenn.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 07:39:13 -0400
From: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: IP: here's a switch! -- Hong Kong Police Calls For Stronger
  Encryption To Fight Hackers
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Reply-To: farber@cis.upenn.edu


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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