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    OutlawPlanet: Is Outlaw Planet only about hackers?

    What about organized crime?

    Started by: Hector Valentine Raves:12

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    Smugglers, black markets, and "muscle" might be just as important to the survival of people trying to the failure of their nations; many criminal enterprises function as mutual aid societies. How relavent is this to the "Outlaw Planet" superthreat?

    Most of the really dangerous hacking going on is being backed, either by organized crime or national governments, so I think this is very relevant.

    I\\\'d agree that what we\\\'d call \\\"organized crime\\\" is a huge part of the Outlaw Planet issue. The effort involved in disrupting the infrastructure of thousands or millions of people usually means that there is something valuable at stake - either in terms of money or ideology.

    My take is that Outlaw Planet is definitely NOT only about hackers or griefers. It\\\'s about all kinds of decentralized, disruptive groups who we need to build resilience against. There\\\'s certainly an emphasis because a lot of people in GEAS and superstructers are gamers to see things in these terms, but crime and terrorism are also part of it.

    Organized crime can be useful to at-risk communities! In fact, a lot of organized crime organizations start out as mutual-aid societies in endangered populations.

    It\\\'s true that organized crime is at times able to solve certain problems with greater efficiency than traditional structures. Is it only because they aren\\\'t bound to \\\"nice\\\" methods, or is there anything in their organizational structure that could be adopted? Some kind of distrbuted superstruct aimed at mutual aid along these models could be very helpfull.

    Although it has taken a while for traditional \\\"Organized\\\" Crime to catch on this new era of cyberterroism, they are flying with the best of us. That said on this battleground the individual can truly has much effect as the big dogs. That said we mush differentiate between the criminal and the wistle blower.

    Don't forget that the "right" side of the law has its own hackers. For instance, corrupt government officials have every reason to want a hackable "voting" system where people cast their votes and the incumbents get re-elected, through black boxes where no one can prove corruption. See http://www.iftf.org/node/2267 for more on this. It is possible to secure systems such that they are effectively unhackable - it's just that this makes them less convenient to use, so lazy or cheap (or, again, corrupt) managers tend not to go for that.

    In some countries, organized crime has intertwined the government system, in fact, they are the government. Lets take the example of drug exporters countries. There the power of the local drug cartels is so high that even the governments has been infiltrated. The population must organize and use the new technologies to overthrown this kinds of governments.

    My question is, why do people think hacking is restricted to computerized systems? The term "hacking" comes from the early days of the electronic frontier. It is used today as a term for unauthorized access to interconnected computerized systems, but those actions predate computers. The decades before the population gained easy access to personal computers, the technology of choice was the telephone. While some may make the leap in logic to Captain Crunch and his use of a toy whistle to hack phone systems, it is very instructive to remember that the system of choice those early tech-savvy outlaw "hackers" was bureaucracy. Rather than proficiency in a computer language, pre-tech "hackers" utilized their proficiency in the spoken word and a knowledge of human bureaucratic systems to act. A hacker without a computer is simply a con man, a grifter, a social hacker. To Hector Valentine's point about criminal enterprises and the threat they represent, their activities are facilitated by established, non-technological forms of hacking. We will end up restricting our thinking on this issue if we continue to focus on technology to the exclusion of the human behaviors driving this superthreat.

    What about places where there is no law for activities to be criminal? Everyone denies it but I heard off a friend of mine that some of the sea launch platforms have put satellite killers into orbit and the people who paid for them (identity unknown) are extorting protection money from the telcoms corps for not blowing up their comms satellites. No law in space to say thats illegal as far as I know.

    In my opinion, organized crime is just as much of an issue as hacker. Why? Because organized crime can ultimately lead up to terrorism, putting many many people who have nothing to do with the problem in potential danger.

    Lobo7922, i see what you mean, in fact i see it every day.

    I think we need to remember that "crime" actually begins when a law is created. Many laws are created specificaly to regulate or demonize a target group. Back in the early 20th century hemp was termed "marijuana" and banned in order to criminalize African-Americans. Other laws remain on the books specifically because of the high-profits garnered by black market dealers, which ultimately filter through the "legitimate" financial markets. Today, organized crime is unquestionably the greatest threat. Scattered hackers, and street-corner muggers are no threat compared to the shadow government financed hacker gangs with their coordinated attacks and CIA-backed paramilitary groups. Our choice, then, is to suffer under criminal organizations (and the tyranical governments they protect) or to form our own societies of mutual-aid to resist both the criminals and unjust laws.

    I see Individual Hackers as a larger threat than Organized Crime. Organized Crime is usually marked by cooperation, an overall goal, a leader, and extensive rules which are punishable by extreme methods. The goal of organized crime is often either personal gain or harming a certain group or organization. There are three reasons that organized crime is less dangerous than vigilante criminals: 1) Their goals are often more apparent and therefore their activities are more easily speculated and prevented. 2) They are held to some set of rules laid down, and are therefore not completely free of boundaries. 3) Their activities are often more thoroughly planned and therefore less likely to go farther than expected. For example, they are less likely than amateurs to overturn an entire banking system when simply trying to transfer non-existent funds to their account. For these reasons, I would mark individual hackers as a bigger threat to society.




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