The BBC is reporting that Internet search engine Google has seen quarterly profits soar by 69%, beating expectations, boosted by strong advertising revenue. Net income climbed to $1bn (£499m) in the first three months of 2007, up from $592m on a year earlier.

While this is impressive earnings by any standard, it pales in comparison to another earnings report released last week by a Congressional research and investigation agency.

Cybercrime in its various forms-- computer crime, identity theft and phishing -- costs the U.S. economy some US$117.5 billion a year, reported the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

"These projected losses are based on direct and indirect costs that may include actual money stolen, estimated cost of intellectual property stolen, and recovery cost of repairing or replacing damaged networks and equipment," says the report, released through the offices of Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the committee on Homeland Security, and James R. Langevin (D-R.I.), chairman of the subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, Science and Technology.

The goal of many сybercriminals is to infect thousands of computers and turn them into a network of devices that have been compromised by worms or viruses, known as a "bot-net." Bot-nets are a very powerful tool for crime, crucial to executing distributed denial of service attacks, spam and phishing scams, which makes them the growing weapon of choice for fraud and extortion.

While many articles are available, detailing various ways to lessen the risk of becoming a victim, the most powerful tool, Encryption, is not even in the toolbox. (at least legally speaking)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has now filed a lawsuit challenging the the current Arms Export Control Law, which limits our ability to utilize this tool, on First Amendment grounds.

EFF, which has various lawsuits filed, including a class-action lawsuit against AT&T [Hepting v. AT&T] which accused the telecom giant of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with the National Security Agency (NSA) in its massive, illegal program to wiretap and data-mine Americans' communications.

Shari Steele, Director of Legal Services at EFF states:

Quoting: “The United States Government requires network providers to keep their systems easily exploited. Encryption would enable companies to thwart unwanted intrusion by disguising the content of messages, making the messages virtually unreadable to anyone who does not possess the decryption key. Computer intruders would not be able to steal passwords or credit card information because they would not be able to read the data.

Furthermore, encryption helps authenticate users by making it difficult to forge information used to identify messages. But network security poses an interesting threat to U.S. law enforcement. If the system is secure, how can the National Security Agency intercept the messages of evil terrorists?

Rather than "ramp up" their own law enforcement techniques, the NSA and others have made a requirement that the networks "dumb down" to their level. Such antiquated Cold War thinking has resulted in the State Department refusing to remove encryption from the U.S. Munitions List, -- where it currently sits right alongside flamethrowers and B-1 bombers -- severely restricting its legal use on international networks like the Internet.” end quote

We all know how quickly these cases proceed. We should all continue to sleep with the doors and windows unlocked, and one eye open. Meanwhile its reassuring to know, by utilizing pseudonyms and other online identities, which provides an anonymity that is attractive to criminals, sources have estimated that only 5% of cybercriminals are ever caught or convicted.

I think I'll stick to my original thought. It may be better to phish five days and work two.

See also:

http://www.terroritory.com/2008/04/06/centers-tap-into-personal-databases/

http://www.terroritory.com/2008/02/12/senate-passes-bush-approved-fisa-update/

http://hostjury.com/blog/view/130/i-say-we-work-two-days-and-phish-five