Unfortunately most evil cybercriminals know the "one weird trick" of "do your crimes in countries that don't care about the crimes"
Unfortunately most evil cybercriminals know the "one weird trick" of "do your crimes in countries that don't care about the crimes"
I see several comments like this implying nothing can be done. But that is far from the truth. First, an agency that actually answered the phone could coordinate directly with LinkedIn and other tech companies to quickly take down these fake accounts and minimize harm to others. We all know how incredibly hard it is to contact a tech company. Second, an agency that answers the phone could help less technical people find what may have been compromised and push people towards support services if needed. And finally, maybe, they could do the hard job of combining leads and working with appropriate agencies to maybe find and prevent these things over time.
> But that is far from the truth
Just install a Russian locale on your computer to prevent malicious programs even starting and get on with your day because it's the truth.
Snowden is a free man in 2026 despite the United States of America very much wanting to put him in jail.
Taking things down doesn't help much unless the platform has something in place to make it hard to recreate them.
>they could do the hard job of combining leads and working with appropriate agencies to maybe find and prevent these things over time
At least in the U.S., everyone will cry government overreach and no one will fund it. In other countries, they should probably just ban U.S. platforms unless they're reachable and actually resolve these type of problems.
> just ban U.S. platforms
Try that and see your champagne exports be tarriffed with 100% in no time.
china seems to be doing fine. what are you gonna do, tariff the country that makes all your stuff? 100% tariff on iphones and macbooks?
Won't that require laws that allow the said agency to compel LinkedIn or whatever tech company to actually pay attention and take action? Like laws compelling tech companies to unlock the bootloader once they stop supporting a device.
I wonder why such common sense laws don't exist and who is preventing them from being introduced and passed despite wide public support in general?
I'm not a lawyer but it would be odd if a government agency couldn't communicate a possible threat to a tech company. It is in a company like LinkedIn's best interest to set up a phone number/channels for a centralized agency to communicate potentially malicious accounts and other emerging threats. I suspect that actually already exists for big companies. I doubt they are required to -do- anything without laws but this seems like a win that is easy for all sides. The problem is likely mostly on the US (and other govt) side of things. No clearly defined agency with a clear mandate, resources and leadership to take on this task.
You're describing the FBI or your state level equivalent. And they actually do exactly what you are describing, but in measured efforts. I've even had them come by my place of employment before. They clearly lack the resources to work at this scale though.
The problem with a phone number you suggest is that it will get spammed and abused with fraudulent imposters too (the complete and utter destruction of trust in phone calls and text messages should also be corrected by the government, but that's a different topic).
https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/cyber
Sounds like socializing the harms instead of requiring these companies to bear the burden themselves. Could still be a valid approach but I'm afraid it will make them take less responsibility, not more.
whilst reducing crime is an honorable objective, as we all know, increasing the wealth of tech billionaires must take priority.
Won't that just create another channel for social engineering to delete a victim's account?
Something I've always wondered, because I'm a bit of a contrarian and I wonder if we're really any different: Could an American citizen hack and steal from Iranians and Russians with impunity from America? The issues that prevent the US from extraditing Russians who hack us -- don't they work both ways?
Legally speaking, no - it would still be a criminal offence.
Practically speaking, there is zero chance that the USA would extradite someone to Iran, even if they weren't currently at war with them. Whether they did anything about it would probably depend on exactly what the situation was - there's a big of difference between targeted IRGC or defence systems and ransomwaring an Iranian hospital or scamming random citizens.
Where they'd probably get you is if you tried to monetise it, and get stolen/extorted cryptocurrencies (or whatever) into your bank account. But that could easily fall under tax evasion laws rather than computer misuse ones, because they'd be a lot easier to prove in court.
What would happen if you honestly listed your earnings on your tax forms?
It would be very dependent on the exact circumstances - who made a complaint, what exactly they're accusing you of, what evidence there is, how high profile it is, the current diplomatic position (which changes by the hour), etc, etc. I don't think you can really get a simple answer for this kind of question.
As far as I know it has never happened. On the contrary, when Alejandro Caceres admitted to ddosing North Korea - taking down all their public websites for a week - he was questioned by the FBI who decided to take no further action.
https://www.wired.com/story/p4x-north-korea-internet-hacker-...
So hostile countries should be fair game for Americans who want a side-hustle. Plenty of Russian targets that could be profitable.
Cut the cables