Thursday, June 05, 2008

Identity Theft Prosecuted at Less than 1%

Watching Dateline show on identity theft, they report that only 1% of identity thefts are actually prosecuted. The problem, as suggested many times in this blog, these identity thefts are residing in other countries and local law enforcement has their hands tied in doing anything about it. This is an international crime and political issue, exacerbated further now that the identity theft rings have been reportedly moving into Iran where they believe they cannot be touched by the U.S. government. This is part of the money that is pouring out of the United States and into the bank accounts of thefts, criminals and possibly, foreign governments that may not have good intentions for the United States.

Recently, I met with an investor to catch up and ponder investment and business ideas, but after first hearing that my ideas were a conspiracy theory, even though many legitimate magazines, newspapers, television shows and a contact at the FBI have backed up my factual reports, I decided I was a bit too forward thinking and probably should go it alone for now (and he probably won't have invested anyway because I did not really go into detail about my plans and maybe he wouldn't have gotten it or maybe I am just clueless and my ideas will not amount to any money).

Just like the first spam filters were hated by people because maybe one or two good emails got caught, people don't get blocking out bad Internet traffic to save their businesses and prevent crime, hackers, spoofing, scraping and malware on their computers.

As far as stopping the crime altogether a wall only goes so far. Basically the world needs some big changes to catch and stop these crime rings, that perhaps are working hand in hand with drug lords and terrorists - since it has been reported that Internet crime is now more profitable than drugs. Laws need to change, and the International community, venture capitalists, and even the average user or at least the average business web site owner needs to catch up with reality and what needs to be done about these problems.