War on War on Cybercrime

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  The UK has just announced that it is losing the war on cybercrime, and needs to consolidate cybercrime policing into a new unified structure as part of a shakeup of the country's policing.

Any time a government declares a “war on something”, it costs money, achieves nothing, and distracts from the real issues.  For recent examples consider the total failure of the “war on drugs”, “war on terror”, and “war on poverty”, just to name a few.  War on cybercrime will be no different.

All of these wars are justified by the belief that the government needs to be seen to be doing something, combined with the unshakeable assertion that they are better at protecting us than we are at protecting ourselves.  I disagree with both sides of the argument.

We live in a world with a higher standard of living, with more freedoms and less crime than ever before.  There is no public outcry to protect us.  The only outcry is that generated by the media and the government themselves.

What we need is better education and the tools to protect ourselves.  We are all being attacked all the time, and we can protect ourselves without relying on an ineffective government oversight body that in the end does nothing but serve platitudes.

We need to declare a war on the war on cybercrime.

Phil Kernick Chief Technology Officer
@philkernick www.cqr.com