apwg: day 2, law and enforcement

Today was mostly geared towards law enforcement and legal arguments about how and why phishing (and other electronic fraud) are difficult to catch.


Stanley W. Crowder (Special Agent, US Secret Service)
Mr. Crowder talked about how the USSS investigates phishing to help find people, stop them, and generally protect consumers.   He mentioned that there are lots of carding websites used for fraud.  Also, there is a tremendous underground culture (or market) centered around stealing and using identity for financial gain.  Take-Home message: Law enforcement needs help breaking through the technological barriers to catch bad guys.

Michael Levin (Dep. Dir. National Cyber Security Division, DHS)
Agent Levin gave a little insight about how his division at the DHS operates.  It appeared to me that his emphasis was on DHS's main aim is to get different communities talking to each other (intelligence, academia, law enforcement).  He believes all police should be equally well trained on cybercrime so they can help collect and identify digital evidence when they visit a crime scene.  He also believes in establishing good relations between US feds and other countries' federal cops by "drinkin' beer or drinkin' vodka or wrestlin' with 'em" -- whatever it takes.

DHS interacts with the public via CyberCop.  You can register for the CyberCop portal and obtain a weekly newsletter called "unusual suspects" sharing some sort of interesting information (don't know what).