Written by Tony Neate, Managing Director, Get Safe Online
Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about the link between online crime and terrorism, but I don’t recall seeing any direct evidence. That’s changed. A friend sent me this link from the Washington Post. It looks like the link between online crime and terror funding has been firmly established.
Three men, Tariq Al-Daour, Younes Tsouli and Waseem Mughal, used stolen credit cards numbers to make purchases at hundreds of online stores, armed with shopping lists of items that fellow terrorists might need to complete their activities. Authorities also say the men laundered funds from stolen credit card accounts through more than a dozen online gambling Web sites.
They recently pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court to inciting terrorist murder; they also admitted conspiring to defraud banks, credit card companies and charge card companies.
This has certainly heightened the need for people to protect themselves online. Not only do we need to protect ourselves from online criminals taking our money but we also need to protect ourselves from terrorists using the proceeds of crime to fund their activities.
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Can’t anybody else see the irony in our Government backing an online identity protection scheme when they are going to sell our identities to businesses in order to pay for the id scheme?
We need to protect ourselves from our own Government first! It’s like trying to explain technology to a bunch of illiterate 90 year olds. They just don’t get it. Or maybe they do, and if that is the case then we should be more concerned with a fraudulent government and not a few terrorists.