The Technological Evolution of Crime

By Anthony Pilloud
Contributing Writer

As some of you may very well know, Sony’s online Playstation Network and Qriocity music application was hacked on April 19, leaving the entire online service unavailable to its customers and leaving many of them at risk of serious identity theft, which has still yet to be fully restored (Sony plans to have everything fully functional by 31st, so we will see if you readers know something that I do not as I write it).

Sony, doing what anyone would do in such a dire circumstance, refused to disclose information on the hacking until it became aware that the issue was almost entirely out of their hands. The following day, they removed both services from online availability and began taking minor steps towards alerting the public of the seriousness of the situation. The web attack left the Playstation Network crippled, and Sony was forced to begin almost completely reconstructing it in order to properly solve the crisis and uncover who it was that performed this cyber-crime of monstrous proportions. I can personally attest to the frustration this has caused Sony customers.

The issue is that we still do not know who it was. Since the initial attack, Sony has attempted to reestablish the network twice; however on the first reopening of the service they were almost immediately hacked again (as it turned out, there was possibly a deficiency that may or may not have made it possible for hackers to gain access to anyone’s account so long as they had their username and email address). Anonymous, one of the world’s largest online hacker organizations, was accused of the crime after Sony uncovered an encrypted file within the hack that simply said “Anonymous” and within that file the phrase “We are Legion;” Anonymous has been known to use this phrase often during their cyber-attacks.
       
Yet Anonymous responded immediately, denying all involvement in the attack. Anonymous is often called a “hacktivist” group, an organization that employs cyber-attacks as a form of political and social protest or commentary. Hacking into a corporations customer service to steal personal information and potentially disrupt their financial security is simply not their style.
       
It is much more likely that the culprit is not a large online organization or any form of hacktivist group but a simple, cyber-criminal, buying and selling information that they acquire from their actions. They probably planted the Anonymous file in an attempt to defer blame onto the already known group. Here, we see but a small taste of what I predict is to come: as the internet grows in size and influence and the common, hand held dollar becomes increasingly obsolete as online buying and selling increases, then almost all criminal activity will also be witnessed within the arbitrary lines drawn within the confines of cyberspace.
       
It is the day and age of the hacker, simply put. Banks will no longer need to employ vaults, but will be in dire need of cyber-consultants to ensure that their customer’s money is safe and sound. Comparatively, where there are those who wish to protect, then it is clear that there is something they wish to protect, and thus the cycle begins anew. It is simply becoming increasingly inconvenient (and oftentimes dangerous) to carry larger sums of cash on your physical body; it is only natural that we would rely on the immaterial reality of the web-based universe.
       
And so I propose a thesis for the future: I predict that as the want and need for the physical dollar decreases exponentially in the coming years (or decades) and is replaced by the ever-growing convenience and installment of the data-based finance within the online universe, then nearly all forms of criminal activity will necessitate hacker involvement. Even if we still use large vaults to store our riches in, we must protect those storehouses with electronic security systems that can most likely be overridden by incorporating the correct electronic counterpart; i.e., even a physical security system can and will be broken into with the tools in a hacker’s repertoire. And (hopefully), by extension, this will be countered with people using nearly the exact same training and knowledge.

The digital age of the hacker has come.

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