General

The Internet will be everywhere and pervasive in everyday life. The house will be Internet driven - there are already Internet aware fridges in circulation

There will be continued and increasing reliance on the Internet as a major component of the critical infrastructure. Many of today's utility services will become controlled by the Internet, examples being the electric grid, gas, telephones (voice over IP), emergency services, banking and transport. Any processes using SCADA will end up using the Internet.

The capabilities and opportunities provided by the Internet have transformed many legitimate business activities, augmenting the speed, ease, and range with which transactions can be conducted whilst also lowering many of the costs. Criminals have also discovered that the Internet can provide new opportunities and multiplier benefits for illicit business. The dark side of the Internet involves not only fraud and theft, pervasive pornography, and paedophile rings, but also drug trafficking and criminal organizations that are more intent upon exploitation than the disruption that is the focus of the hacking community.

Sophisticated scammers are found on the Internet, but for most users they will never be encountered if they are careful about what they do on the Internet or with email.

New technology now and in the future will create more opportunity for crime by:

·         Providing easier access to systems, premises, goods and information;

·         Removing geographical obstacles to crime;

·         Increasing the scale of potential rewards;

·         Increasing anonymity in committing crime or consuming its proceeds.'

The global aspect of this problem has been highlighted by the Council of Europe in its draft Convention on Cyber-crime, the first international treaty to address e-crime and IT abuse [CECC 2002][i].

The origins of the problems with the Internet are that the Internet did not have security as a design consideration, it was designed for resilience in case of war.

Given the lack of security being designed into the Internet and that no one actually owns it and there is no central operating authority it makes changing the Internet a difficult, if not impossible, task.