Cybercops

defcon, cdc, worm, hope, chris rouland, x-force, ibm, us secret service, robert weaver, electronic crimes task force, deth vegetable, back orifice, matoaki yamamura, symantec, virus, sir dystic, oxblood ruffin, grandmaster ratte, doug brown, bloomberg, sting operation, national criminal intelligence services, hi-tech crimes task force, 2000s

Cybercops is a Channel 4 UK documentary first aired on December 21st 2000. The documentary offers an outlook on computer crime from the perspective of financial and law enforcement organizations, specifically IBM X-Force, Symantec, USSS Electronic Crimes Task Force, Sacramento Valley HI-Tech Crimes Task Force, and others.

The documentary begins with a coverage of H2K, Hackers on Planet Earth, conference in New York. The coverage includes interviews with Chris Rouland, X-Force, and Robert Weaver, USS, talking about their concerns with so many hackers gathering in the city and their threat to local financial institutions and E-Commerce sites.

During the conference, there is a brief interview with Deth Vegetable describing the history of CDC, reasons for developing Back Orifice application, and the lack of security in Microsoft Windows.

Next we move to Symantec Corporation, where Motoaki Yamamura describes current virus threats and warns about future tendencies for stealth, information stealing viruses.

There is a brief coverage of Defcon conference including Cult of the Dead Cow talk, Defcon Shoot, and an interview with Doug Brown who describes that the real threat to corporations is insider threat not hackers.

At this point, the documentary moves to specific instance of cybercrime. One segment covers a sting operation to arrest two citizens of Kazakhstan for attemtping to extort $200,000 from Michael Bloomberg. Next there are several pieces of USSS Electronic Crimes Task Force investigating child pornography and check fraud.

Overall this documentary offers several interesting interviews and event coverage; however, the narrator fails to recognize inherent differences between individuals attending hacking conventions and criminals covered in the rest of the documentary. As a result this documentary tends to use scare and mislead its viewers to support the notion that all hackers are criminals. My recommendation is to enjoy the documentary while ignoring the narrator.