Future crimes: everything is connected, everyone is vulnerable and what we can do about it

588 Pages·2015·3.18 MB·English

by  Marc Goodman

Copyright © 2015 Marc Goodman
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House
LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random
House companies.
www.doubleday.com
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random
House, Inc.
Jacket design by Pete Garceau
Jacket art: camera lens © PixelEmbargo/iStock/Thinkstock
phone © yganko/iStock/Thinkstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goodman, Marc.
Future crimes : everything is connected, everyone is vulnerable and what we can do about it /
Marc Goodman.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-385-53900-5 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-38553901-2 (eBook)
1. Computer crimes—Prevention. 2. Computer security. 3. Data protection. 4. Technological
innovations—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title.
HV6773.G66 2015
364.16′8—dc23 2014038053
v3.1
To all my teachers,
who have taught me so much
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE: THE IRRATIONAL OPTIMIST: HOW I GOT THIS WAY
PART ONE
A GATHERING STORM
CHAPTER 1: CONNECTED, DEPENDENT, AND VULNERABLE
Progress and Peril in a Connected World
The World Is Flat (and Wide Open)
The Good Old Days of Cyber Crime
The Malware Explosion
The Security Illusion
CHAPTER 2: SYSTEM CRASH
A Vulnerable Global Information Grid
WHOIS It?
CHAPTER 3: MOORE’S OUTLAWS
The World of Exponentials
The Crime Singularity
Control the Code, Control the World
CHAPTER 4: YOU’RE NOT THE CUSTOMER, YOU’RE THE PRODUCT
Our Growing Digital World—What They Never Told You
The Social Network and Its Inventory—You
You’re Leaking—How They Do It
The Most Expensive Things in Life Are Free
Terms and Conditions Apply (Against You)
Mobile Me
Pilfering Your Data? There’s an App for That
Location, Location, Location
CHAPTER 5: THE SURVEILLANCE ECONOMY
You Thought Hackers Were Bad? Meet the Data Brokers
Analyzing You
But I’ve Got Nothing to Hide
Privacy Risks and Other Unpleasant Surprises
Opening Pandora’s Virtual Box
Knowledge Is Power, Code Is King, and Orwell Was Right
CHAPTER 6: BIG DATA, BIG RISK
Data Is the New Oil
Bad Stewards, Good Victims, or Both?
Data Brokers Are Poor Stewards of Your Data Too
Social Networking Ills
Illicit Data: The Lifeblood of Identity Theft
Stalkers, Bullies, and Exes—Oh My!
Online Threats to Minors
Haters Gonna Hate
Burglary 2.0
Targeted Scams and Targeted Killings
Counterintelligence Implications of Leaked Government Data
So No Online Profile Is Better, Right?
The Spy Who Liked Me
CHAPTER 7: I.T. PHONES HOME
Mobile Phone Operating System Insecurity
Mind the App
Why Does My Flashlight App Need Access to My Contacts?
Mobile Device and Network Threats
Hacking Mobile Payments
Your Location Becomes the Scene of the Crime
Cloudy Weather Ahead
Big Data, Big Brother
The Darker Side of Big Data
CHAPTER 8: IN SCREEN WE TRUST
Life in a Mediated World
Does Not Compute
I Thought You Were My Friend
Fatal System Error
When Seeing Ain’t Believing
Screen of the Crime
Stock Screeners
CHAPTER 9: MO’ SCREENS, MO’ PROBLEMS
Call Screening
Lost in Space: GPS Hacks
When General Tso Attacks
Screen Play: Hacking Critical Infrastructures for Fun and Mayhem
Smoke Screens and the Fog of War
Control, Alt, Deceit
PART TWO
THE FUTURE OF CRIME
CHAPTER 10: CRIME, INC.
The Cyber Sopranos
Crime, Inc.—the Org Chart
The Lean (Criminal) Start-Up
A Sophisticated Matrix of Crime
Honor Among Thieves: The Criminal Code of Ethics
Crime U
Innovation from the Underworld
From Crowdsourcing to Crime Sourcing
CHAPTER 11: INSIDE THE DIGITAL UNDERGROUND
Passport to the Dark Web
A Journey into the Abyss
Dark Coins
Crime as a Service
Crimeazon.com
The Malware-Industrial Complex
Net of the Living Dead: When Botnet Zombies Attack
Committing Crime Automagically
CHAPTER 12: WHEN ALL THINGS ARE HACKABLE
Where the Wireless Things Are
Imagining the Internet of Things
Connecting Everything—Insecurely
Obliterating Privacy
Hacking Hardware
More Connections, More Vulnerabilities
CHAPTER 13: HOME HACKED HOME
Candid Camera
From Carjacking to Car Hacking
Home Hacked Home
What the Outlet Knows
Business Attacks and Building Hacks
The Smart City Operating System
CHAPTER 14: HACKING YOU
“We Are All Cyborgs Now”
More Than Meets the Eye: The World of Wearable Computing
You’re Breaking My Heart: The Dangers of Implantable Computers
When Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers Get a Virus
Identity Crisis: Hacking Biometrics
Fingers Crossed (and Hacked)
Your Password? It’s Written All Over Your Face
On Your Best Behavior
Augmenting Reality
The Rise of Homo virtualis
CHAPTER 15: RISE OF THE MACHINES: WHEN CYBER CRIME GOES 3-D
We, Robot
The Military-Industrial (Robotic) Complex
A Robot in Every Home and Office
Humans Need Not Apply
Robot Rights, Law, Ethics, and Privacy
Danger, Will Robinson
Hacking Robots
Game of Drones
Robots Behaving Badly
Attack of the Drones
The Future of Robotics and Autonomous Machines
Printing Crime: When Gutenberg Meets Gotti
CHAPTER 16: NEXT-GENERATION SECURITY THREATS: WHY CYBER WAS
ONLY THE BEGINNING
Nearly Intelligent
Talk to My Agent
Black-Box Algorithms and the Fallacy of Math Neutrality
Algorithm Capone and His AI Crime Bots
When Watson Turns to a Life of Crime
Man’s Last Invention: Artificial General Intelligence
The AI-pocalypse
How to Build a Brain
Tapping Into Genius: Brain-Computer Interface
Mind Reading, Brain Warrants, and Neuro-hackers
Biology Is Information Technology
Bio-computers and DNA Hard Drives
Jurassic Park for Reals
Invasion of the Bio-snatchers: Genetic Privacy, Bioethics, and DNA Stalkers
Bio-cartels and New Opiates for the Masses
Hacking the Software of Life: Bio-crime and Bioterrorism
The Final Frontier: Space, Nano, and Quantum
PART THREE
SURVIVING PROGRESS
CHAPTER 17: SURVIVING PROGRESS
Killer Apps: Bad Software and Its Consequences
Software Damages
Reducing Data Pollution and Reclaiming Privacy
Kill the Password
Encryption by Default
Taking a Byte out of Cyber Crime: Education Is Essential
The Human Factor: The Forgotten Weak Link
Bringing Human-Centered Design to Security
Mother (Nature) Knows Best: Building an Immune System for the Internet
Policing the Twenty-First Century
Practicing Safe Techs: The Need for Good Cyber Hygiene
The Cyber CDC: The World Health Organization for a Connected Planet
CHAPTER 18: THE WAY FORWARD
Ghosts in the Machine
Building Resilience: Automating Defenses and Scaling for Good
Reinventing Government: Jump-Starting Innovation
Meaningful Public-Private Partnership
We the People
Gaming the System
Eye on the Prize: Incentive Competitions for Global Security
Getting Serious: A Manhattan Project for Cyber
Final Thoughts
Appendix: Everything’s Connected, Everyone’s Vulnerable:
Here’s What You Can Do About It
Acknowledgments
Notes
PROLOGUE
The Irrational Optimist:
How I Got This Way
My entrée into the world of high-tech crime began innocuously in 1995
while working as a twenty-eight-year-old investigator and sergeant at
the LAPD’s famed Parker Center police headquarters. One day, my
lieutenant bellowed my name across the crowded and bustling detective
squad room: “Gooooooodmaaaan, get your ass over here!” I presumed
that I was in trouble, but instead the lieutenant asked me the question
that would change my life: “Do you know how to spell-check in
WordPerfect?”
“Sure, boss, just hit Ctrl+F2,” I replied.
He grinned and said, “I knew you were the right guy for this case.”
Thus began my career in high-tech policing with my very first
computer crime case. Knowing how to spell-check in WordPerfect made
me among the techno-elite of cops in the early 1990s. Since that case, I
have been a keen observer and student not just of technology but of its
illicit use. Though I recognize the harm and destruction wrought by the
misapplication of technology, I continue to be fascinated by the clever
and innovative methods criminals use to achieve their objectives.
Criminals perpetually update their techniques to incorporate the very
latest emerging technologies into their modi operandi. They have
evolved well beyond the days when they were the first on the street
carrying pagers and using five-pound cell phones to send coded
messages to one another. Today, they are building their own nationwide
encrypted cellular radio telecommunications systems, like those
employed by the narco-cartels of Mexico. Consider for a moment the
sophistication required to establish such a fully functioning encrypted
nationwide communications network—an amazing feat, especially
because many Americans still can’t get a decent mobile phone signal
most of the time.