The Cybercrime Wave That Wasn't 85
retroworks writes "Dinei Florencio and Cormac Herley write that cybercrime depleted gullible and unprotected users, producing diminishing returns (over-phishing). They argue that the statistics on the extent of losses from cybercrime are flawed because there is never an under-estimation reported. Do they underestimate the number of suckers gaining internet access born every minute? Or has cybercrime become the 'shark attack' that gets reported more often than it occurs?"
Flavour of the month (Score:5, Informative)
Ever notice how when there is a notorious crime reported suddenly lots of other similar crimes start happening? Well, they don't suddenly start, they were happening before, just not being reported. It isn't over or under reporting in the sense that our stats are wrong, only in the sense that the mass media does a shit job of conveying factual information to the public.
Defences are improving, people are getting more savvy. Obviously crime levels will go down. Back in 2002 XP didn't even have its firewall enabled by default. Everyone hated Vista for being locked down and hurling UAC prompts at the screen all the time, but it definitely worked.
Re:Plenty of suckers in the sea (Score:5, Informative)
Or I could just use my regular credit card, which gives me various perks (cash back, airline miles, etc.) with no service fees (unlikely the prepaid ones).
In the unlikely event that my card is misused I simply call the bank, dispute the charges, and get a new card in the mail. This has happened to me once or twice over the years (bad guy acquired card info without my knowledge) and I've spent less than 30 minutes total dealing with the fallout from such events.
Sure, I shouldn't have to deal with it at all in an ideal world, but dealing with the aftermath of credit card fraud is pretty much a non-issue from the side of the customer.