Tag Archives: Computer crime


Crime-sourcing: the dark side of the crowd

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Ville Miettinen

… Misha Glenny chose option 2, and then spent over two years infiltrating the murky world of cyber-crime. He uncovered a fast-growing, global industry. According to Glenny, cyber-crime bosses are adaptable, imaginative and eager to exploit new technology. They’re also phenomenal outsourcers – a single hack can involve a “distributed workforce” operating across continents. So maybe it’s not surprising that – just like many legit online businesses – the bad guys are now …

Tags: captcha Computer crime crowd crowdsourcing Denial-of-service attack microwork Misha Glenny Nigeria Sarah Palin Twitter Yahoo! Mail

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Net cops: cybercrime and the crowd

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Ville Miettinen

… – might play around a little with the law, but ultimately they put their genius toward battling crime bosses, evil corporations or psychotic sunglasses-wearing A.I.

But, as with spies, the Mafia and teenage wizards, when it comes to hackers the movie business has employed a generous dose of creative license. Shockingly, it turns out that what the authorities could really do with in the fight against cybercrime is not a Kung-Fu fighting Keanu, but help from the crowd.

Continental …

Tags: Albert Einstein Angelina Jolie Computer crime Crime crowd crowdsourcing crowdsourcing platform distributed work European Union Europol Internet Crime Complaint center microtask Rob Wainwright

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Crowdsourcing Crime Part I: The Good Guys

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Ville Miettinen

… how my favorite fictional P.Is would have coped with the recent rise of international, crowd-based crime fighters.

Sleuths in Seattle

A few blogs ago I wrote an impassioned plea (angry rant) about crowd efforts to fight speeding and car crime. Why don’t the police get onboard with apps like Waze I demanded? Well it turns out the cops are way ahead of me, at least those in the U.S home of rain, grunge and dubious romantic comedy, Seattle. After reading the blog, a friend of mine sent …

Tags: Crime crowd crowdsourcing crowdsourcing platform distributed work iPhone Philip Marlowe Seattle Seattle Police Department Sherlock Holmes SpotCrime Twitter

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My Wife, the Computer

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Ville Miettinen

… their work would be used down the line.

In the modern world it seems odd that a human could be a computer – the sentence “allow me to introduce my wife; she’s a computer” would surely raise some eyebrows. A moment’s consideration of the word itself removes the oddness – to compute is to calculate, so it follows that a “computer” would correspond to “one who calculates”. So before the machines established their binary monopoly on working stuff out, there was only one way …

Tags: computer David Alan Grier human computation Manhattan Project mass collaboration Richard Feynman

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Every murder draws a crowd: Homicide Watch DC

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Ville Miettinen

… laboratory work, I wouldn’t put it past them. In fact, the website isn’t really about fighting crime (that’s for professionals, and Batman), but more about commenting on it, remembering it and making it accessible to the public.

A new beat for journalism

What makes Homicide Watch significant (aside from its motives, which are unquestionable) is what it might mean for journalism. Editor Laura Amico has described Homicide Watch as data-driven beat reporting built on a framework. …

Tags: Citizen journalism clay shirky crime scene crowdsourcing homicide watch

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