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                Date: 1998-11-16
                 
                 
                E-Kommerz: Die Zukunft des Betrugs
                
                 
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      Es werde keine Zeit dazu bleiben, die Systeme abzusichern,   
wenn der Ernstfall eingetreten sei, warnt Bruce Schneier,  
unter anderem Autor des Standardwerks "Applied  
Cryptography". Die Innovationszyklen der vernetzten Welt -  
und damit auch die Zyklen neuer Methoden kybernetischer  
Kriminalität - bewegten sich weit schneller, als zu den Zeiten  
der Falschgeldproduktion auf Papier. Heutzutage sei es eben  
möglich, eine Firma binnen Stunden zu ruinieren.  
 
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Electronic Commerce: The Future of Fraud 
 
Bruce Schneier 
 
Fraud has been perpetrated against every commerce system  
man has ever invented, from gold coin to stock certificates to  
paper checks to credit cards.  Electronic commerce systems  
will be no different; if that's where the money is, that's where  
the crime will be.  The threats are exactly the same. 
 
Most fraud against existing electronic commerce systems --  
ATM machines, electronic check systems, stored value  
tokens -- has been low tech.  No matter how bad the  
cryptographic and computer security safeguards, most  
criminals bypass them entirely and focus on procedural  
problems, human oversight, and old-fashioned physical theft.   
Why attack subtle information security systems when you  
can just haul an ATM machine away in a truck? 
 
This implies that new commerce systems don't have to be  
secure, but just better than what exists.  Don't outrun the  
bear, just outrun the people you're with.  Unfortunately, there  
are three features of electronic commerce that are likely to  
make fraud more devastating. 
 
One, the ease of automation.  The same automation that  
makes electronic commerce systems more efficient than  
paper systems also makes fraud more efficient.  A particular  
fraud that might have taken a criminal ten minutes to execute  
on paper can be completed with a single keystroke, or  
automatically while he sleeps.  Low-value frauds, that fell  
below the radar in paper systems, become dangerous in the  
electronic world.  No one cares if it is possible to counterfeit  
nickels.  However, if a criminal can mint electronic nickels,  
he might make a million dollars in a week.  A pickpocketing  
technique that works once in ten thousand tries would starve  
a criminal on the streets, but he might get thirty successes a  
day on the net. 
 
Two, the difficulty of isolating jurisdiction.  The electronic  
world is a world without geography.  A criminal doesn't have  
to be physically near a system he is defrauding; he can  
attack Citibank in New York from St. Petersburg. He can  
jurisdiction shop, and launch his attacks from countries with  
poor criminal laws, inadequate police forces, and lax  
extradition treaties. 
 
And three, the speed of propagation.  News travels fast on  
the Internet. Counterfeiting paper money takes skill,  
equipment, and organization.  If one or two or even a hundred  
people can do it, so what? It's a crime, but it won't affect the  
money supply.  But if someone figures out how to defraud an  
electronic commerce system and posts a program on the  
Internet, a thousand people could have it in an hour, a  
hundred thousand in a week. This could easily bring down a  
currency.  And only the first attacker needs skill; everyone  
else can just use software.  "Click here to drop the deutsche  
mark." 
 
Cryptography has the potential to make electronic commerce  
systems safer than paper systems, but not in the ways most  
people think.  Encryption and digital signatures are  
important, but secure audit trails are even more important.   
Systems based on long-term relationships, like credit cards  
and checking accounts, are safer than anonymous systems  
like cash.  But identity theft is so easy that systems based  
solely on identity are doomed. 
 
Preventing crime in electronic commerce is important, but  
more important is to be able to detect it.  We don't prevent  
crime in our society.  We detect crime after the fact, gather  
enough evidence to convince a neutral third party of the  
criminal's guilt, and hope that the punishment provides a  
back-channel of prevention.  Electronic commerce systems  
should have the same goals.  They should be able to detect  
that fraud has taken place and finger the guilty.  And more  
important, they should be able to provide irrefutable evidence  
that can convict the guilty in court. 
 
Perfect solutions are not required -- there are hundred of  
millions of dollars lost to credit card fraud every year -- but  
systems that can be broken completely are unacceptable.   
It's vital that attacks cannot be automated and reproduced  
without skill. Traditionally, fraud-prevention has been a game  
of catch-up.  A commerce system is introduced, a particular  
type of fraud is discovered, and the system is patched.   
Money is made harder to counterfeit.  Online credit card  
verification makes fraud harder. Checks are printed on  
special paper that makes them harder to alter. These  
patches reduce fraud for a while, until another attack is  
discovered. And the cycle continues. 
 
The electronic world moves too fast for this cycle.  A serious  
flaw in an electronic commerce system could bankrupt a  
company in days.  Today's systems must anticipate future  
attacks.  Any successful electronic commerce system is  
likely to remain in use for ten years or more.  It must be able  
to withstand the future: smarter attackers, more  
computational power, and greater incentives to subvert a  
widespread system.  There won't be time to upgrade them in  
the field. 
 
Why Cryptography is Harder Than it Looks:  
http://www.counterpane.com/whycrypto.html
                   
 
Security Pitfalls in Cryptography:  
http://www.counterpane.com/pitfalls.html
                   
 
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edited by  
published on: 1998-11-16 
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