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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 1: Internet Crime Complaint Center

Internet fraud is the leading form of crime worldwide. Every day, thousands of people fall victim to email or web-based ploys to gain access to individuals’ personal information. Indeed, personal loss due to theft has increased exponentially since the proliferation of the internet. In an effort to handle, in effect distinguish, internet fraud from other forms of fraud (and indeed crime), the FBI invented the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. For the last few years the organization has processed complaints ranging from identity theft to international money laundering, and everything in between.

In light of the agency’s broadening scope, the organization itself decided a change in name would be appropriate. Calling itself the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, the organization expects its over 120,000 complaints from 2003 to increase in 2004. Through partnerships with the National White Collar Crime Center and others, "We have built a solid foundation to address today's cyber criminals no matter where they are or how complex their schemes may be," Jana Monroe, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, said Wednesday. But the Cyber Crime Division and indeed the IC3 are mere extensions to the FBI itself, who still will, on occasion, investigate extraordinary complaints of internet crime, inclusive of fraud and/or intrusion.

Hopefully, with more and more people becoming aware of the recourses available, potential victims will not themselves turn into victims. Ironically, information seems to be the key to ameliorating a near epidemic caused by information accessibility itself.

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