September 15, 2007: Interpol, the international police organization is trying to establish an international network of facilities and experts to deal with crime, and terrorism, on the Internet. This effort is driven by the explosive growth criminal activity on the Internet. A major problem with this crime wave is that many nations have weak, or no, laws against Internet crime. Naturally, the Internet criminals tend to live in nations where they can't be prosecuted for what they are doing. Well, at least for some of what they are doing. When Internet crooks steal money, that's theft no matter where you are. But much of the software creation, and hacking, is done from these safe havens because local laws don't define these support activities as a crime.

Russia, long a haven for cyber criminals, is cracking down. But China is all talk and no action. The latest talk from China is accusations that American military hackers are attacking Chinese military networks. No details were given, but China says it has traced 80 percent of hacker attacks on Chinese PCs, back to the United States. This is at odds with what Internet security companies (which have many Chinese clients) are reporting. So these recent Chinese claims are seen as a response to the accusations that China is behind the dozens of major assaults on government and military networks in the West.