Tor: Why Anonymity Matters

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol. 

Podcast: Terrorism Intelligence Training

From MSU Today on Impact Radio: David Carter, professor of criminal justice at MSU, is the project manager for MSU’s Intelligence Program, a federally funded initiative that provides terrorism intelligence training to state and local police departments across the nation.

The program is designed to help police agencies develop their intelligence capacity and to help them think in a more multijurisdictional way about terrorism threats. Carter and his colleagues have helped over 1,200 agencies in 43 states and three countries to understand the concept of intelligence and how it has changed since September 11.

He adds that the biggest issue facing police agencies in the future is getting a better handle on computer and cyber crime.

Hosted by Russ White.

Cyber War

From 60 Minutes:

Could foreign hackers get into the computer systems that run crucial elements of the world's infrastructure, such as the power grids, water works or even a nation's military arsenal, to create havoc? They already have. Steve Kroft reports.


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Reports of Internet Crime Jump 33 Percent

Reports of Internet-based crime jumped 33 percent in 2008, according to a group that monitors web-based fraud. The Internet Crime Complaint Center said in its annual report released Monday that it received more than 275,000 complaints last year, up from about 207,000 the year before. The total reported dollar loss from such scams was $265 million, or about $25 million more than the year before. About one in three complaints were for nonpayment or non-delivery. The other most common complaints were for auction fraud or credit and debit card fraud. The ICCC is a partnership of the FBI and a nonprofit group that tracks white collar crime. The group forwarded more than 70,000 of the complaints to various law enforcement agencies for further investigation.