New Technologies Available To Law-abiding and Criminals
January 1, 2005
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
The beginning of a new year seems an appropriate time to share some random thoughts about the constant march of technology. It seems that new marvels are announced with increasing regularity. Some survive, like the ubiquitous cell phone, and other fade away as they are replaced by newer and better solutions to the same need.
A good example of the later can be found in the various processes that have been offered for reproducing recorded music. The old 78 rpm bakelite disks that could be played on manual and then electric turntables, were replaced with the small disk-big spindle hole 45 rpm singles, which were replaced with 33-1/3 “long play” disks, which were replaced by 8-track and cassettes tapes. The cassette tapes are still on the market, although being pushed aside by CDs, while the 8-track system has largely vanished, except perhaps for the new-in-box 8-track deck in my attic.
Each of these newer technologies is supposed to provide better performance and greater value, but that isn’t always the case. A lot of the new electrical small appliances and recording-player systems cannot be repaired at reasonable cost. And the much-touted solid-state circuitry in most cases means you have to throw your old system out and buy a new one.
The old heavy wired phones that used to be the standard appliances supplied by the telephone companies have been replaced with lighter solid-state models that offer a lot more features but have to be completely replaced when they wear down. You used to be able to have the old and uglier wired phones repaired; now you couldn’t afford to ship the phones back to a repair shop somewhere in Asia.
Cell Phones
The portable cell phones you see everywhere haven’t really been around that long but have been constantly updated and made smaller, slimmer, more powerful and cheaper as the new technology and competing phone services contest with one another for our business. Some models even take and transmit photos, or can be linked to fax machines and the Internet.
The cell phones are a reliable source of immediate communications—provided you’re not in the middle of a hurricane or major blizzard when the systems become overloaded—which makes them idea for emergencies and special communications on the go. But it seems that now as much as 30% of the population relies on cell phones for general phone communications—they don’t have any land-line service at all, with many of the users totally unaware of how little privacy they enjoy.
Nowadays it is not unusual to have people discuss their private lives while at the post office counter, or in a bank line or supermarket checkout. You are now no longer surprised by hearing someone conduct a loud conversation while walking the dog, or even walking alone along a darkened street. In older times, you might think that someone was speaking loudly to themselves on a darkened street corner, but today you just know they are carrying a phone.
Some states, like New York, have passed laws against people using hand-held cell phones while operating a vehicle in traffic. However, the people who use their phones incessantly still use them without paying attention to the tots and old ladies crossing the street ahead of them.
My favorite experience with a cell phone user came while waiting in the pre-board area for a plane. On that occasion a harried businessman, who I found from his conversation was divorced but would visit his grown daughter while on his commercial sortie, informed everyone in the waiting area of how much money he was carrying, what transactions were pending, and the numbers and expiration dates of four credit cards.
When we were all on the plane and had reached out destination, he was the first one to fire up his phone and announce his arrival before anyone else deplaned. Now that was a practical use of a cell phone, but I thought his other conversations in the waiting area suggested a man with whom one would not want to conduct any sensitive business.
From the forgoing it is obvious that I think the recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggestion that cell phones could be used on all airline flights at all times is scariest idea of all. If the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decides to go along with this wild idea from its sister agency, I hope they will divide plane seating again, this time in cell phone speaking and non-cell phone speaking.
Good Guys and Bad
I’m really not against the newer high tech advances; I use a bunch of them myself. An old newpspaer typewriter guy, I have even taught myself to use a number of computer programs in my work. It’s just that tchnology has its upsides and down. A Michael Moore, for instance, can use old tricks as well as the newer high-tech devices to propagandize against gun ownership and presidents.
There’s a good and a bad side to all the new technology.
Nowadays, a sociopath like Osama bin Laden can use the latest technology to instruct his followers on the Internet, use camcorders to create videotaped messages for immediate uplink to telecommunications satellites so his image and voice can be sent over television stations worldwide in an instant. And, of course, he’s still using cassettes and CDs to threaten the world and send instructions to his followers.
The capabilities and benefits of this modern technology are beyond price with dramatic savings in time and man-hours. These days we can produce a newspaper like Gun Week or even The New York Times entirely on computers, including writing, editing and proofreading stories, cropping and retouching photo prints, slides or digital images, and layout the whole paper to send to printing. Even the addressing for the mails is done on computers.
However, the same technology allows people to steal the identity of others, access their bank accounts, promote any number of otherwise illegal activities and engage in all manner of scams. The same technology also allows highly skilled hackers to access secret military and government files or to implant viruses that gum up personal, business and government computer systems.
With the criminal mind always seeking to employ the same technologies that drive legal commerce, law enforcement and the criminal justice systems, it was not surprising to read in The Baltimore Sun recently that the drug gangs have gone high-tech.
The Sun reported that in an effort to intimidate witnesses beyond the usual low-tech methods, the drug gangs now have produced at least eight videos/CDs that warn people of what will happen to them if they provide testimony in criminal trials. The latest such production, a DVD produced by a man calling himself Skinny Suge, is entitled “Stop Snitching.” According to The Sun, the video and its fellows are very explicit about what will happen to those who testify against murder and drug-gang suspects.
The Sun also mentioned a website that may accomplish the same purpose—talk about going high-tech. They said the website is called www.whosarat.com.
I logged onto the website myself and discovered that www.whosarat.com looked pretty professional.
It even had an option to make donations and a link to a website store, which proved to be still “under construction.”
Whosarat claims to deal with “Real Life-Real People” and professes to have the largest on-line database of informants and agents. Of course whosarat.com offered the latest news of interest to the criminal world and legal profession, including options for legal information and attorney referrals. There was also an option which allowed a user to check another person’s name against the site’s list of “rats” or informers.
But the big feature was the “Rat of the Week” section, which listed three people when I logged on, with their photographs, and what kind of law-enforcement agency they worked with.
Needless to say there are two sides to every technological innovation.
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