Just-released studies show that Canadians are more likely to be victims of cybercrime than street violence, and that we're bigger software pirates than our American cousins.
The Cyber Crime in Canada report found that 49 per cent of respondents had been a victim of computer crime, which includes everything from computer viruses to identity theft, and "businesses being hacked and held for ransom," according to the Canadian Association of Police Boards (CAPB), which commissioned the study.
Of those victims, 70 per cent never reported the crime, often because they didn't know whom to report it to.
CAPB chair Ian Wilms, who cut his law-enforcement teeth as chair of the Calgary Police Commission, says the problem is compounded by a lack of trained cybercrime investigators. "There are only 200 dedicated police officers working on cybercrime in Canada," he says, "and that's not enough for a country of 32 million people."
He adds that the nine-member technological crimes unit of the Calgary Police Service is swamped and needs more people right away.
The report calls for a dedicated Canadian centre where law enforcement, government, the private sector and academia can co-ordinate the fight against cybercrime. Wilms has proposed Calgary as a location for this facility, citing the University of Calgary's strengths in computer security, cryptography and even quantum computing. He also notes that Calgary is home to many companies engaged in the vitally important energy industry.
To illustrate the risks they face, he shows a U.S. Department of Homeland Security video of an attack by simulated hackers on a $1-million diesel generator in Idaho. Smoke belches from the massive machine, triggered by commands to its SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system. Parts of the generator were actually destroyed.
Potential terrorist attacks against the power grid or other utilities are, indeed, keeping security experts awake at night. The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit calculated that "the destruction from a single wave of cyber attacks on (U.S.) critical infrastructure could exceed $700 billion - the equivalent of 50 major hurricanes hitting U.S. soil at once."
While we're tossing big numbers around, how about this - there are now more than a billion PCs installed around the world.
And, laments the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in its new report, an awful lot of them are running illegal software.
The BSA is a group that runs educational, enforcement and public policy campaigns to combat piracy in 80 countries around the world.
For the fifth year, it commissioned research firm IDC to do a worldwide study of piracy.
In 2007, the global estimated piracy rate increased to 38 per cent from 2006's rate of 35 per cent. Over the same period, Canada's rate dropped slightly from 34 per cent to 33 per cent.
This number is calculated by trying to figure out how much PC-packaged software was actually deployed and subtracting the quantity that was acquired legally, either through purchase, site licence, or legalization programs for pirated software.
I could quibble with IDC's methodology, because they rely on sources like "analyst local knowledge" to estimate the "software load" then just multiply by the number of computers sold.
If I buy a new PC to run a piece of lab equipment, and it never sees a copy of Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat Professional, that machine might still be counted as at least a partial pirate. And of course, it's none of IDC's or BSA's business what uses I make of my machine after I buy it. That nitpicking aside, this survey is probably pretty representative of the real world, and it's the best one we've got.
The most interesting comparison is Canada's piracy rate of 33 per cent, versus 20 per cent (down from 21 per cent in 2006) in the U.S. Since we're so similar in many ways, why the big difference?
Diana Piquette, BSA board member and anti-piracy manager at Microsoft Canada, attributes it to aggressive enforcement of intellectual property in the U.S.
"When we look at the rates across the world, where there are very strong copyright laws and where governments are very involved in setting up intellectual property-type task forces and even changing their own policies and procedures, setting a good example ... the decrease (in piracy) is substantial," she adds.
She lists Russia as a much-improved country with a drop of seven percentage points this year, which she attributes to police crackdowns.
Piquette feels that Canada's intellectual property and copyright laws are "very, very slack" compared to the U.S., and calls for us to get into line with them.
"For example, in Canada, there is a penalty of $20,000 per infringed work and in the United States it's $150,000 per infringed work," she notes.
The BSA loves to put its piracy figures into economic terms.
"This year, Canada lost over a billion dollars in our economy because of software piracy," says Piquette. She estimates that if Canada cut its piracy rate, say, to 24 per cent over a four-year period, "we would actually contribute $2.7 billion to the economy, generate 5,200 high-paying jobs and add $875 million in tax revenues for the government. It's substantial."
The BSA study is not very optimistic about stamping out piracy across the planet, predicting it will remain flat or perhaps even increase. The authors note that internet access, particularly broadband internet access, will put upward pressure on piracy rates.
On the other side of the equation, locally based software companies in developing countries, better technical security measures, and pressure by trade associations will all tend to reduce piracy.
Perhaps the biggest factor will be a move to other ways of acquiring software. Instead of getting it in a box at a store, we're seeing more downloadable software, some of it free or advertiser supported. There's no point in pirating something you can get for free.
Like the poor, cybercrime and piracy will always be with us.
And they're interwoven, since an "irresistible deal" on some hot software often plants the seed on your computer that allows someone to steal your data remotely.
Your computer can be your best friend or your worst enemy, so give it the respect it deserves.
(Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)