International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 44

A (Guided) Tour of the Digital Wild West
In the world we live in, somewhat removed from the philosophical realm,
the institutions, military command structures, and so on that are put in place to
combat digital violations tend very much to follow a narrowly technical approach,
and France is no exception. Unable to conceive of anything but objective constraints
and needs, engineers normally only address the kinds of problems to which
an engineer might have a solution. At the heart of this approach is the Newtonian
theory of the perfect mechanism: malfunctions and breakdowns can occur, but
technical perfection can be restored by performing suitable repair work. An engineer
looks at cyberspace and sees a virtuous and reliable clockwork mechanism. If
a gremlin appears in the works, repairs are carried out and order is restored.
But a roulette wheel is, of course, inherently designed to work against the
interests of the player; the best engineers in the world cannot make “virtuous” a
machine whose main function is to cheat. While extremely competent in what
they do, our cyber engineers struggle to understand this. In their profound honesty,
they pass over the fact that cyberspace does not spring from some pure and
unspoiled Creation, with the aim (as claimed in the skewed promotional material)
of “making the world a better place,” of “making things more open and connected,”
in the hope of delivering it from its present suffering and afflictions. Much
more realistically, cyberspace is fundamentally the fief of cynical libertarian titans,
whose only aim is to amass billions while remaining utterly indifferent to criminal
activity, hacking, and the shameless plundering of their customers’ private data.
Is this an exaggeration? Not at all. To begin with, let us look at some shocking
examples of the true nature of GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon).
All of these examples involve Facebook, although the others are no better:
• In the early days of Facebook, a journalist asked its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg,
why the public would trust him with all their personal data. Confirmed libertarian
Zuckerberg gave a very clear response: “They trust me. Dumb fucks.”
• On April 28, 2018, a photo of Facebook’s headquarters appeared in the New
York Times International Edition. Clearly visible was the address—freely chosen
by the company itself, naturally: 1, Hacker Way. Just in case things were
not yet clear enough ...
• In early 2018, a researcher discovered some one hundred twenty forums and
discussion groups on Facebook (with around 300,000—yes, three hundred
thousand–participants in all) dedicated to cybercrime and hacking, all offering
each other software and intrusion tools or digital robbery, in plain view
of the whole world. Why hide on the Dark Web when Facebook is so very
welcoming?
The imposing titans of the internet have ideologies and practices akin to
those of hackers. These are the foundations of all cybercriminology. This study
39