Fraudsters' paradise? A dive in E-stonia backyards

Fraud is everywhere in the E-stonian web world, from unsound business practices to cybercrime, writes Maia Kozina, Assistant to Director of Complus Consulting.

Part of building an e-society implies enforcing a Digital Social Contract. Exactly as it happens in the material world, the State and the Citizen should be embracing a mutual set of reciprocal obligations.

One of the major obligations of the State is to provide protection of the legitimate indivual interests of its Citizens, whereas Citizens accept to abide by the laws promulgated by the State. Citizens are also supposed to be embracing the idea of a community lifestyle, which includes respecting the legitimate interests of each another.

Moreover, since Estonia is a European Union member state, these basic principles should be extended to any relationship between Estonian Citizens, Estonian Businesses and Estonian State and any third party from another member state

Sad but true, it sounds like the current practices of e-businesses – or brick and mortar businesses through their websites – are not exactly compliant with these basic requirements, therefore not allowing establishing a sufficient level of trust between parties over the Internet, and slowing down emergence of an "e-society" in E-stonia. Individuals use of IT technologies is also often more than « controversial ».

Fraud is everywhere over the E-stonian web, from unsound business practices flirting with pure scam, to cybercrime, and also includes wide advertising of borderline, not to say illegal, services.

At the top of the crime chain stands the most sophisticated cybercriminal activity, involving Estonian companies labeled as the beachhead in Europe of the infamous RBN organization, along with the most outrageous illegal activities, such as child pornography.

Just following, classical 419 scam sounds like being a booming field of activity for e-stonian fraudsters, while the current job crisis leads to multiplication of "job offers" where the unfortunate applicant will be required to participate in payment frauds and bank frauds.

This criminal activity is complemented by pettyfraud or unsound business practices which are the reflect on the web of Estonia’s bad practices, anywhere from deceitful advertisings (who thinks renting a hundred square meters in Tallinn center costs 1500 EEK a month, and buying them 1 EEK ?) to the illegal resale of personal and business private information, spamming and other associated activities, by well-established companies.

Piracy (illegal software, videos and music downloads are widely available in Estonia) turns into a national sport, with routers from major providers proposing bittorrent or emule optimized parametrization.
Beyond legal or moral considerations, the issue with this cybercrime boom is mainly the lack of trust it leads to.

Lack of trust from international business partners first, due to extensive publicity over the web and in the press : at a time when our economy strives to survive, how can our businesses be credible over the web when every potential export customer is being hammered by the « estonian web business equals fraud » motto?

When our companies make the headlines in Washington Post or start to be investigated for cyberfraud by the US SEC, when we end up by hosting FBI cybercrime experts, well, the least we can say is our country is not exactly projecting abroad an image of safety and attractiveness.

Lack of trust again, this time from our Citizens and businesses. The current crisis will see more and more individuals become sensible to the attractiveness of otherwise highly suspicious offers over the web, and become fraud victims. The worst to come is for Estonian businesses trying to export extensively through their websites, or Estonian citizens shopping on foreign sites : not being used to deal outside the security of banklink solutions, they’re likely to become preferred targets for credit card payment fraudsters worldwide. It is also guaranteed that the projected opening of the e-gambling market in Estonia will attract fraudsters.

So, if we want E-stonia image not to be stained by its criminal backyard, it’s time to react.

First steps have been taken, by creation of a Digital ID concept, or by setting up dedicated programs in TTU.

Let’s go further, and have the State move forward in the direction of a Digital Social Contract, ensuring protection of the Citizens against harmful content and activities, and enforcing such protection in the cyberspace. Such move will, with no doubt, improve reputation of E-stonia in the European Union and internationally, and restore confidence from our partners abroad.

Technologies exist, which allow to prohibit illegal content to be accessed or provided from Estonia, to detect ongoing illegal activities and to protect our Citizens and businesses from fraud.
It is possible to protect children from being exposed to pornography, protect teenagers from unsolicited sexual offers or proposals to buy drugs over the web, adults from identity theft and scam.
It is also possible to guarantee our foreign partners that they won’t be defrauded when dealing with an « .ee » partner. In fact, it’s even possible to provide them with the guarantee it is 100% safe.

What is required is a political decision to deploy such technologies, as it requires to agree upon a Digital Social Contract with the Citizens : exchanging protection against acceptance of limitations and control, just like we accept it in our daily lives into the physical world.

Signs of predictable evolution towards this new relationship between governments and their citizens are multiplying, especially in the European Union, and emergence of such an enforcement of the State action into the cyberspace is just a question of time.

E-stonia has been for our fellow European Union member states and neighbours an example of efficiency and ability to anticipate advanced use of technologies. It would be a shame that it would not remain an example when dealing with tomorrow’s challenges.

It is now time to decide between E-stonia international reputation and considerable advance and the existing deregulation and disfunction of our cyberspace. We need to do it as soon as possible, as a Digital Social Contract establishment will with no doubt require dealing with ethic, philosophical, legal and social issues much more than with technical ones.

Marge Tubalkain-Trellbbnatchararipaev.ee