Brigadier General Manolis Sfakianakis issued a stern warning to those who use the internet for illegal activities from the podium of the 3rd Panhellenic Interdisciplinary Conference on the prevention and treatment of high-risk online behaviors.
"There is no anonymity" on the internet, "the party is over," announced the director of the Cybercrime Prosecution Sub-Directorate, Mr. Sfakianakis, adding emphatically: "no more blackmail, there is police, there is a state, there is control.".
Internet crime is large and serious, said Mr. Sfakianakis, focusing particularly on children and mentioning the seduction of a minor, a process in which "predators" pretending to be teenagers, use chat rooms, social networking sites and other online communication spaces to attract children with the aim of abusing them, child pornography, and Cyberbullying (the term refers to the use of electronic means of communication and new technologies to support the deliberate, repeated and hostile behavior of an individual or a group that aims to harm another person).
The Greek Police, in collaboration with the Justice Department, intervened, saving a total of 810 people, while it has arrested 818 pedophiles since 2006. "Pedophilia in Greece has no future," said Mr. Sfakianakis.
The internet is also a fertile ground for a multitude of frauds and breaches of personal data. Mr. Sfakianakis mentioned an incident that occurred abroad, where a change was made to the medication of a patient who was hospitalized via the internet, resulting in his death, or in Greece, where a lawyer gave in to the tempting offers of fraudsters for financial benefits, losing 413,000 euros, while two days ago an incident was reported to the service where someone lost 1 million euros.
Mr. Sfakianakis also referred to the social role of the service, noting that in eight minutes the Cybercrime Unit can identify an internet user who wants to commit suicide. This is a record time for which it was even awarded by the FBI.
Mr. Sfakianakis also placed particular emphasis on the use of the internet by children, as computer addiction is a phenomenon that has attracted worldwide attention and has now made its presence evident in Greece. Ninety children are hospitalized at the Children's Hospital with symptoms of internet addiction, which in China and America, according to experts, is classified as a disorder, while the Cybercrime Prosecution receives parents daily who report cases of addiction.
The main causes of addiction, according to Mr. Sfakianakis, are social networking sites. “The nature of social networking sites can lead to users wanting to constantly check if new content has emerged and if anyone has contacted them,” he said.
Internet usage in numbers
In Greece, 3,966,380 people are Facebook users, with an average connection of more than 2.5 hours per day, while experts insist that usage should not exceed 1.5 hours. The second cause of addiction is playing an online game, while addiction is not only a problem for children but also for adults.
Worldwide, internet users exceed 2.5 billion (one in three is an internet user), while in Europe the percentage is 63.5% and in North America it is 78.6%. There are also 50 billion websites, while Facebook has more than 1 billion users.
In Greece, 53.6% of households have access to the internet, with 96.2% of them having a broadband connection. Our country holds the penultimate position in Europe with internet illiteracy of just over 20%. “Illiteracy kills and the keyboard is the weapon”, said Mr. Sfakianakis, mentioning that a “crusade” of public information is underway by the Cybercrime Prosecution Service to put an end to internet illiteracy.
With proper use, the internet, at 98%, is a window into a wonderful world for everyone, providing knowledge, education, information, communication, updating, entertainment, and fun, but there is also a dangerous part, which amounts to 2%.
Every minute we have 204,000,000 emails sent, 2,000,000 Google searches, 6,000,000 Facebook visits, 1,300 new mobile phone users, 21 identity thefts, 135 new malware infections, and 7 trillion transactions per day.
Source: newsit.gr
