IN THE BEGINNING
Ten short years ago, the subject of cybercrimes did not
matter much in Ghana. It mattered so little, in fact, that in the Harmattan of
2002, a police officer I knew laughed it off when I tried explaining to him the
dangers cybercrime posed to the country. To him, I was only speaking Greek
because even his knowledge about the internet extended only to how to put a
computer plug into a socket. He telecasted his ignorance to me when he said
‘’we’’ are only blowing cybercrimes out of mere proposition.
TEN YEARS AFTER
THE BEGINNING
Ten years down the lane, cybercrimes has become a big source
of worry to the government, the public and concerned stakeholders. Preventing
cybercrimes is not like preventing forest fires. Scenes of a candle burning so
bright does not necessary mean it would burst into flames. That is exactly how
cybercrimes are. Due to the advancement in technology, cybercrimes are now far
easier to commit. Getting to the internet now is very easy, all you need is a
phone, computer, tablet or any internet eligible device which has internet on
it and you are on the go. This has made cybercrimes difficult to detect because
at the comfort of your home or at the comfort of a chair in the public park you
can dupe people of huge sums of money and a policeman might be sitting near to
you probably exchanging pleasantries. The mere fact that you are holding a
phone or a laptop down the street does not necessarily mean you are committing
a cybercrime and therefore should be arrested.
THE CHANGING FACES
OF CYBERCRIMES
I remember clearly that when I first heard about cybercrimes,
it affected only the rich people who had email but now through the increase of
social media, cybercrimes too have also been on the ascendency and now affects
the rich, poor and the middle class. At first, cybercriminals had to sit down
and crack a long legendry list of rich people who had emails and then send them
sugar coated duping messages. However, now with the advent of facebook, all
what cybercriminals do is to just conjecture a name or better still look
through the friend list of a friend he has and then start doing business. As
social media keeps on improving, the duping skills of cybercriminals also
increase. Cybercriminals use unauthorized exquisite photos of people and use it
for their selfish agenda. They create all sorts of stories to outwit their
customers who purchase their lies. Indeed, these people can be referred to as Latter-day
Saint confidence tricksters. The only difference between them and the
confidence tricksters is that they have a lot of knowledge about how the
internet works and mostly have had some formal education of a sort.
ARE OUR POLICE UP
TO TASK?
Getting internet connection as I said earlier is not
difficult. The average Ghanaian student from the Junior High School to the
University knows a bit about the interne but can the same be said of our
police? We live in a country where even defending why children should be
allowed to use the internet is considered as ageism. Various stories have been invented
to alienate the reason why children should use the internet. Notwithstanding,
the police man knows the danger cybercrimes poses. However, as to whether there
has been enough training to police to handle cybercrimes is an issue of
contention. I live in a country in which
the last time I heard of a group of people being arrested for cybercrimes was
two years ago yet I keep on hearing about how some people have gotten rich
overnight through cybercrimes. I always hear stories like ‘’we are organizing
re-training programmes for police to enable them be well-informed about
cybercrimes’’ but I wonder when these would materialize. For me, if you are to
ask me if the Ghanaian police is up to the task, the answer I would give is a
big ‘’NO’’ because as they say ‘’talk is cheap’’ and ‘’action speaks louder
than words.’’
MY DREAM
Like Rev. Martin Luther King Jnr, I can only dream that one
day, our Ghanaian police would be considered as one of the best cybercrime
detectives in the world. I long to see a day when people would be arrested for
some chauvinist and incriminate status updates they write on facebook and
twitter pages. I know that that day when our police would be up to the task
would come. But the question I pose now is ‘’so when shall that day come?’’
Like how the adventure of my favourite story book ‘A tale of two cities’ begins
‘Recalled to life.’
Written by Joseph Yaw Frimpong/iNewsGh
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