A DIGITAL GENEVA CONVENTION!

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This week we look at how the internet has changed warfare! Really and truly cyber space is the new battlefield. War is no longer with guns in land, sea or the air, but now at a desk over a computer. Our enemies in this battle are governments of the world as well as financial thieves and fraudsters. Mr. Brad Smith, president of Microsoft said, since nation states are now attacking, we should call on our governments to come together and agree that this cannot continue to happen. So just as the Geneva convention establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war, so also will a digital Geneva convention fight the online battle.

During my first few weeks at my U.S. law school, I was having a very nice conversation with someone from the law school. Then with a smile he turned to me and asked if I was a Nigerian princess. I was startled and asked him how he knew that my name translated in English meant princess. He looked confused about what I had asked him and explained to me that he was referring to the scam emails he and probably millions of people all around the world (including myself) have received from alleged “Nigerian royalty”, asking for money, and promising to pay back from their “royal funds” which they would have access to on a later date. He also jokingly asked me if I had sent any of those emails, but I digress.

I remembered this conversation while listening to Brad Smith, President of Microsoft’s speech about the need for a Digital Geneva Convention. He stated that one of the ways we could all contribute to fighting cybercrime is by not clicking on every single email. This is obviously very true. Today, by instinct when we receive an email we already know when something looks off at first glance. The email subject might just say “Re:”; or the subject is talking about you accepting a loan you never applied for; or telling you won a prize for something you never did; or a Nigerian prince begging for money online.

However, it must be said that some of us only learnt to detect the emails were fraudulent over time. In the beginning how could earlier internet users, against the backdrop of the excitement of the novel internet, have envisaged that an email was a means of phishing or fraud. Sadly, still a lot of people have not learnt. These are most likely people new to the internet and older generations that started to use the internet later in life. Perhaps companies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Gmail should train people that just signed up to their internet services on how to detect that an email is fraudulent.

 

 

 

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