Imagine, a criminal wants to murder someone. They no longer need bombs or sharpshooters. They can remotely hack into the person’s smart devices (IoT) at home, cause car brakes to fail, or attack by sending a cheap drone. 3D printing has made things even more astonishing; criminals are ‘printing’ deadly rifles at their bases, thereby eliminating the fear of arms trafficking and their capture. This story might sound like a science-fiction film, but it is the bitter reality of the future. For decades, the power of terrorist and criminal gangs was measured by the land they controlled like the Taliban or Mexican cartels. In the next two decades, all of this is going to change. Now crime needs neither land nor many fighters; it just needs ‘data’ and ‘technology’. Wanda Brown, an expert in international security and conflict affairs at the Brookings Institution’s Strobe Talbott Center, explains, ‘Previously, growing opium or cocaine required miles of land, but now synthetic drugs can be made in a small basement. Criminals don’t need to go anywhere for extortion. Through AI-scams, ransomware, and cryptocurrency, they are earning trillions of dollars from home. The center of ‘power’ is no longer a geographical map, but a digital server.’ Wanda says, ‘Previously, thousands of soldiers were needed to capture a city. But now, through drone swarms and automated cyber attacks, a handful of people can shut down a whole city’s electricity and water, holding it hostage. Crime is no longer labor-intensive, but ‘technology’-driven.’ Experts believe that in the coming time, the biggest battle will be for data. The gang that can infiltrate government systems to steal or tamper with data will be victorious. The biggest criminal will be the one with the most ‘data access’. The challenge for police and security agencies is that the surveillance technology they use to catch these criminals should not start violating citizens’ privacy and human rights. Criminals can infiltrate homes with a team of hackers Diana Garcia, Senior Research Assistant at the Strobe Talbott Center, says, ‘The face of crime and terrorism is now shifting from ‘bloody battlegrounds’ to ‘clean data centers’. This is a race between technology and security, where victory will belong to whoever knows how to control and secure data. The criminal of the future can reach your bedroom with a team of ‘hackers’, and this is the biggest challenge of today’s era.
