New York police has created an application to prevent cryptocurrency scams

By Polkadot News 01/18/20 3:40 PM

Cybercrimes have always been the problem come along with the development of the internet and with the advent of cryptocurrencies, that problem has only inflated and victims often do not find where to get help. One of the major reasons is the ill-equipment of the police.

In theory, Americans should report the crimes to the FBI, through its Internet Crime Complaint Center. However, in practice, there are hundreds of thousands of complaints a year and the feds have to focus on serious cases. And calling the police seems even less promising.

Gregg Bennett, whose loss of 100 Bitcoin, said that they (victims) didn’t even respond.

new-york-police-has-created-an-application-to-prevent-cryptocurrency-scams — Nick Selby trains patrol officers in Queens to recognize cybercrimes. Image via NPR

Cyber Investigative Standards Pilot

This is a problem that Nick Selby, an NYPD’s director of cyber intelligence, aims to address, a blueprint was created to save people from cryptocurrency scams and frauds. The former detective with extensive cybersecurity knowledge has created an application to monitor witness progress.

Selby pointed out the mistake in the system by analyzing how seriously the police consider cases. According to the former detective, the police are more likely to react to a physical crime than a Bitcoin scam that took place on the internet.

New York City Police Department (NYPD) believed that the range of crimes had caught a lot of the departments off guard. Many of them supported Selby’s plan that allows officers to individually upload witness details into a safe and secure server.

Selby led a project called Cyber Investigative Standards Pilot in the final months of 2019 in an effort to teach officers a new way of thinking. Moreover, the police department can scale up the technology, in which Selby created an interactive application for officers’ phones, meant to guide them through interviews with cybercrime victims to make sure they get the right technical details.

This application asks questions such as the category of crime that includes dedicated options such as scam webpage or financial transaction. The mod of communication can range from a normal voice call over the mobile or a 4G enable VOIP call.

For the app to work, Selby says the app has to reflect the latest intelligence on cybercrime scams. Raven Zachary, a technology entrepreneur and Selby’s friend who volunteered to write the app’s code, said Selby wanted an application that could be easily updated or there is a new case, they have to ask this series of questions differently in the app.

Cryptocurrency scam cases usually go cold very soon because of the delay in information passage and connections. With the latest application, Selby and his partner Luis Sayan aims to get the right details of an investigation quickly to the corresponding detectives. If the detectives get the right details quickly enough, they have a better chance of tracking the culprits and, in some cases, recovering stolen money by stopping bank transfers or intercepting shipped cash payments.