Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Now try to cash out

The theives who stole art worth $164 million in Zurich will have a much harder time finding a buyer. Unless the art has been stolen to order for a collector they are unlikely to find a buyer at all. The resale value of easily recognized stolen art is negligible.

Art galleries know this which is why the typical gallery holding millions of dollars worth of art has far less security than a local bank branch that never keeps more than a few tens of thousands of dollars on hand in cash.

The same effect is seen in Internet crime. Stealing credit card numbers is easy, cashing them out is the hard part. The Internet criminals that make most of the money are the ones that can do this without being caught. Making it harder to cash out is one of the most effective means of stopping Internet Crime.

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