BOSTON POLICE TROLLING CRAIGSLIST FOR VICTIMS

April 24 2009

Boston, MA - The arrest of 23-year old Philip Markoff, the so-called Craigslist Killer, has put the city of Boston and the web classified industry in an awkward position. Faced with the reality of a new type of cyber crime the website is doing everything it can to police it’s users to ensure that no more serial killers begin to use its services. For law enforcement officials the challenge is in trying to adapt to the moderately new world of the web and develop new techniques to investigate and prevent web based crimes, and they think they may have done just that.

Prosecutors for the city have launched their first salvo in the digital realm by actively advertising for any other victims of Markoff’s to come forward. Though they have received no responses as yet, possibly due to the illegal nature of the work conducted by the people who have been victimized, possibly due to possibly being dead, officials believe that this effort could yield significant results that could be applied to other similar crimes.

“There is of course the question of the legal viability of investigations conducted through soliciting illegal services but there is little doubt that law enforcement officials across the country are going to have to rethink the way they investigate and prosecute crimes in the digital age. After 15 or so years of the web, they now realize what a threat it can be,” said Scrape TV Crime analyst Willard Weston. “There
is the distinct possibility that this will yield little or no results though due to lack of money involved. I’m sure most of the people who respond to those types of ads have paying customers and time is still money, though I’m sure if they put enough dollars down they’ll say pretty much anything prosecutor’s want them to say.”

The ads were placed in the ‘Erotic’ section of Craigslist which is generally seen as a not so subtle euphemism for prostitution. Originally that section of the site had been called ‘Erotic Services’ but was toned down after countrywide agreement with 43 states attorneys, an initiative led by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

“There is a particular irony in that situation but there is also a real danger. If these
ads do in fact yield some results than it could look very bad on Blumenthal. While he wasn’t explicitly impeding an investigation he at least tacitly conspired to restrict the law enforcement effort, even if he did do it far in the past. That could lead to problems when election time comes around,” continued Weston. “There are of course no easy answers to any of this and the ethical question of acting or not acting is something that has plagued mankind for millennia and isn’t likely to be solved anytime soon, or at least it won’t be solved via Craigslist.”

Concerns about such restriction of information have once again called the concept of
net neutrality to the forefront. The bonds put on websites like Craigslist by external forces have long been a source of controversy due in large part to the open and free nature of the web and the concerns about freedom of expression in the still burgeoning medium.

“The concern is that if a few people gain control of what is distributed across the web then people would be subject to their control, a kind of big brother concern. While its likely control over the web will likely only result in greater profits for large corporations, the possibility of governments controlling their people through the web remains a possibility as long
as people continue to unwillingly use their computers,” continued Weston. “One possible solution is to just have a free for all on the web. Lift all moral, ethical, and legal restrictions and just let people dig their own holes. It would be an interesting sociological experiment to see how far people would go given total freedom, and it should nab more than a few criminals in the process. We might even see people going down for crimes they wouldn’t have committed otherwise which can only be a good thing for prosecutors.”    

So far no other murder victims have stepped forward but officials are still hopeful.

Martin Philton, Technology Correspondent

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