Craigslist CEO: Crooks who use site will be caught

"INNEAPOLIS — The CEO of Craigslist has a message for people who try to use the popular Internet advertising site to commit crimes: You're going to get caught. ~ http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_12204740?nclick_check=1"

This is quite an interesting statement for the CEO of an internet company to make. After the killing in Boston which was connected to Craigslist, CEO Buckmaster stated "extremely unsafe venue for criminal activity because you're virtually guaranteeing that you're going to get caught." He also states "That's been the case with nearly every serious violent crime that's been connected with the site," Buckmaster said in a telephone interview from San Francisco, where Craigslist is based. "There's an electronic trail leading to yourself. So don't use Craigslist for crime unless you want to go to jail."

Now let's assume Craigs list does have good logging systems and keeps track of who visits what pages and whatnot. Why would you, as a company, attempt to deter people with blanket threats like this. The problem is, and maybe Mr. Buckmaster does know this, that there are always ways to hide your identity online. Anonymous VPN services such as FindNot and chained proxies make finding a determined individual quite difficult. By stating people are going to get caught if they do something illegal on Craig's list almost starts a cold war. If someone of intelligence is going to do something on Craig's list now they are going to go out of their way to hide their identity. The law is on their side but the law can also be slow. Unless something significant takes place, getting grand juries to subpoena ISP's to find out the person was on a proxy seems fruitless.

This is a unique topic because I don't know if there was a "right" thing to say either way. The only way Craig's List is ever going to become really more secure is by collecting more information on users and putting in place some sort of verification mechanism. It might be advantageous to try such a mechanism on certain "risky" parts of the website like the sex classifieds. Craig's List has recently made an effort to moderate these "personal" ads more; however, it does not seem likely that individual review will have much of an effect.

I give the staff at Craig's list a big shout out for actually trying to fix this problem. I am looking forward to their next step and to see how it will affect the users of the website. Is it time to require credit card authorization? (I'm only joking - I hope not)

Let me know what you think.