The FBI says that cybercrime is now its third highest priority, but last week’s announcement certainly raises concerns about where its cybercrime-fighting resources are going to go. If it was just a matter of introducing its “anti-piracy” warning seal, we might dismiss the announcement as a fairly meaningless gesture to these industries that are spending so much money lobbying Congress. But the tone of the FBI’s message to users of peer-to-peer systems went a lot further than that.

First, it is worrisome the FBI would lend any credence to the highly dubious claim that these industries lost $23 billion last year to digital theft. What is worse is the explicit threat in its "Cyber Education Letter" saying that the Bureau “has asked industry associations and companies that are particularly concerned with intellectual property theft to report to the FBI -- for possible criminal investigation and prosecution -- anyone that they have reason to believe is violating Federal copyright law.” And the suggestion that peer-to-peer systems are responsible not only for copyright infringement but child exploitation and computer hacking as well seems a rather spurious attempt to tarnish peer-to-peer in general.

After all, cybercriminals make use of all sorts of technologies, not just peer-to-peer, and copyright infringement is among the least damaging things they do. Last month we discussed the grave threat phishing scams like the brazen FDIC/Homeland Security fraud represent to the Internet. Yet the one anti-phishing investigation the FBI brags on apparently only happened because a Bureau agent specializing in cybercrimes happened to be a recipient of the phisher's spam. How many more such investigations, which found 400 stolen credit card numbers on just one of the perpetrator’s computers, could lead to successful prosecutions? Let’s hope the FBI chooses to focus its cybercrime efforts in protecting the interests of us all rather than targeting technologies that threaten a few deep-pocketed lobbying groups.