The four tabs of the infocalypse

The term "The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse" is applied to internet criminals or their pictorial representation.

This is a pun on the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and refers to criminals who use the Internet to crime to commit. Who or from which group the four tabs are is not precisely defined. However, they are commonly described as terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime. Other sources sometimes give different descriptions, but generally the same criminal types are mentioned. The term was coined in 1988 by Timothy C. May , who referred to "child pornographers, terrorists, drug dealers and others" in the discussion about the reasons for the limited use of cryptography by the civilian population. The most famous quote on this comes from the Cypherpunk FAQ. There it says:

8.3.4. "How are privacy and anonymity attacked?"

[...]

• like so many other things when it comes to computer hackers, as a tool for the four riders: drug dealers, money launderers, terrorists and pedophiles.

17.5.7. "Which limits in the network are suggested?"

[...]

• Newspapers complain about the four tabs of the infocalypse:
  • Terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers and money launderers

The term seems to be used less in discussions about online criminal activities as such, and more frequently when discussing the negative or deterrent effects that these activities have on the daily experiences of regular users. It is also often mentioned to describe the political tactic of “someone think about the children”.

A message on the same mailing list says:

Four simple steps to get what you want:

1. Is there something that should be stopped or prevented, but the moral and practical reasons to prevent it are missing?
2. Take something that the masses fear, something that many react to spontaneously emotionally and instinctively: terrorists, pedophiles, mass murderers.
3. You trumpet loudly all over the world (don't forget the media!) That this "something" is used by criminals. (Do not worry whether this is true at all or also applies to other things or whether it actually applies less to our “something” than to more established systems, e.g. payphones, conventional mail, private hotel rooms, the absence of bug bugs in houses, etc. )
4. They explain that one can only get over the criminals by completely closing "something", regulating to death or introducing laws that enforce the mass surveillance of all private communication in the "something". Again, don't worry that such communication is a constitutionally protected right. If you have carefully selected the tabs mentioned under point 2 and created enough public attention, no one will notice and everyone will be too busy demanding loudly that they should be saved from the supposed evil.

The four alleged threats can be mentioned at the same time together or individually, depending on the circumstances.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Robert Carey, Jacquelyn Burkell: Revisiting the Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse: Representations of anonymity and the Internet in Canadian newspapers . In: First Monday . 12, No. 8, August 2007.
2. ↑ Timothy C. May: §8.3.4. How will privacy and anonymity be attacked? . In: Cypherpunk FAQ . September 10, 1994. Retrieved January 29, 2014.
3. ↑ [e-mail]: The Four Horsemen . October 16, 1995. Archived from the original on October 29, 2006. Retrieved January 29, 2014.
4. ↑ "Screwmaster": Re: The devil is in the details . In: Judge Rules Man Cannot Be Forced To Decrypt HD . Slashdot. August 19, 2008. Retrieved January 29, 2014.