Yeap, I see your point. I like to see them as profilers. ..thinking like criminals to catch criminals or stop crime.
Now, at some point, @tycho said that cyber crime is more of a political problem, rather than a technical one. Actually, the reverse is true. For instance, encryption in the 90s for the first time became very difficult to break and also widely available (PGP of Phil Zimmerman)
Scared mathematicians and crypto experts ran scared to their technocrat govt bosses, saying 'we can't break this thing' ..that kicked a storm all the way to Washington DC. It is a clear case of technology appealing to politics. The US passed a law declaring algorithms and system surpassing a certain strength ordnance. Export was outlawed and was Zimmerman locked up.
Governments have been known to give RIM ultimatums, telling them to code backdoors into Blackberry's strong security, else no operating license will be granted. The drug and contraband site Silk Road is unhackable, untraceable, so far at least, causing the FBI immense frustration. Bitcoin, though not a criminal element per se is causing central economists some worry. So this is very much a technical problem. Politics usually leaves technology to its own devices, but advancement is making security operations more and more difficult, shielding citizens as well as criminals from scrutiny. Security is important to politics. So what is your take?

People hack banks all the time, especially in Kenya, it never gets out. Breaches are sensitive. Confidence and trust must be maintained. Credit cards are drained, money transferred, they quickly reset the balances and write off the theft using some accounting trickery.
A local company was hacked and its switches used as a free forwarding service for international VoIP and data traffic for weeks until they were slapped with a huge bill then they went poking around their systems.
I suspect governments are increasingly losing the tech war with criminals and even though politicians hate scrutiny and knowledgeable people, seriously tech savvy criminals very very worrying. It is a genuine problem. I am ambivalent about things like biometric face recognition at airports and passports, even though they are an invasion of privacy. Wouldn't want terrorists moving in and out at will. As citizens, we should be ready to permit some limited privacy invasion, because when we are attacked, we bay for our leaders' blood. We have to give some ground to get some measure of protection. Measures like not having anonymous SIM cards are good

What did Benjamin mean with that statement?

On to you question on how far we should go, I we will increasingly see our privacy invaded in the name of security. Right now, there camera devices in some.airports that can literally see through you clothes. Does that tell you how far!?

How far should we go in the name of security? Hehehe. I am afraid you will never get an honest or sensible answer to that question. Nation-states and politicians prefer to leave that ambiguous and let pragmatists get down to the trenches of figuring out how to handle citizens' security. Now pragmatists will nod and agree with courts and human rights experts in the day and open, then go ahead to break laws they deem to support in the dark as long as they have that ambiguity license.
In most countries, breaches of privacy are not punished by criminal (jailable) liability, but more like censure. Those caught are harangued by committees, fined, may be fired. It is a tacit understanding between politicians and security experts. Because the enemy plays dirty and idealists are hopelessly out of depth in these matters. It is a murky business.
And this is the way it will be for a long time to come.

What are we securing?

Privacy? No. Privacy has ended. Property? Everything is visible and traceable, and abundant.

The 'thing' that will need security is the network system. Networks will need to be secured from 'entropy' and other 'organic' afflictions.

I think Cyber security is entering into new grounds.

Bio-mimetics.

@tycho - I thought you meant politicians.Sorry for that.

@xyzee - Totally right.

Your argument, is true if networks don't include humans as part of hardware.

But computer hardware and humans can be networked to create new institutions and systems. These are socio-technical networks.

US Internet providers start spy program to stop file-sharing

Seems like Kim Dotcom will be vindicated.

Kim Dotcom wants to encrypt half of the internet to end government surveillance

http://rt.com/news/pirate-bay-leave-sweden-472/

http://rt.com/usa/sabu-informant-anonymous-sentence-491/