Jack Wraith, TUFF

Jack Wraith has lived and breathed communications and security for more than 30 years. Now he's at the forefront of wireless crime prevention as chief executive for the London-based Telecommunications U.K. Fraud Forum, or TUFF, and executive secretary of the Mobile Phone Industry Crime Action Forum.

Wraith's mission is to keep wireless crime from evolving at technology's pace: He believes fraud's focus will shift from mobile devices to mobile content.

“The criminal always is quick to identify the weaknesses of systems and will find opportunities to exploit them,” Wraith said. “They will start seeing how money can be made by hijacking the content or obtaining it illegally, whether it is a bank account or credit card details.”

Wraith represents forum members like Vodafone, Orange, BT Cellnet, Nokia and Virgin Mobile, espousing the views of the collective forum without putting a specific company's spin out there. “The idea is to provide an environment in which people who are normally competitors in the marketplace can discuss security issues that affect business,” he said.

Wraith spent 30 years in the British military, ending his service as a staff officer for NATO in Brussels. His experience led him first to a U.S.-based “quasi-government” organization called the Logistic Management Institute, where he provided European communications expertise, and then to the Federation of Communication Services in the U.K., where he became a fraud executive. He organized TUFF in June 2000.

Although the forum is U.K.-oriented, Wraith does not rule out learning from other countries. “The criminal has no respect for international boundaries.”