Essay on Computer Crime: Technology and Cyberspace

The growth of the internet has allowed cyber criminals to attack any target anywhere and not even have to be local. Capabilities in internet speed and the out reach of the world wide web make this crime more desirable and easy to accomplish.

Since technology is constantly evolving and progressing, this can make it hard to stay on top of things. What is cybercrime or a cyber-criminal someone may ask? Hate crimes, Internet fraud, identity theft, and credit card account thefts are considered cybercrimes and cyber criminals or cyber terrorists commit these crimes. These crimes are so complex it can be hard to break down the barriers that can be lead to solving this problem. Major problems are that there is a lack of knowledge in reporting these crimes, and how to keep identity and data secure. At a TED Conference, James Lyne a cybersecurity specialist addresses that cybercriminals are getting smarter every day and their crimes are becoming more complex. Through simple things Americans do each day, malicious viruses are contracted, and the culprit: cybercriminals. They post up what could be called an advertisement on YouTube, selling their services to unsuspecting Americans to use their hacking skills if needed. They are also making money off the viruses they put out. If someone were on a particular site where the cybercriminal implanted the virus that person would then have the virus; first it would pop up as antivirus protector, then pretending to scan the computer it would say the user had all these so called viruses. It will then proceed to ask the user if they would like to register to use said

Describe the role viruses, other malicious code, and phishing attacks play in aiding this criminal activity.

Cyber crimes, as defined by dictionary.com, are criminal activity or a crime that involves the internet, a computer system, or computer technology. Cyber Crimes may occur all over the globe, but the scene of the crime shares one common location, the internet. Law Enforcement has been tasked with bringing an end to this digital dilemma and they have started by going to war. The war on Cyber crimes is a term used to designate the efforts of Law Enforcement to go against these sly criminals. There are many different forms of these crimes, such as some come in forms of scams and others are ushered in by hackers. The shocking part is the statistics that come along with these crimes and the amount of money that

Essi Viding, a professor in the psychology and language sciences department of University College London, who was not involved in

The creation go of the Internet has helped spawn new forms of criminals and crimes, and has always helped make older criminal schemes easier to execute, identity theft, child pornography, copyright violations, hacking and you could go on and on. In a 2003 survey conducted by the CSI with the participation of the San Francisco Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Computer Intrusion Squad, of the 530 respondents made up of U.S. corporations, government agencies, financial institutions, medical institutions and universities, 56% reported unauthorized use of their computer systems (2003 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey).

When you begin to examine how the internet and crime are related, you must first examine exactly what the internet is and how it works. The internet is a global system of computers and networks that are interconnected and service billions of users at any given time. This could be considered a cybercriminals’ playground. Because billions of computers are connected via a vast array of private and public networks including many government agencies, it is easy to see how a cybercriminal could obtain valuable information or unleash denial of service attacks that could cripple many of these systems.

Technology has been advancing worldwide over the course of history, the successful innovations that were created to make the modern world possible eventually conspired to cause a great danger for today’s technology. Society has reached a critical point when the 21st century launched, and with it comes the technological mishaps erupting along with solutions. Cyberterrorism and Identity theft are well-known criminal acts that can potentially be a greater danger to humanity, especially as time passes since their technology improves immeasurably. Having two of the most known networked crimes becoming one single organization could be a desolation towards an age of corruption on the internet. It will only get worse if prevention does not improve.

Cybercrime is defined as “any crime that involves computers and networks, including crimes that do not rely heavily on computers” (Choi, 3). Cybercrime also consists of crimes that are illegal when committed without the use of technology (Choi, 3). These types of crimes range from cyberbullying, exploitation of children, and online harassment (Moore, 4). The types of crimes can be committed without the use of technology, but have become more prevalent due to how more easy the crimes are to commit with the use of technology. Child exploitation is a prime example as it is growing at a fast rate due to the opportunities online.

What is cyber crime? Cyber crime is defined as any criminal activities carried out on some form of technology customarily a computer. These cases are currently running the U.S. judicial system and have been since the invention of computers. The cyber crimes are beginning to surmount the criminal justice system and justice needs to be served. Of the many suggestions people have regarding the criminal justice system, improvements to cyber crime penalization can be implemented by updating ways of accumulating various evidence and customizing a set of consequences to online crime, rather than treating it like customary crimes.

Cyber crime spans not only state and national boundaries, but the international boundaries as well. At the Tenth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, in a workshop devoted to the issues of crimes related to computer networks, cybercrime was broken into two categories and defined thus:

Cyber Crime is described as criminal activity committed via use of electronic communications with respect to cyber fraud or identity theft through phishing and spoofing. There are many other forms of cyber-crime also such as harassment, pornography etc. via use of information technology.

Around 1989, the Internet was created and with its creation and new opportunities, new ranges of crimes also emerged: Computer crimes. Conveniently for criminals, there is no requirement for an offender to be at the scene of the crime physically, yet they achieve the same results. Due to the fact that computer crimes involve a certain knowledge of technology, it has become an attractive field for young people. Throughout the years after the invention of the internet, many criminal acts have been carried out by young offenders and law makers ought to quickly catch up in responding to new threats. Thus, while it is rather timely to adopt and create new laws that criminalise certain cyber activities, the criminal justice system in England and Wales developed various responses to young people who commit computer enabled and computer related crimes which, amongst others, include hacking.

Cyber criminals take pride in creating chaos, and the chaos that cyber criminals inflict on their victims can be crippling to individuals and corporations. We have all heard about hackers getting information from major retail chains as well as information being leaked that included Social Security numbers for millions of people. We use the internet with somewhat of a naivete expectation that all of our information is safe. That is, until something untoward occurs, and then it can be all out panic.

-Within this writing assignment, I will discuss the four major categories of computer crimes. I will explain the most common forms of digital crime and why cyber terrorism is the greatest threat. I will also discuss the roles of the U.S. government, court systems, and law enforcement agencies in combating computer crime. First, we will define the four major categories of computer crimes.