Computer Crime: Computer Crime

There are no precise, reliable statistics on the amount of computer crime and the economic loss to victims, partly because many of these crimes are apparently not detected by victims, many of these crimes are never reported to authorities, and partly because the losses are often difficult to calculate. Nevertheless, there is a consensus among both law enforcement personnel and computer scientists who specialize in security that both the number of computer crime incidents and the sophistication of computer criminals is increasing rapidly. Estimates are that computer crime costs victims in the USA at least US$ 5×10⁸/year, and the true value of such crime might be substantially higher. Experts in computer security, who are not attorneys, speak of "information warfare". While such "information warfare" is just another name for computer crime, the word "warfare" does fairly denote the amount of damage inflicted on society.

I have posted a separate document, Tips for avoiding computer crime, which includes suggestions for increasing the security and reliability of personal computers, as well as links to websites on computer viruses, computer crime, and anti-virus and firewall software.

Two comments on word usage in this essay:

I normally write in a gender neutral way, but here I use the masculine pronoun for computer criminals, because (a) female computer criminals are rare and (b) I can't imagine a feminist attacking me because I deny equal recognition to women criminals.
To some professional computer programmers, the word "hacker" refers to a skilled programmer and is neither pejorative nor does it refer to criminal activity. However, to most users of English, the word "hacker" refers to computer criminals, and that is the usage that I have adopted in this essay.

I originally wrote this essay in May 1999. I do not have the spare time that would be required for a thorough search and analysis of reported cases and statutes on computer crime, as well as newspaper accounts (most criminal proceedings are resolved without generating any judicial decision that is reported in legal databases or books), so my revisions are mostly generalizations.

NEW CRIMES IN CYBERSPACE

There are three major classes of criminal activity with computers:

unauthorized use of a computer, which might involve stealing a username and password, or might involve accessing the victim's computer via the Internet through a backdoor operated by a Trojan Horse program.
creating or releasing a malicious computer program (e.g., computer virus, worm, Trojan Horse).
harassment and stalking in cyberspace.

OLD CRIMES

When lay people hear the words "computer crime", they often think of obscene pictures available on the Internet or solicitation of children for sex by pedophiles via chat rooms on the Internet. The legal problem of obscenity on the Internet is mostly the same as the legal problem of obscenity in books and magazines, except for some technical issues of personal jurisdiction on the Internet. I have discussed obscenity on the Internet in my May 1997 essay on law and technology and I have nothing further to say about obscenity in this essay on computer crime.

Similarly, many crimes involving computers are no different from crimes without computers: the computer is only a tool that a criminal uses to commit a crime. For example,

Using a computer, a scanner, graphics software, and a high-quality color laser or ink jet printer for forgery or counterfeiting is the same crime as using an old-fashioned printing press with ink.
Stealing a laptop computer with proprietary information stored on the hard disk inside the computer is the same crime as stealing a briefcase that contains papers with proprietary information.
Using the Internet or online services to solicit sex is similar to other forms of solicitation of sex, and so is not a new crime.
Using computers can be another way to commit either larceny or fraud.

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Monday, August 1, 2011

Computer Crime

NEW CRIMES IN CYBERSPACE

OLD CRIMES

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