Cybercrime

“ China calls for removing the hotbed for cybercrime and severing all criminal links, and building a better mechanism for judicial and law enforcement cooperation against cybercrime and cyberterrorism. China is an active supporter and participant in negotiations on a United Nations Convention against Cybercrime, and calls for an international cyberspace counter-terrorism treaty. ”

“ IN GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall seek to enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to develop a taxonomy for the purpose of categorizing different types of cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime faced by individuals and businesses. (b) DEVELOPMENT.—In developing the taxonomy under subsection (a) , the National Academy of Sciences shall— (1) ensure the taxonomy is useful for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to classify cybercrime in the National IncidentBased Reporting System, or any successor system ”

“ While focusing on forestalling and punishing cybercrime, China takes targeted measures against online criminal activities such as virtual sexual harassment, and has increased punishments for those preying on minors. ”

“ Anyone who uses the Internet or an information technology device to threaten or blackmail another person to carry out an act or to refrain from doing so, even if such an act or omission is lawful, shall be punished by imprisonment or by a fine of no less than two thousand Jordanian dinars and no more than five thousand Jordanian dinars or by a combination of both punishments. ”

“ Except for Terminus, however, none were charged with a crime. None of them shared his peculiar prominence in the hacker underground.
But that did not mean that these people would, or could, stay out of trouble. The transferral of illicit data in cyberspace is hazy and ill-defined business, with paradoxical dangers for everyone concerned: hackers, signal carriers, board owners, cops, prosecutors, even random passers-by. Sometimes, well-meant attempts to avert trouble or punish wrongdoing bring more trouble than would simple ignorance, indifference or impropriety. ”

“ Modern telecommunications systems, like other computer systems, are also susceptible to abuse by remote access. The integration of telecommunications systems means that once one system is accessed, a computer operator with sufficient skill could infiltrate the entire telecommunications network of a city. The usual motive for telecommunications crime is to obtain free telecommunications services. However, more innovative telecommunications fraud has also been uncovered, and telecommunications systems have been used to disguise other forms of criminal activity. ”

“ Most hackers regard credit-card theft as "poison" to the underground, a sleazy and immoral effort that, worse yet, is hard to get away with. Nevertheless, manifestos advocating credit-card theft, the deliberate crashing of computer systems, and even acts of violent physical destruction such as vandalism and arson do exist in the underground. These boasts and threats are taken quite seriously by the police. And not every hacker is an abstract, Platonic computer-nerd. Some few are quite experienced at picking locks, robbing phone-trucks, and breaking and entering buildings. ”

“ Some professional informants, who make it their business to retail knowledge of the underground to paymasters in private corporate security, have estimated the hacker population at as high as fifty thousand. This is likely highly inflated, unless one counts every single teenage software pirate and petty phone-booth thief. My best guess is about 5,000 people. Of these, I would guess that as few as a hundred are truly "elite" —active computer intruders, skilled enough to penetrate sophisticated systems and truly to worry corporate security and law enforcement. ”

“ Bulletin boards are cram-full of EVIDENCE. All that busy trading of electronic mail, all those hacker boasts, brags and struts, even the stolen codes and cards, can be neat, electronic, real-time recordings of criminal activity. As an investigator, when you seize a pirate board, you have scored a coup as effective as tapping phones or intercepting mail. However, you have not actually tapped a phone or intercepted a letter. The rules of evidence regarding phone-taps and mail interceptions are old, stern and well-understood by police, prosecutors and defense attorneys alike. ”

“ The term "hacking" is used routinely today by almost all law enforcement officials with any professional interest in computer fraud and abuse. American police describe almost any crime committed with, by, through, or against a computer as hacking.
Most importantly, "hacker" is what computer-intruders choose to call THEMSELVES. Nobody who "hacks" into systems willingly describes himself (rarely, herself) as a "computer intruder," "computer trespasser," "cracker," "wormer," "darkside hacker" or "high tech street gangster." ”

“ Through the defendants’ efforts, LIBERTY RESERVE has emerged as one of the principal means by which cyber-criminals around the world distribute, store, and launder the proceeds of their illegal activity. Indeed, LIBERTY RESERVE has become a financial hub of the cyber-crime world, facilitating a broad range of online criminal activity, including credit card fraud identity theft, investment fraud, computer hacking, child pornography, and narcotics trafficking. ”

“ In the new, severe, responsible, high-stakes context of the "Information Society" of the 1990s, "hacking" was called into question.
What did it mean to break into a computer without permission and use its computational power, or look around inside its files without hurting anything? What were computer-intruding hackers, anyway—how should society, and the law, best define their actions? Were they just BROWSERS, harmless intellectual explorers? Were they VOYEURS, snoops, invaders of privacy? Should they be sternly treated as potential AGENTS OF ESPIONAGE, or perhaps as INDUSTRIAL SPIES? ”

“ Police are authoritarian by nature, and prefer to obey rules and precedents. (Even those police who secretly enjoy a fast ride in rough territory will soberly disclaim any "cowboy" attitude.) But in cyberspace there ARE no rules and precedents. They are groundbreaking pioneers, Cyberspace Rangers, whether they like it or not.
In my opinion, any teenager enthralled by computers, fascinated by the ins and outs of computer security, and attracted by the lure of specialized forms of knowledge and power, would do well to forget all about "hacking" and set his (or her) sights on becoming a fed. ”

“ According to a number of studies, however, employees represent the largest threat, and indeed computer crime has often been referred to as an insider crime. One study estimated that 90 per cent of economic computer crimes were committed by employees of the victimized companies. A recent survey in North America and Europe indicated that 73 per cent of the risk to computer security was attributable to internal sources and only 23 per cent to external criminal activity. ”

“ Without the cooperation of victims of computer crime, efforts to suppress computer crime, can be only partially effective. Reporting incidents of crime to authorities and society at large is necessary to discourage criminal behaviour. In response to the concerns of the business community regarding consumer confidence, it is suggested that an open, proactive approach to computer crime in fact would instill public confidence in a company's commitment to preventing and detecting crime and to protecting the interests of its investors. ”

“ Even a small glitch in the operation of these systems con put human lives in danger. Society's dependence on computer systems, therefore, has a profound human dimension. The rapid transnational expansion of large-scale computer networks and the ability to access many systems through regular telephone lines increases the vulnerability of these systems and the opportunity for misuse or criminal activity. The consequences of computer crime may have serious economic costs as well as serious costs in terms of human security.
This work is excerpted from an official document of the United Nations. ”

“ In recent years China has carried out a systematic "internet clean-up" campaign, combating cyber hacking, invasion of individual privacy, and many other criminal acts that cause strong concern to the public. It has launched a number of campaigns against telecom and online fraud, including those to hunt fugitives via cloud services and platforms, freeze the SIM cards and bank accounts used by suspects, intercept domestic recruitment by criminal groups operating from abroad, and pursue the heads and key members of criminal groups. ”

“ It has, as a third matter, long been an article of faith that any hacker caught can escape serious punishment if he confesses HOW HE DID IT. Hackers seem to believe that governmental agencies and large corporations are blundering about in cyberspace like eyeless jellyfish or cave salamanders. They feel that these large but pathetically stupid organizations will proffer up genuine gratitude, and perhaps even a security post and a big salary, to the hot-shot intruder who will deign to reveal to them the supreme genius of his modus operandi. ”

“ The computer-crime units that do exist, can't get work. The true scope of computer-crime: its size, its real nature, the scope of its threats, and the legal remedies for it—all remain obscured.
Another problem is very little publicized, but it is a cause of genuine concern. Where there is persistent crime, but no effective police protection, then vigilantism can result. Telcos, banks, credit companies, the major corporations who maintain extensive computer networks vulnerable to hacking —these organizations are powerful, wealthy, and politically influential. ”

“ Computer data, however, can be instantly changed or erased with minimal chance of detection, by, for example, a virus or logic bomb. The computer criminal can easily modify systems to perpetrate the fraud and then cover the evidence of the offence. It is suggested, moreover, that data processing is protected by only one tenth of the controls afforded to the same process in the manual environment, an insufficiency that facilitates the opportunity to commit crime without detection. ”

“ Computers now form a central role in our lives. Some, providing emergency services, depend on their computers to deliver those services.'13
Hackers needed to be given a clear signal that computer crime `will not and cannot be tolerated', the judge said, adding that he had thought long and hard before handing down sentence. He accepted that neither hacker had intended to cause damage, but it was imperative to protect society's computer systems and he would be failing in his public duty if he didn't sentence the two hackers to a prison term of six months. ”

“ The instrument of crime distrained with the case shall be confiscated.
Cyberspace is not a lawless wilderness. Although it differs from the actual physical space, the acts performed within cyberspace are concrete, and the order on the internet is an essential component of public social order. Therefore, as one who worked as a network engineer at a university for over a decade, the Defendant should have the ability to distinguish false information. ”

“ Cyber crimes, which defraud hard-working Americans, cost our families billions of dollars each year and result in tremendous stress, loss of time, and hardship. Americans must have access to the tools necessary to protect their personal information and privacy and know how to use them to improve their online security. Our first defense against fraudulent cyber transactions and the misuse of personal information will always be a well-informed consumer. ”

“ The Hacker Crackdown had another unprecedented effect; it spurred the creation, within "the computer community," of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a new and very odd interest group, fiercely dedicated to the establishment and preservation of electronic civil liberties. The crackdown, remarkable in itself, has created a melee of debate over electronic crime, punishment, freedom of the press, and issues of search and seizure. Politics has entered cyberspace. Where people go, politics follow. ”

“ Local units also arrested a 19-year-old female phone phreak named "Electra" in Pennsylvania, and a male juvenile in California. Federal agents however were not seeking arrests, but computers.
Hackers are generally not indicted (if at all) until the evidence in their seized computers is evaluated—a process that can take weeks, months—even years. When hackers are arrested on the spot, it's generally an arrest for other reasons. Drugs and/or illegal weapons show up in a good third of anti-hacker computer seizures (though not during Sundevil) . ”

“ Police treasure good relations with the business community. Rarely will you see a policeman so indiscreet as to allege publicly that some major employer in his state or city has succumbed to paranoia and gone off the rails. Nevertheless, police —and computer police in particular—are aware of this possibility. Computer-crime police can and do spend up to half of their business hours just doing public relations: seminars, "dog and pony shows," sometimes with parents' groups or computer users, but generally with their core audience: the likely victims of hacking crimes. ”

“ An estimated one million computer users categorize themselves or are categorized as hackers. After the Homosoto bomb was dropped on America, a spontaneous underground ad hoc hacker effort began to help protect the very systems that many of them has been violating only the day before. The thousands of bulletin boards that normally display new methods of attacking computers, invad- ing government networks, stealing telephone service, phreaking computers and causing electronic disruptions, are now competing for recognition. ”