Digital Computer Crime

Digital Computer Crime
Information Technology in Criminal JusticeApril 22, 2018

Week 3 Assignment 1: Digital Computer Crime

Computer Crimes can be placed in four categories:

The computer as a target simply means that a computer is targeted where the criminal act is focused on stealing the data, altering data, or vandalizing the computer. Crimes such as these affect business’s entire operations, while causing serious harm to the network owners as well. Some examples of the computer as a crime can be theft of intellectual property, such as, auto designs, or marketing information of potential customers.

  • The computer as a target
  • The computer as an instrument of the crime
  • The computer as incidental to the crime
  • Crimes associated with the prevalence of computers

The computer as an instrument of the crime can be explained as computers being used to cover crimes such as fraud, theft, threat or harassment. Using a cell phone to electronically bill other customers is an example of a computers as instrument.

The computer as incidental to the crime is simply a computer crime in which the computer is not used as primarily as an instrument of the crime but does facilitate the crime. Examples of this category of crimes can be money laundering, child pornography, or luring of victims into situations not in their best interest and dangerous.

And finally, crimes associated with the prevalence of computers happens when the objective is to target the industry. To be effective numerous criteria’s needed to be meet such as targeting the industry’s customers, and the personnel who make attempts to avoid the using of information technology. These crimes would include intellectual property violations, component theft, counterfeiting money and numerous corporate types of offenses.

One common form of digital crime is theft. Theft becomes a digital crime when another person’s copyrighted materials by stealing them and claiming them as their own or selling them for profit without permission from the owners of the works. For example, the illegal downloading, over file sharing networks. Another common form of digital crime would be stalking. This type of crime is when stalkers continually harass another online user with threatening messages and emails. Bullies often use this tactic to attack fellow students. Cyber stalking is extremely serious as it can turn into real-world stalking which the government takes very seriously. Finally, the Malicious Files and Software are common forms of digital crimes. Viruses, malware, etc. are all commonplace on the internet, and they are used to infiltrate another’s computer or network, gain valuable personal information, and even destroy that person’s computer or network.

Cyber-crimes such as the computer as a target is the greatest overall threat currently as it allows the stealing of data which could compromise our financial institutions, hospitals, and democratic elections. If someone is able to obtain the personal information of a citizen to do them harm.

The government will need to become very familiar with the new crime scene and begin to infiltrate this new arena in an effort to end the theft of data or the use of the computer to commit crimes, especially crimes around terrorism and cyber-bulling. The FBI and Homeland Security have been teams dedicated now to only work on cyber security issues. The agencies involved might consider hiring a White Hat hacker to work with to discover how to better secure digital information for all the Citizens.

Reference List

INC., Computer Crimes Retrieved from

https://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/computer-crimes.html

Homeland Security, Combating Cyber Crime, Retrieved from

https://www.dhs.gov/topic/combating-cyber-crime

Livingston, Deborah, How Federal Agencies Interact with Cyber Crime, Retrieved From

https://internet-security.knoji.com/how-federal-agencies-interact-with-cyber-crime/

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