Cybercrime & Criminal Behavior Paper

 

 

Lecture Notes

Welcome to Lesson 8, your final lesson in this course. Today, corporate patents, trade secrets, and databases are routinely stolen and sold. High-tech criminals seeking illegal access to computerized information are often planted as spies inside legitimate businesses. These corporate spies pose as office workers or hackers who trespass illegally into a company’s network. Individuals, institutions, and nations need to be ever-vigilant against these intrusions.

Cybercrime

Cybercrime or computer crime is any violation of a federal law or state computer crime statute. The FBI classifies cybercrimes into five categories: (1) internal computer crimes such as viruses; (2) Internet and telecommunications crimes such as hacking; (3) support of criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking databases; (4) computer-manipulation crimes such as embezzlement; and (5) hardware, software, and information theft. Concerns with cybercrime include the fact that it is a major threat to national and economic security. Many organizations and institutions, both public and private, are at risk.

Cyberattacks and security breaches are increasing in frequency. Criminals are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. Current signature-based antivirus and malware solutions are becoming obsolete. The bottom line is that there are no real deterrents to cybercrime. There is a connection between cybercrime and other threats such as terrorism, industrial espionage, and foreign intelligences services. Makers of computer protection software report that 15,000 types of new malware are entering networks every day. In one year, U.S. consumers lost $8.5 billion and replaced 2.1 million computers because of viruses, spyware, and malware.

Computer crime is difficult to detect. Most cases are discovered by accident or via a customer complaint. The general public views these crimes as less serious than violent crime. Yet the cost of cybercrime to society, organizations, and individuals is enormous. The U.S. government, Target, and Home Depot have all experienced horrific breaches in recent months. Credit card numbers and other IDs, including government employees’ social security numbers, were stolen. Prevention requires the coordinated efforts of the legal, technical, managerial, security, and auditing departments within an organization.

Cyberterrorism is a developing threat to the economy, infrastructure, and national security concerns. It is a form of terrorism that makes use of high technology, especially computer technology and the Internet, in planning and carrying out terrorist attacks. Make certain to study the various charts on cybercrime in your textbook before taking your achievement exam.

How Violent is the United States?

The United States, often viewed as being the most violent country in the world, places below only Mexico in numbers of murders per 100,000 as of 2011 (Schmalleger, 2015). The Russian Federation follows closely on the heels of the United States. Denmark ranks lowest. Mexico experienced almost twice as many murders as the United States; but remember that Mexico has been dealing with vicious drug cartels that have been blamed for numerous bloodbaths in its towns and cities. Keep in mind, too, that the table in your textbook is not exhaustive. Select countries were chosen.

Globalization

Your textbook defines globalization as the “process of social homogenization by which the experiences of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, can foster a standardization of cultural expressions around the world” (Schmalleger, 2015, p.377). That definition is a mouthful! But what it boils down to is sharing and adopting ideas of other cultures. The Internet is largely responsible for bringing about globalization. Countries that were once isolated from one another are now connected. At one point, the United States had the most Internet users, but in 2006 China surpassed the United States. Its burgeoning economy and large population attributed to this growth.

Globalization has given rise to the need to study crime on a cross-national basis. Comparative criminology is the study of crime on a cross-national level. This approach is valuable, in part because increasing globalization results in the sharing of information among cultures that may pose a threat to the United States. Globalization makes it difficult to ignore the criminal justice information of other countries. To win the fight against terrorism, it is important that countries work together.

Ethnocentrism is defined as the use of one’s own culture to judge all other patterns of behavior, including crime. It can interfere with criminologists’ work. Every nation defines crime differently, and each uses different methods to gather, classify, study, and disseminate information on crime. Political, social, economic, and other influences and constraints on reporting practices to international agencies also skew findings and the ability of the criminologist to compare crime in one country to another. The United Nations and the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) are the only international organizations that gather crime information from a large number of countries. They have no way of verifying the accuracy of requested data.

Statistics on crime need to be taken with a grain of salt. Statistics can be deceiving. They can also be manipulated to serve a purpose. Communist countries, for example, do not like to report thefts, burglaries, and robberies, as they feel reporting these crimes could reveal the inequities of communist ideology. In some countries women are encouraged not to report rape or abuse, whereas in others they are encouraged to do so. You can see how these types of distortions can lead to wrong conclusions.

Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking

Note the distinction (and overlap) between these two crimes. Human smuggling is an illegal immigration practice of bringing people into another country. Agents, sometimes called coyotes, are paid to smuggle men, women, and children across borders. Human traffickinginvolves the exploitation of unwitting or unwilling victims through coercion, threats, and violence. Human trafficking is a serious global crime. Many of us living in the United States consider this to be a crime that takes place outside our borders, but in fact the United States is not immune to this criminal industry. Many victims are lured into the United States with promises of a home, a good-paying job, and perhaps a healthy marriage.

In January 2015, the FBI dismantled a human trafficking ring operated by five brothers. The men lured unsuspecting Ukrainian men and women into the United States with promises of good-paying jobs. The victims were smuggled into the United States through Mexico. Then they were subjected to abuse, violence, and years of involuntary servitude. In essence, they became slaves. Please read:https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/january/human-trafficking-ring-dismantled/human-trafficking-ring-dismantled to learn why the U.S. government has declared January as the National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention month.

Terrorism

The U.S. Department of State defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” Note that targeting civilians is a key component of terrorism. It is one of the reasons terrorism stirs panic. Broadly speaking, terrorism can be broken down into domestic terrorists and international terrorists. Your textbook provides a concise chart that explains how terrorism can be further broken down into the following groups: (1) nationalists; (2) religious; (3) state-sponsored; (4) left-wing; (5) right-wing; and (6) anarchists.

In addition, there are single-issue terrorists and lone wolf terrorists. In a prior lesson, we discussed animal rights extremists committing arson. Not only are these criminals arsonists, they are single-issue terrorists. They are not concerned about religious dogma or which dictator is in charge. Their single cause is to protect the horses from the work (and alleged abuse) associated with carriage rides. Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA, stated long ago that he considers the lone wolf terrorist to be the greatest threat to the United States. They do not fit any sort of criminal profile and their motivations for committing acts of terrorism are vast and varied. These facts make finding them and/or predicting their actions very difficult. Should we consider the recent movie theater shootings incidents of terrorism? How about the shootings of nine individuals in Charleston, South Carolina? Although the original victims did not anticipate being shot or killed while watching a movie or praying in church, these events may serve to cause a ripple of panic in the general population. There has been some discussion of installing metal detectors in movie theaters. Will we next contemplate armed security or metal detectors in churches?

Combatting Terrorism

Terrorism, while still an ever-present threat, has not caused significant casualties within the United States since 9/11. In response to the 9/11 attacks, under the leadership of George W. Bush, the United States created the Department of Homeland Security. Your book provides an organizational chart that explains how the U.S. government has been reorganized since 9/11. The FBI, for example, is in charge of investigating domestic acts of terrorism and now falls under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella. One of the lessons the United States learned from the tragedy of 9/11 is that law enforcement agencies were not sharing vital information. Ideally, this reorganization will lead to better communication among agencies that sometimes let their “egos” interfere with their job performances. It is important to keep in mind too that many countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East continue to routinely suffer casualties from terrorist attacks. The U.S. therefore must remain ever vigilant in its fight against terrorism.

References

Schmalleger, F. (2015). Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chapters 14 and 15.