Computer Essay, Research Paper

Computer Crime

By: John Sforza

Sforza-1 John Sforza Miss. Hilleman English 10R December 7, 1999 Computer Crime Computer crime is defined as “a criminal act that has been committed With a computer as the principle tool”(Judson, 30). These computer criminals are people with advanced knowledge of operating systems, phone systems, and other computer related devices. Some computer criminals break into other people’s computers, and steal data, these criminals are known as hackers. Yet others might make a phone call without even paying for it, or receive phone services that they did not pay for, these people are known as phreakers. And yet there are other computer criminals that illegally copy software, these criminals are known as Software Pirates. Although authorities try to combat the doings of these criminals, Computer Crime is still a huge market for criminals of all kinds. The first part of this paper is going to be dedicated to hackers. Hackers are the robbers of cyberspace. They are able to gain access to Sforza-II peoples computers using special tools, methods and programs. Some of these are backdoors, viruses, and port scanners. The most popular form of virus, is known as the Trojan horse, named after the Greek Trojan Horse. This virus is implanted in a computer, then it lets someone from another computer have access to all the computers information, including passwords and any other personal data that might be present. Hackers do not just invade personal computers, they also invade corporate and government computers. The Pentagon has recently come under a fire from hackers. After these hackers penetrate the Pentagons defenses, they begin to raid unclassified documents. Some of these hackers have stolen data pertaining to the Energy Department Nuclear Weapons and Research Facility. They have also gathered information that was used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Although the FBI has used all resources available to them, they still have been unable to identify these hackers. The only thing that they know is these hackers are based in a place 20 miles outside of Moscow. Since these attacks happen during the day, 5am-8pm Moscow time, the FBI believes these individuals are working out of an office. Many believe that these hackers are working for the Russian Government, and are using espionage to gain access to sensitive information. Sforza-III Although these hackers motives were to sabotage and destroy, not all hackers are like this. Most are just after information, they might make a mistake now and then but most do not cause damage. Enclosed in this paper is Mentor’s Last Words. Something that Mentor wrote because he felt people should hear it. He was tired of people mislabeling and mis-judging his kind. He wanted to show the world that the newspapers, magazines, and radio stations were not right. Hacker was a term originally given to those who went in search of knowledge inside other peoples computers. They did not cause any damage, they just wished to learn more.( A Phreaker is a person that has extensive knowledge of the phone system. These people spend hours reading text documents and browsing around phone company’s computers. Most phreakers will say that what they do is for the pursuit of knowledge, which is true, but there are always those people that take advantage of things. Some things that phreakers can do are, make free calls from payphones, enable call waiting, caller id, call conferencing, and receive no phone bills. They also know how to make phone calls using other peoples telephone lines, charging them instead of themselves. Sforza-IV The last group of computer criminals, and probably the easiest to identify are the Software Pirates. These are the people that make copies of software, and either register the program illegally, or sell the software to another party. Any pirated software is known as warez. Warez is divided into sub categories, these are the following; Applications of any sort are known as Appz, Computer games are changed into image files known as ISOs, and full-length movies are known as VCDs. Software pirates usually have a high-speed connection, such as T1, T3, Cable Modem, DSL, ADSL, HDSL, or VDSL. Almost all software pirates have CD recordable drives, to make copies of their material. Many attempts have been made to stop software piracy, the most popular is a registration key. A registration key is the code you are given when you purchase or legally register a piece of software. The only problem is, these Software Pirates have learned how to bypass the registration key. Another attempt was made by Microsoft to make it harder to copy the cds, but that also failed. Although authorities try to combat the doings of these criminals, Computer Crime is still a huge market for criminals of all kinds. Although authorities try to combat the doings of these criminals, Computer Crime is still a huge market for criminals of all kinds.