Crime On The Internet Essay, Research Paper

Jones Telecommunications &

Crime on the Internet

Overview

If cyberspace is a type of community, a giant neighborhood made up of networked computer users around the world, then it seems natural that many elements of a traditional society can be found taking shape as bits and bytes. With electronic commerce comes electronic merchants, plugged-in educators provide networked education, and doctors meet with patients in offices on-line. It should come as no surprise that there are also cybercriminals committing cybercrimes.

As an unregulated hodgepodge of corporations, individuals, governments, educational institutions, and other organizations that have agreed in principle to use a standard set of communication protocols, the Internet is wide open to exploitation. There are no sheriffs on the Information Superhighway waiting to zap potential offenders with a radar gun or search for weapons if someone looks suspicious. By almost all accounts, this lack of “law enforcement” leaves net users to regulate each other according to the reigning norms of the moment. Community standards in cyberspace appear to be vastly different from the standards found at the corner of Main Street and Elm in Any City, USA. Unfortunately, cyberspace is also a virtual tourist trap where faceless, nameless con artists can work the crowds.

Mimicking real life, crimes and criminals come in all varieties on the Internet. The FBI’s National Computer Crime Squad is dedicated to detecting and preventing all types of computer-related crimes. Some issues being carefully studied by everyone from Net veterans and law enforcement agencies to radical pundits include:

Computer network break-ins

Industrial espionage

Software piracy

Child pornography

E-mail bombings

Password sniffers

Spoofing

Credit card fraud

Computer network break-ins

Using software tools installed on a computer in a remote location, hackers can break into computer systems to steal data, plant viruses or trojan horses, or work mischief of a less serious sort by changing user names or passwords. Network intrusions have been made illegal by the U.S. federal government, but detection and enforcement are difficult. Limitations with the law as it is currently written can be seen upon examining Kevin Mitnick’s recent plea bargain, wherein there is little connection between his final plea and the crimes he allegedly committed.

Industrial espionage

Corporations, like governments, love to spy on the enemy. Networked systems provide new opportunities for this, as hackers-for-hire retrieve information about product development and marketing strategies, rarely leaving behind any evidence of the theft. Not only is tracing the criminal labor-intensive, convictions are hard to obtain when laws are not written with electronic theft in mind.

Software piracy

According to estimates by the U.S. Software Publisher’s Association, as much as $7.5 billion of American software may be illegally copied and distributed annually worldwide. These copies work as well as the originals, and sell for significantly less money. Piracy is relatively easy, and only the largest rings of distributors are usually caught. Moreover, software pirates know that they are unlikely to serve hard jail time when prisons are overcrowded with people convicted of more serious crimes. From the legal perspective, prosecutors in the Dave LaMacchia case found that matching charges to an alleged crime was not an easy task.

Child pornography

This is one crime that is clearly illegal, both on and off the Internet. Crackdowns may catch some offenders, but there are still ways to acquire images of children in varying stages of dress and performing a variety of sexual acts. Legally speaking, people who use or provide access to child porn face the same charges whether the images are digital or on a piece of photographic paper. Trials of network users arrested in a recent FBI bust may challenge the validity of those laws as they apply to online services.

Mail bombings

Software can be written that will instruct a computer to do almost anything, and terrorism has hit the Internet in the form of mail bombings. By instructing a computer to repeatedly send electronic mail (email) to a specified person’s email address, the cybercriminal can overwhelm the recipient’s personal account and potentially shut down entire systems. This may or may not be illegal, but it is certainly disruptive. Well-known journalists Joshua Quittner and Michelle Slatalla learned the hard way what it feels like to be targeted by mail bombs when their home computer was flooded with jibberish and their phone lines were rerouted for a weekend.

Password sniffers

Password sniffers are programs that monitor and record the name and password of network users as they log in, jeopardizing security at a site. Whoever installs the sniffer can then impersonate an authorized user and log in to access restricted documents. Laws are not yet set up to adequately prosecute a person for impersonating another person on-line, but laws designed to prevent unauthorized access to information may be effective in apprehending hackers using sniffer programs. The Wall Street Journal suggests in recent reports that hackers may have sniffed out passwords used by members of America OnLine, a service with more than 3.5 million subscribers. If the reports are accurate, even the president of the service found his account security jeopardized.

Spoofing

Spoofing is the act of disguising one computer to electronically “look” like another computer in order to gain access to a system that would normally be restricted. Legally, this can be handled in the same manner as password sniffers, but the law will have to change if spoofing is going to be addressed with more than a quick-fix solution. Spoofing was used to access valuable documents stored on a computer belonging to security expert Tsutomu Shimomura.

Credit card fraud

The U.S. Secret Service believes that half a billion dollars may be lost annually by consumers who have credit card and calling card numbers stolen from on-line databases. Security measures are improving, and traditional methods of law enforcement seem to be sufficient for prosecuting the thieves of such information. Bulletin boards and other on-line services are frequent targets for hackers who want to access large databases of credit card information. Such attacks usually result in the implementation of stronger security systems.

Since there is no single widely-used definition of computer-related crime, computer network users and law enforcement officials must distinguish between illegal or deliberate network abuse versus behavior that is merely annoying. Legal systems everywhere are busily studying ways of dealing with crimes and criminals on the Internet. Currently, the prosecution of cybercriminals is handled differently from one jurisdiction to another. The results of high-profile cases involving Kevin Mitnick, Jake Baker, and Dave LaMacchia could have significant ramifications for the legal world.

Kevin Mitnick, alternately described as anything from a genius to a menace, was arrested on February 15, 1995, for allegedly breaking into the home computer of Tsutomu Shimomura, a well-respected member of the computer security world. Known to hackers around the planet as “Condor,” a name taken from the Robert Redford movie” Three Days of the Condor,” Mitnick was suspected of spoofing his way through Shimomura’s elaborate blockade and stealing computer security tools to distribute over the Internet. By July 1, Mitnick’s lawyer and federal prosecutors had reached a plea bargain agreement whereby Mitnick would admit to “possessing unauthorized access devices” and the prosecutors would drop the other 22 charges brought against the renowned hacker. Mitnick’s admission of guilt carried a maximum prison sentence of eight months.

Dave LaMacchia was indicted by a grand jury on April 7, 1994 on charges of “conspiracy and scheme to defraud.” The charges stemmed from LaMacchia’s involvement in the operation of a pair of bulletin board systems (BBS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The boards, called CYNOSURE I and CYNOSURE II, were allegedly used as distribution centers for illegally copied software. In this case, the law was not prepared to handle whatever crimes may have been committed. The judge ruled that there was no conspiracy and dismissed the case. If statutes were in place to address the liability taken on by a BBS operator for the materials contained on the system, situations like this might be handled very differently.

Jake Baker, a student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, was arrested by FBI agents on February 9, 1995 and charged with “transmitting threats across state lines.” The charge came about after it was discovered that Baker had posted an erotic fantasy on the Internet in which he raped and tortured a character with the same name as one of Baker’s real-life classmates. The charges were later revised to making a “threat to injure another person,” but in the meantime Baker had been suspended from the University of Michigan and his story had made headlines around the world. The case raises issues beyond the legality of posting a fantasy in which a living person’s name is used. Many people have expressed concern over whether Baker’s civil liberties were violated when he was suspended and how much liability an individual has when posting materials to the Internet. Baker was eventually acquitted, in part because his story was determined to be “self expression” and did not constitute a threat.

Legal systems are not yet adequately prepared for the variety of crimes that can be committed over computer networks. The legality or illegality of “cybercrimes” is ambiguous, although certain jurisdictions are taking steps to answer these questions. Florida, California, Texas, and Georgia are leading the way with statutes designed specifically to combat cybercrimes.

Copyright ? 1994-99 Jones International and Jones Digital Century. All rights reserved.

Related Resources

Books and Studies

Hacker’s Dictionary

Katie Hafner & John Markoff, Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier

David Icove, Karl Seger, & William VonStorch, Computer Crime: A Crimefighter’s Handbook

Rimm Study and Counter-arguments

Lance Rose, NetLaw: Your Rights in the Online World

Michelle Slatalla & Joshua Quittner, Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace

Clifford Stoll, The Cuckoo’s Egg

Cyberspace’s Most Wanted: Hacker Eludes F.B.I. Pursuit

Organizations

CACI – Children Accessing Controversial Information

Computer Emergency Response Team

EFF

P-Law: Legal Resource Locator

UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

U.S. House of Representatives Internet Law Library: Computers and the Law

Anonymizer – to surf anonymously

Internet Society

Products of Interest

Jones Futurex

Kerberos

State Statutes

California Computer Crime Law

Florida Computer Crimes Act

Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act

Texas Computer Crime Law

Sources

Business Week

Borrus, Amy; The New CIA: I-SPY-For Business; October 17, 1994

Cortese, Amy; Warding off the Cyberspace Invaders; March 13, 1995

Eng, Paul; It’s 10:30. Do You Know Who’s Using Your Cellular Code?; May 30, 1994

Kelley Holland; Stalking the Credit Card Scamsters; January 17, 1994

Oster, Patrick; How to Foil Phone-Card Fraud; November 21, 1994

Port, Otis; Halting Highway Robbery on the Internet; October 17, 1994

Time

Elmer-Dewitt, Philip; Terror on the Internet; December 8, 1994

Godwin, Mike; Computer Crimes Are Becoming More Daring and Imaginative; March 14, 1995

Quittner, Joshua; Cracks in the Net; February 19, 1995

Quittner, Joshua; Kevin Mitnick’s Digital Obsession; February 19, 1995

New York Times

Markoff, John; Caught by the Keyboard: Hacker and Grifter Duel on the Net; February 19, 1995

Markoff, John; How A Computer Sleuth Traced A Digital Trail; February 16, 1995

Markoff, John; Slippery Cybervandal Caught In His Own Electronic Web; February 16, 1995

Legal and Governmental Sources

FBI National Computer Crime Squad

Federal Trade Commission; Facts for Consumers: Credit and Charge Card Fraud

Indictment, United States of America v. David LaMacchia

Statements of Defendant’s Legal Counsel and of the U.S. Attorney assigned to the case of the United States of America v. David LaMacchia

U.S. Secret Service

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division: Indictment, United States of America v. Jake Baker and Arthur Gonda

Newswires

FBI Makes Arrests in Online Child Porno Sting; Reuters New Media; September 14, 1995

Hacker Agrees to Plead Guilty; San Francisco Examiner; July 2, 1995

Hacker Held Without Bail; Reuter; February 17, 1995

Hacker Reaches Plea Bargain (paraphrased: no title given); Reuter; July 1, 1995

Most Wanted Computer Hacker Gets Court Date; Reuter; February 16, 1995

Miscellaneous Documents

Abelson, Hal & Mike Fischer; Listiing of Materials and Reading for Course 6.805/STS085 at MIT

Greenspun, Philip; David LaMacchia Defense Fund

Hacker Dictionary

http://gnn.com/; Shimomura vs. Mitnick: The Computer Crime of the Year?; (possibly written by O’Reilly)

Loundy, Dave; Encode, Delete, Download-You’re Busted; Chicago Daily Law Bulletin; August 10, 1995

Miller, Adam S.; The Jake Baker Scandal; Trincoll Journal

Perry, Kenneth M., Esq. and P-Law, Inc.; Current Regulatory Environment

[email protected]; What’s the Big Deal over Jake Baker

Reid, Brian, PhD.; Pornography on the ‘Net

Siino, Rosanne M.; Official Netscape Response to French Hacker

Sterling, Bruce; The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier

Wall Street Journal; AOL Plagued by Hackers; September 8, 1995

Wallich, Paul; Wire Pirates; Scientific American; March 1994

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