Dealing With Cybercrime

We have seen for many years that the word “Crime”, is an action which is an offence and is punishble by law. For hundreds of years we have witnessed and experienced physical crimes, from abuse, robbery, violence, murder and countless others. Each one of them has some different penalties, however, in the past 8 years there is one new type of crime which has arisen, Cybercrime, is a criminal activity which involves the use of computers and other technologycal devices, and it can be from downloading music to stealing millions of dollars. People should stop thinking of both cyber crimes and traditional crimes as not being related to each other. It is necessary to recognize and treat cyber crimes with the same law system and posible punishment as traditional crimes. It is time that governments and security agencies realise how much this kind of crimes affect societies and work together to deal with the cyber crime.

Both cyber and physical crimes involve actions or omissions against law, in fact, cyber crime is related to criminal activities which are traditional crimes, like intrusion, stalking,child pornography, stealing anything, from governmental information to money in bank acounts, and fraud. However, in past years we have seen some others suchs as, phising, spam, trade hacking and more. What people do not realise is that those cybercrimes are being made by people who have been involved with physical crimes, the only difference between physical and cyber crime is, now it is easier, only because the facilities of the internet have given the world, emails, websites, chat rooms which are just ways criminals can commit their crimes.

Child Abuse, is any act from an adult which its result ends on death, serious physical or emotional harm, or sexual abuse, this crime has been increasing over the years, and its believed that is due to the internet use. The paedophilos make use of the internet just to let,strengthen or facilite their sexual activities . The last year, there were arrested 1.713 offenders for internet-related crimes including child pornography, 40% posessed child pornography and sexually, 53% owned child pornography and were also responsable for the distribution, also, the research found, 31% of the offenders were sexual victims. (OJJDP grant-related documents)

There are 4 types of child abuse, first, physical, which involves agression directed at a child by an adult, second, sexual when also and adult abuses a child for sexual simulation, the third, neglet, is the adult who doesnt provides food, shelter, clothing, or safety to a child, and the last, psychological is the damage the child will have socializing while he is growing up.

Another crime, Bullying, this is aggressive,intentional act or behaviour that is produce by a group or individual for a long time against a victim who can not defend himself/herself and it can be either physical or cyber. Bullying is a crime that has been increasing the last years, what everyone is concern about is, nowadays there is not only the traditional bullying we have know for years, as same as cybercrime, there is cyberbullying, and each day we could realice is worse,the computer network and technology, both are growing, now the information runs faster, communicating wiht the world is easier and faster, and as a result of this, at the end it can be posible it wont be just one offender,they can be more than one.

In some place, bullying can be worse than others, and the percentage of victims is higher than other places, for example in usa, Nearly 1 in 3 students (27.8%) report being bullied during the school year (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2013). The Urban Institute’s study on bullying revealed 17% students reported being victims of cyberbullying, 41% reported being victims of physical bullying, and 45% reported being victims of psychological bullying (The telegraph)

At last, Fraud, is an action practiced in order to commit unfair or unlawful gain. Defrauding people or organizations of money is the usual purpose of fraud, but it sometimes involves having or taking benefits with false information. Fraud can be committed through many ways, mail, wire, phone, and the Internet, and when is from the internet is, online fraud, and some forms of fraud are,internet banking fraud , Shopping , Spam ,Identity theft,phising. Comminting fraud is a way to steal millions of dollars in one second through the internet, not only that, but also, each day is easier to steal someone elses indentity, also, each day hackers are creaiting stronger virus so they can attack better the victims and their values, for example, Cryptowall is the latest in a line of viruses which, once they are on an infected machine, encrypt all files in a way which is difficult or impossible to remedy, a screen will inform victims that they can pay a fee to obtain the encryption key to unlock the machine, but this key is rarely returned. if you become infected it will mean you lose access to all your files permanently. (The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau)

In conclution, cyber crime and physical crime should be punishmed the same way, Cybercrime is just an easier way to commit crimes, but is still a crime, and should be punishme the same way, both of them are comiting crimes, it should not matter the fact that is from a digital device or if you have a weapon, the offender is trying to get to the same point, the only which changes is, now we are living in a different world, a world which goes hand-in-hand with the technology, which is something that grows and grows each day, the internet everyday becomes faster, and the world, because of the facilities that the internet gives us, gets smaller. The solution is, goverment just need to start using laws against traditional crimes, and start using them for cybercrimes, cybercrime is something which we now just can not ignore, is part of our present and will be part of our future.

References:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=210701

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying#Effects

http://icbtt.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/Smith,_Mahdavi_et_al_article.pdf

http://www.internetsinacoso.com/ciber-bullying.php

http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Cybercrime/Cybercrime

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/alert-new-type-of-malware-called-cryptowall-jul14