HIGH-TECH CRIMES

High-Tech Crimes



High-Tech Crimes

Introduction

Internet is become a universal phenomenon now. New technologies are emerging every day. Indeed, the information technology creates a virtually unlimited universe of possibilities. We can assume that the arrival of these technologies has affected people in several ways. First, the inherent properties of Internet (perceived anonymity, for example) and information technology have led some offenders acting out. These are such offenders who otherwise would not have committed a crime. In this category we also find offenders acting only on a computer, such as hackers. Cybercrime is a broad term that includes "all criminal offenses likely to commit on or through a computer system usually connected to a network." Protection from high tech crime is very important and several courses have been and are being devised to teach the individuals about how to identify the cyber crimes and how to investigate them.

High-Tech Crimes

Computer crime or electronic crime is the generic term for those illegal transactions made ??through Internet or that are meant to destroy and damage computers, electronic media and Internet networks. However, the categories that define a computer crime are even more complex and may include crimes such as fraud, the theft, extortion, forgery and misappropriation of public funds in which computers and networks have been used. With the development of programming and the Internet, cyber crimes have become more frequent and sophisticated (Adamson, 2003).

Crimes and offenses committed through computers are rampant in this technological age. Criminal are more technology savvy then we would like to think. Whether it is hacking, cracking, identity theft by phishing, pharming & spyware, these offenses have caused a tremendous amount of damage to individuals as well as established business. The need of the day is to find out ways to curb these crimes not just on a national level but on a global level with the help of stringent laws and regulations (Winterfeld & Andress, 2011). As we know from the past experiences that laws and regulations are not enough as the whole computer and IT industry must get together with businesses and other private parties to devise better technological ways to curb such crimes. “Control of access by optical patterns, DNA identification, voice spectrographs, encryption, and other methods may slow down hackers, but no method is foolproof or presents much of a challenge to today's most-talented cyberpunks” (Britz, 2008).

High Tech Crime Course Design

Following is the high tech crime course design for the university course.

Cell phone systems-Students learn what information is available from cell phone providers.

Tracking cellular devices-Students learn how to track a cellular device in use by a suspect.

Cellular device seizure-Students learn what the risks are to retrieving data from the cellular device.

Tools to retrieve data-Students learn how to deal with cable issues regarding data retrieval.

Digital evidence recovery-Students work through step-by-step processes of recovering evidence from cellular devices.

Characteristics of High-Tech Crime

Following are some of the characteristics of the high-tech crimes:

They are white-collar criminal behavior (white collar crime), which only a certain number of people with certain skills (technical) can ...