Monday, December 16, 2013

Cyber Crime, Sahila Bahra

Cyber Crime

Sahila Bahra


Last year, nine teenage suicides were connected to cyber-bullying on social network sites. One of them was Joshua Unsworth, a fifteen-year-old teenager who became the victim of cyberbullying. Joshua lived in Lancashire area in England. His body was found hanged in the garden of his family’s stone-built converted farmhouse situated in the same place where he used to live. He apparently was bullied on the social network site for months, which finally forced him to take the path of suicide. People and his peers used to tease him for his dating habits, father’s job, and often called him farmer. Joshua tried enough to defend himself but due to constant bullying on the social network site, he finally lost hope and hanged himself (Tozer, 2013).

The Internet has improved the quality of life; we can easily get information on any subject, research work and its usage is basically growing vastly day-by-day in this world that is making everyone closer to each other.  Cyber crime is one of the latest problems people face in life actually. Technologies like Internet has created a lot of crime in the cyber world and it’s usage has increased nowadays basically to harass, threaten, hurt and annoy people in a purposeful, intentionally manner constantly by using their information and skills. There is no escape if an individual once gets tricked in cyber bullying. Sometimes it becomes difficult for the near and dear ones to differentiate between bad moods and warning symptoms of a particular child that confirms that this child is being bullied. People, especially teenagers, choose paths like suicide only when they think that now enough is enough and they have no other option to come out of this problem (Cyber bullying, 2013).

Cyber bullying is not only limited to children or teenagers, but sometimes the adults are also the target of Cyber crime. Sending emails or texting dirty or warning messages can do Cyber bullying to someone who doesn’t want any kind of contact with the sender and gets irritate very easily. In most of the cases, the cyber bullies have uncovered all the personal information of the targeted victim like victim’s address, phone number, real name and address of the working places on common social network site. Sometimes they even use this information and make fake accounts and post things that just ruins victim’s image and embarrasses the victim in front of million of people. These cyber bullies have no limits when they get their target. The cyber crime basically depends on the range and the character of the criminal. The cyber bullies do so because they just want to use their knowledge and information so that they can get benefits quickly. They are basically using their own knowledge to torture, harass people for money or other purpose that can benefit them and they don’t have to do any hard work like other people to earn money. This is like the easiest way to earn money in less time. One of the recent cases was that a group of cyber criminals stole a total cash amount of forty-five million dollars in couple of hours from the ATM’s with the help of their most common technique, that is, hacking. They hacked the whole database of the prepaid debit card (Cyber bullying, 2013):


According to the cybercrime statistics, each year cyber crime increases more than a hundred percent from the previous year. Cyber crimes have now a day become a genuine cause of damage and danger to other people living in the society. In most of the cases, the planning of these crimes are done by a single person and in computer crimes the best part for these criminals is that there is no need for them to be present in actual during the crime, that is, there is no requirement of the criminal to be physically present. The crime can be committed from any location and at any time. Different countries have different strategies or practices to deal with the cyber crime. Many countries have started some kind of Cyber Crime Prevention Acts, for example the one initiated by the Philippine government that basically aims to focus on the issues, which are lawful and are mainly concerned with interactions that are online on the social network sites and the Internet. Cyber crime that is considered as legal and the government takes action on them in most of the cases includes cyber squatting, cyber sex, identity theft, child pornography, libel and illegal access to the personal data. Earlier acts like illegal access to the data and libel were not considered under the cyber crime prevention act but now a days due to the increase in cyber crime everywhere in this world has limited the law that gives people full right to express their feelings, that is, the right of expression (Cyber crime prevention act, 2012).

It’s very difficult to analyze or detect some cyber crimes. Because it’s very common that the strategies and techniques used by these cyber criminals keep on changing very quickly with time. It becomes very difficult for the agencies like law enforcement agencies to work so quickly and effectively. This is one place where all the organizations of the government and institutions that deal commercially should change their methods to tackle with these crimes. Organizations should focus more on creating effective Online Data Protection Systems that can reduce the chances of other people being the target of cyber crime. There are thousand of cases where the police have shown their excellent techniques to tackle these problems. For example, the one case in which the cyber crime police had arrested a sixteen-year-old boy in London, who was a part of a big cyber attack and the police, said that if this attack had been successful, it would have affected the Internet system worldwide. The other method to deal with crimes that are connected to Internet and social network sites is the solutions provided by the Cross-domain solutions. In their system, all the information that is exchanged is under the security decorum. This basically helps to keep the networks safe and protected. Corruption, crime and delinquency are some things that have been associated with human beings from a very long time. Cyber crime now days have created a big impact on the societal and financial development of a country and even of an individual (Multi domain, 2013; Professor Prosch, 2013). 

Internet, the worldwide network has made our lives simple and effortless. At the same time, the cyber crimes have increased the threat of using it and it is somewhere worth paying some attention on this issue. There will be always new and unpredicted cases of cyber crime happening in different parts of the world. Cyber crimes are crimes that are everywhere in this world, any one can become the target of these crimes and at any time. Last thing, be aware of all the frauds that are on the Internet especially on the common social network sites like fake advertisements or advance fee emails. And the best way to deal with these crimes on personal level is to use a system that protects all the information stored and on the regular basis check or evaluate the financial records. According to Professor Prosch (2013), “Privacy is necessary to prevent us from living in digital glass houses.” All the people in the society should do companionship and collaboration with the government to make a change in the society and to eradicate all the cyber crime criminals (A guide to computer crime and prevention, n.d.).

Reference

A guide to computer crime and prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://dealnews.com/pages/articles/guide-computer-crime-prevention/

Broderick, R. (2013, September). 9 teenage suicides in the last year were linked to cyber-bullying on social network. Retrieved from http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-ninth-teenager-since-last-september-has-committed-suicide

Cops: Cyber thieves stole $45M from ATM’s in hours. (2013, May). Retrieved from http://www.newser.com/story/167677/cops-cyberthieves-stole-45m-from-atms-in-hours.html

Cyber crime prevention act could curtail Internet freedom in the Philippines. (2012, October). Retrieved from http://www.freedomhouse.org/article/cybercrime-prevention-act-could-curtail-internet-freedom-philippines

Cyber bullying. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.ncpc.org/topics/cyberbullying
Multi domain and cross-domain solutions. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.gdc4s.com/multi-domain-and-cross-domain-solutions.html

Passeri, P. (2013, March). February 2013 cyber attacks statistics. Retrieved from http://hackmageddon.com/2013/03/08/february-2013-cyber-attacks-statistics/

Prof. Prosch, M. (2013). Privacy on the web: how to make it a priority. Retrieved from http://websearch.about.com/od/webprivacytips/a/Privacy-On-The-Web-How-To-Make-It-A-Priority.htm

Tozer, J. (2013, April). Schoolboy, 15, bullied to death by trolls on the Internet: friends
            say vile posts drove him to despair. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2305332/Joshua-Unsworth-15-bullied-death-trolls-internet.html

No comments:

Post a Comment