The Internet and Crime

Objective: This writing seeks to shade light on the current trends and issues on cyber crime and policing it. It mainly focuses on how cyber criminals have identified criminal opportunities online, and how difficult it is for law enforcement officials to police the Internet.

If there is any accuracy to data released by Netcraft, then the Internet has about 189,226,259 sites. [1]. There are also approximately 1 668 870 408 or 16 % of the worlds population that uses the Internet at least once a month. [2] Of the worlds total Internet population China accounts for 20.3 % of the total Internet users, only seconded by the United States 13 %. [3] Consumers on a yearly basis spend billions of dollars a year in exchanging goods and services online. The eradication of trade barriers has been made possible through the advent of the Internet. Because of the Internet local economies like Coffeyville Kansas would not have benefited from tax revenues and employment if it was not for the Internet that gave rise to Amazon, which owns a large processing center in Coffeyville.

Indeed many entrepreneurs and businesses saw and seized the opportunity to transact online. The capabilities and opportunities provided by the Internet have transformed many legitimate businesses, increasing the speed of transaction, convenience and the physical range with which transactions can be conducted while also lowering the unit cost of doing business. They were not the only ones though. Street side executives, organized crime groups and petty thieves all seem to have identified a means to make money online. The criminal organizations have also discovered that the Internet provides new opportunities for conducting their illicit business such as fraud, theft, money laundering, child pornography, espionage, and drug trafficking. It is very important to understand that the nature of a cyber crime does not use any force or intimidation in most cases.

One particular loophole that cyber criminals are taking advantage of is the fact that organized crime groups typically have "home bases" in places that are politically unstable, or weak countries that act as safe havens against the law. This is analogous to the pirates in the Gulf of Aden who launch their thriving operations from the pulverized East African nation of Somalia. In some rare cases there have been instances were local enforcement agencies and the Interpol have worked together to bring cyber criminals to justice. For example according to an article by Jon Swartz of USA Today, entitled "Crooks slither into Net's shady nooks and cracks " a group of cyber criminals were conducting an illicit business of running elaborate shopping networks for expensive goods purchased online with stolen credit cards." Fraudulent online buyers in West Africa have the goods shipped to Europe, where an accomplice or legitimate delivery service re ships the stolen items to West Africa". These reshippers are recruited in chat rooms, online job postings and over the phone. They are either paid with counterfeit cashiers checks or allowed to keep some of the merchandise - according to the author. What attracts scammers and cyber criminals to such crimes is the fact that such schemes require little or no capital to start with and it is also an inexpensive way to move stolen products without revealing the identity of the original buyer.

In the 1990`s the members of the Bonnano, Colombo and Genovese families coerced and controlled a few financial brokerage houses on Wall Street. With the advent of the Internet, they devised a plot to manipulate micro-capitalized stocks by creating false news and information that was distributed over the Internet on the hopes that the news would cause speculation and force the stock prices to soar. In the end the crime families would "dump" (sell in large volume) these stocks for a large profit, leaving the innocent investors stranded.

Of interest as well is something known as Jurisdictional Arbitrage. "Traditional offline crimes are committed at a particular geographic location by a person with a street address at a precise point in the United States or in another country. Which law enforcement agency investigates the crime is easily determined by jurisdictional or geographical boundaries-city, state, or country. Internet crimes are committed in cyberspace, on worldwide computer linkages. Local, state, national, or international boundaries do not exist for cyber crime"

It is very difficult to enforce laws on the Internet due to Jurisdictional problems. In general Jurisdiction is defined as "the scope and authority given to local enforcement officials to enforce laws or a judgment by the court " Under International law there is no obligation for a country to extradite a criminal unless there is a treaty that creates such obligation. This situation gives nations a lot of leeway in granting or refusing extradition. For example the United Stated has signed many agreements with other nations that require the accused person to be found guilty of breaking that nations law as well as that of he United States before extradition can be granted. With that in hindsight many cyber criminals route information through many countries before the information reaches its targets. Some of this information intentionally passes through countries that have no extradition treaties with the intended target nation, in most cases, the United States. On the enforcement side, it is difficult to arrest or pursue the criminals as the trail ends when the criminal disconnects from the Internet. However when the criminal is captured and extradited to the United States as an example more international cooperation is still required. Witnesses have to travel in order to testify against the accused (defendant). Since there is an agreement between the two or several nation in the extradition treaty, the witnesses have no choice but to testify. If they refuse, a subpoena can be issued forcing them to testify otherwise they would be held in contempt of court.

Various ways to catch the cyber criminals such as Global Positioning, IP address and Satellite systems can be used but sometimes the criminals operate in countries or areas with very poor infrastructure, which makes it even hard for law enforcement officials to catch up with them. Various ways to catch the cyber criminals such as Global Positioning, IP address and Satellite systems can be used but sometimes the criminals operate in countries or areas with very poor infrastructure, which makes it even hard for law enforcement officials to catch up with them.

Conclusion : Without extradition agreements, policing the internet will remain very difficult for law enforcement officials. Perhaps he United Nations should create a charter under which all member nations are obligated to extradite cyber criminals.

REFERENCE LIST

1. [1] http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/04/how-many-sites-are-on-the-internet

2. [2] http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm#

3. [3] http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm

4. http://law.jrank.org/pages/11995/Cyber-Crime.html#ixzz0Utit0KW0

5. Clifford, Ralph D., ed. Cyber crime: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of a Computer-Related Crime. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2001.

6. http://law.jrank.org/pages/11995/Cyber-Crime.html#ixzz0UtoM0DMq