Technology And Crime

6 Pages 1502 Words

Technology and Crime















In solving crimes or committing crimes technology plays a vital role. The method a criminal uses to victimize someone and way law enforcement catches criminals is all tied to advances in technology. The same computer that allows a hacker (a person who uses a computer for exploration and exploitation) to perpetrate a crime is also used to catch him. Computers have evolved into what is sometimes a nightmare for users. Computer criminals today will employ anything from spam, forgery emails, spyware and adware to harass users. On the other side of crime there is forensic DNA, which is a technology coming into play in a lot of legal cases. This paper will focus on a few of the aspects of each side of the scope of technology and crime.

Computer crimes have evolved into a wide array of areas in which the internet has only enhanced. Crimes committed with computer use of the internet include; identity theft, use of stolen credit cards, online gambling, stalking (or cyber stalking), distribution of child pornography and hacking. Hackers are able use their technical expertise to commit crimes without anyone ever knowing. The intent of hackers is not always known. Some ideas stem from fired workers bitter with old employers to infecting a system with a virus (a program capable of altering or erasing a computers memory). Viruses can be very lethal in a network. The summer of 2000 the “I love you” bug hit computers in a huge way. The virus came in the form of a worm, which replicates itself when the message is opened. The worm replicates itself by accessing the address book in a network. Many networks use a global address system that contains thousands of addresses. This allowed the worm to replicate at a rate never seen before. Most systems were crippled for several days. Updated anti-virus software was needed to clean systems of the worm and prevents future replications...