Cybercrime Information Resources

Where to learn about cybercrime

Originally published in: The Oregon Defense Attorney, XXIV (4) 2003.

Cybercrime, computer crime, and Internet crime have a short legal history. But are they just the same old crimes wearing new clothes? Sometimes these crimes are prosecuted under new laws; sometimes under old. My field of expertise, that of an information professional, prompts me to provide the following summary of information resources on the issue. Below is a basic description of the field, with links to documents and sites that can provide further information.

One definition of cybercrime equates it with Internet crime:

Cybercrime: Crime committed over the Internet. No specific laws exist to cover the Internet, but such crimes might include hacking, defamation over the Internet, copyright infringement, and fraud.
[Dictionary of Law, Oxford University Press © Market House Books Ltd 1997. Retrieved 2/12/2003 at http://www.xrefer.com/search.jsp.]

Since the Internet could not exist without computers, computer crime would obviously include cybercrime, or Internet crime, but can also refer to other types of computer-related crimes. The Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division at the United States Department of Justice, in a speech delivered in 2000, described the three ways computers are being used for criminal behavior:

First, a computer can be the target of an offense. When this occurs, a computer’s confidentiality, integrity, or availability is attacked. That is services or information are being stolen, or victim computers are being damaged. The denial of service attacks that were experienced by numerous Internet sites earlier this year and the recent proliferation of the "I Love You" virus and its variants are but a few examples of this type of computer crime.
Second, a computer can be used as a tool for committing criminal behavior. This category includes those crimes that we in law enforcement have been fighting in the physical world but now we are seeing with increasing frequency on the Internet. These crimes includes child pornography, fraud, intellectual property violations, and the sale of illegal substances and goods online.
Third, a computer can be incidental to an offense, but still significant for our purposes as law enforcement officials. For example, pedophiles might store child pornography and drug traffickers and other criminals may store business contact information on their computers.

[Robinson, Jim. 2000. Internet as the Scene of Crime, International Computer Crime Conference, U.S. Dept. of Justice. Retrieved Feb. 12 from http://www.cybercrime.gov/roboslo.htm.]

Links to cybercrime information:

Cybercrime.gov (http://www.cybercrime.gov) is an extensive site from the Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Department of Justice containing information concerning policies, cases, and laws. Some selected sections include:

http://www.cybercrime.gov/cclaws.html

http://www.cybercrime.gov/fedcode.htm

Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal Investigations, July 2002

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/searching.html

CompLaw: the Computer Law Resource: http://www.complaw.com/
Cyber Criminals Most Wanted has cybercrime news and links: http://www.ccmostwanted.com/index.html
BitLaw: an Internet resource on technology law, including patent, copyright, trademark, and Internet legal issues http://www.bitlaw.com/
Computer Crime (FindLaw) http://www.findlaw.com/01topics/10cyberspace/computercrimes/index.html
Defense strategies for the various types of cybercrimes are discussed in this following book section: “Defending Cybercrime Cases: Selected Statues and Defenses”, by Joseph F. Savage, Jr., Amanda J. Metts, and Darlene DeMelo, p. 123 in Cybercrime: The Investigation, Prosecution and Defense of a Computer-Related Crime, 2001, edited by Ralph D. Clifford. See the table of contents of the book at http://www.isbn.nu/toc/0890897239.
TechLaw Journal - a daily e-mail that contains news about legislative, judicial, and regulatory developments affecting the Internet, computing, and communications. It is available as a subscription, but some articles are available on the site for free. http://techlawjournal.com/

Subject specific glossaries can help with interpreting unfamiliar terms.

NetLingo: The Internet Dictionary (http://www.netlingo.com) provides the definitions of such terms as cybercide (“The killing of a person's projected virtual persona in cyberspace”) and hactivist (“One who combines hacking skills with activism in order to attack (as in, shut down or deface) target Web sites as a form of political protest.). Netlingo also has a section interpreting “Chat Acronyms and E-mail Shorthand” terms such as YYSSW (Yeah Yeah Sure Sure Whatever) and ONNA (Oh No, Not Again).
The Glossary of Computer Security http://www.staysafeonline.info/appendix_b.adp is a short list with terms such as malicious mode (software capable of performing an unauthorized process on an information system) and worm (independent program that replicates from machine to machine across network connections often clogging networks and information systems as it spreads.)

The types of crime typically included within the categories of computer and Internet crimes comprise: computer intrusion (hacking), password trafficking, copyright piracy, theft of trade secrets, trademark counterfeiting, child pornography or exploitation, identity theft, Internet fraud, Internet harassment and stalking, and Internet bomb threats. The following sites that focus on various types of Internet or computer crime:

Computer Security: http://www.csrc.nist.gov/ Computer Security Resource Center—from the Computer Security Division of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). The Symantec Security Response online database contains information on over 50,000 Internet security-related threats. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/search.html
Computer Intrusion: Cases: http://www.cybercrime.gov/cccases.html; Recent federal legislation: http://www.cybercrime.gov/cclaws.html.
Hacking (Cracking) - intent on causing malicious harm to a network or computer, or to steal information beneficial to themselves like passwords, credit card numbers and the like. More at: http://www.cyberangels.org/hacking/index.html
Denial of service attacks: CERT® Coordination Center - http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/denial_of_service.html
Viruses, Trojans and worms. McAfee virus glossary: http://www.mcafee.com/anti-virus/virus_glossary.asp. McAfee virus hoaxes: http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
Identity Theft: http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/ The U.S. government's central web site for information about identity theft—from the Federal Trade Commission.
Cyberstalking: Current and pending cyberstalking-related United States federal and state laws: http://www.haltabuse.org/resources/laws/index.shtml.
Fraud: Consumer Sentinel, http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/index.html is the complaint database developed and maintained by the Federal Trade Commission. It contains more than 700,000 consumer fraud complaints that have been filed with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and private organizations. Of the 218,284 fraud complaints during calendar year 2002, about half were Internet-related. Their publication, http://www.consumer.gov/sentinel/pubs/Top10Fraud_2002.pdf , National and State Trends in Fraud and Identity Theft, January – December 2002, provides detailed trend information for each individual state.
Fraud: The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC)—a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C): http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/index.asp
The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace—Sept 2002 draft. Strategy of the steps the United States will take to secure the information technology networks and systems that are necessary for the nation’s economy, defense, and critical services to operate. http://www.whitehouse.gov/pcipb/

About the author:

Sue Eipert provides business and scientific research services, using professional proprietary databases as well as the visible and invisible Web to fulfill the information needs of clients, including environmental consultants, forensics professionals, expert witnesses, manufacturers and Internet e-commerce companies.

Eipert Information Services
seipert@eipertinfo.com

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