Parents, teachers, non-profits, government, and industry have been working hard to protect kids online.

However, we also need to think about protecting the Internet from kids who might abuse it. The Department of Justice categorizes computer crime in three ways: 1. The computer as a target - attacking the computers of others (spreading viruses is an example). 2. The computer as a weapon - using a computer to commit "traditional crime" that we see in the physical world (such as fraud or illegal gambling). 3. The computer as an accessory - using a computer as a "fancy filing cabinet" to store illegal or stolen information. Reports of alleged computer crime have been a hot news item of late. Especially alarming is the realization that many of the masterminds behind these criminal acts are mere kids. In fact, children no longer need to be highly skilled in order to execute cyber crimes. "Hacker tools" are easily available on the Net and, once downloaded, can be used by even novice computer users. This greatly expands the population of possible wrongdoers. Children (and in some cases - their parents) often think that shutting down or defacing Web sites or releasing network viruses are amusing pranks. Kids might not even realize that what they are doing is illegal. Still other kids might find themselves hanging out online with skilled hackers who share hacking tools with them and encourage them to do inappropriate things online. Unfortunately, some of these kids don't realize that they are committing crimes until it is too late. Even more distressing and difficult to combat is the fact that some in the media portray the computer criminal as a modern day Robin Hood. Nothing could be further from the truth. So what are cyber crimes? Can the law enforcement authorities find criminals online? How can you create context for your children to understand what cyber crimes are? The following information (and areas throughout the site) will help familiarize you with unethical and illegal online behavior. Additionally, to learn more about cyber crime, visit the Department of Justice Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section's website at www.cybercrime.gov. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) at www.cert.org and the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI at www.infragard.net provides regularly updated information and descriptions of cyber crimes.

There is no doubt that computer technology has had a great impact on society and also brought many technical developments with it. It has brought many changes to the way we live as individual as well as members of societies and organizations. It has had

major effects and changes on the economy, health, education, industry, agriculture and many other fields. The ability of computers in gathering, processing, presenting and sending large amount of information has had major changes in the way large organizations as well individuals organize their lives. Computers are at work, in schools and hospitals and many other places. We therefore need to have some basic understanding of how they function and the language associated with them. For people with not enough technical knowledge on computers, the amount of technical knowledge involved in the field of computer technology is overwhelming. It is also a field that changes fast enough for people to keep pace with. This site has been organized to help you understand, in a simple way, the concepts involved and language used in computer technology.

What is Technological Crime?

Defining the concept of technological crime is quite a difficult task. In fact, experts do not agree on what should be included in this definition. Some adopt a narrow view of cyber crime that includes only a pure computer dimension (electronic networks, virtual space, hacking, etc.). Others include a broader range of crimes as long as there is a technological or computer component involved.

Typology of Technological Crime

Even in the absence of a specific definition, it is still possible to classify technological crimes to better understand and differentiate them. Basically, there are two categories of crimes which can be referred to as technological crimes. The first category includes "pure" computer crimes. These are crimes which could not be committed without computer technology. In fact, the advent of electronic networks and digital data has created new criminal opportunities. This new virtual world has many vulnerabilities which can be exploited by motivated offenders. Such crimes include penetration of computer systems, alteration of digital data and hacking of electronic network. The exploitation of these vulnerabilities could adversely affect the operations of the targeted organizations and result in substantial losses. The second category of computer crimes are "traditional" crimes involving a technological component. New information and communications technologies (NICTs) have redefined modern society; they have become an integral part of our daily lives. This means that almost any crime can now involve the use of technology. For instance, intimidation can now be done online and is called "cyberintimidation".

This distinction is quite important to make since it may sometimes be difficult to determine the real nature of a crime involving a computer component. Actually, pure computer crimes are a minority and the Criminal Code contains only a few provisions dealing explicitly with such crimes. For criminals, the tools that are NICTs provide new ways to commit crimes whether old crimes with a modern twist or newly invented crimes. The information technologies have created a world of virtually unlimited possibilities. We can postulate that the introduction of these technologies has affected individuals in many ways. First, the inherent properties of the Internet (the perceived anonymity for example) and computer technology bring offenders to act out; they are new offenders who would have not otherwise committed a crime. This category also includes offenders targeting computers directly, such as hackers. Second, some offenders will use NICTs to improve their "criminal performance". They use information technologies to maximize their profits, increase their efficiency and reduce their risks. It is also believed that some criminals could even give up their traditional criminal patterns to focus exclusively on cybercrime. The comparison between traditional crimes and their new virtual counterparts illustrates the difference between traditional crime and technological crime. The virtual versions of traditional crimes offer many advantages to criminals: 1. Criminals no longer need to be physically present to commit crime; 2. These types of crimes are often cross-border crimes; 3. Computer facilitated crimes are committed automatically at high speed and target many victims at once, making it more difficult to localize and prosecute criminals.

Racketeering VS. Virtual extortion

Traditionally, business owners had to pay protection money to organized crime groups to purchase protection services against criminal harm. Today, with evolving technology, criminals make online stores pay protection money against virtual attacks.

Bank robbery VS. Hacking

Traditionally, criminal gangs robbed money from banks and secured vans. Today, criminals hack into bank computer systems and wire funds electronically to payment systems.

Credit card theft VS. Credit card theft online

Traditionally, criminals went through peoples garbage to steal their credit card statements and utility bills and then make fraudulent use of their victims identity. Today, cybercriminals steal thousands of credit card numbers at once by hacking the databases of companies.

Boiler room share scam VS. Pump-and-dump share scam

Traditionally, criminals posing as brokers sold company stocks by phone at artificially inflated prices. Today, these criminals buy company stocks and then issue falsified financial statements on shared sites to inflate stock prices and sell them for profit.

Fraudulent calls VS. Phishing

Traditionally, criminals called their victims posing as their bank security personnel to obtain their personal information. Today, criminals send fraudulent emails which are deceptive replicas of emails from legitimate financial institutions to get users to disclose their personal information.

Burglars VS. Computer viruses

Traditionally, burglars knocked directly at their victims door to create a diversion while an accomplice went in through the back door and stole valuables. Today, the same process is used online with malware used to access a computer and infect it with a virus.

Why is this an important issue?

In order to keep pace with tech-savvy criminals, it is imperative to examine the issues relating to new technology. It is crucial for any police service to stay vigilant and be aware that there is virtually no end to criminal imagination and innovation. It is realistic to think that a majority of offenders will use NICTs indiscriminately as a means to their ends. Technology is nothing more than an additional tool at their disposal to get what they want.

[edit] Spam
Spam, or the unsolicited sending of bulk email for commercial purposes, is unlawful in some jurisdictions. While anti-spam laws are relatively new, limits on unsolicited electronic communications have existed for some time.[7]

[edit] Fraud
Main article: Computer fraud Computer fraud is any dishonest misrepresentation of fact intended to let another to do or refrain from doing something which causes loss.[citation needed] In this context, the fraud will result in obtaining a benefit by:

Altering computer input in an unauthorized way. This requires little technical expertise and is not an uncommon form of theft by employees altering the data before entry or

entering false data, or by entering unauthorized instructions or using unauthorized processes; Altering, destroying, suppressing, or stealing output, usually to conceal unauthorized transactions: this is difficult to detect; Altering or deleting stored data; Altering or misusing existing system tools or software packages, or altering or writing code for fraudulent purposes.

Other forms of fraud may be facilitated using computer systems, including bank fraud, identity theft, extortion, and theft of classified information. A variety of Internet scams target consumers direct.
Obscene or offensive content===

The content of websites and other electronic communications may be distasteful, obscene or offensive for a variety of reasons. In some instances these communications may be illegal. Over 25 jurisdictions place limits on certain speech and ban racist, blasphemous, politically subversive, libelous or slanderous, seditious, or inflammatory material that tends to incite hate crimes. The extent to which these communications are unlawful varies greatly between countries, and even within nations. It is a sensitive area in which the courts can become involved in arbitrating between groups with strong beliefs. One area of Internet pornography that has been the target of the strongest efforts at curtailment is child pornography.

[edit] Harassment
Whereas content may be offensive in a non-specific way, harassment directs obscenities and derogatory comments at specific individuals focusing for example on gender, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation. This often occurs in chat rooms, through newsgroups, and by sending hate e-mail to interested parties (see cyber bullying, cyber stalking, harassment by computer, hate crime, Online predator, and stalking). Any comment that may be found derogatory or offensive is considered harassment. There are instances where committing a crime, which involves the use of a computer, can lead to an enhanced sentence. For example, in the case of United States v. Neil Scott Kramer, Kramer was served an enhanced sentence according to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual 2G1.3(b)(3)[8] for his use of a cell phone to persuade, induce, entice, coerce, or facilitate the travel of, the minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct.

[edit] Threats

Main article: Intimidation Although freedom of speech is protected by law in most democratic societies (in US this is done by First Amendment) that does not include all types of speech. In fact spoken or written "true threat" speech/text is criminalized because of "intent to harm or intimidate", that also applies for online or any type of network related threats in written text or speech.[9] The US Supreme Court definition of "true threat" is "statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group".[9]

[edit] Drug trafficking

Drug traffickers are increasingly taking advantage of the Internet to sell their illegal substances through encrypted e-mail and other Internet Technology. Some drug traffickers arrange deals at internet cafes, use courier Web sites to track illegal packages of pills, and swap recipes for amphetamines in restricted-access chat rooms. The rise in Internet drug trades could also be attributed to the lack of face-to-face communication. These virtual exchanges allow more intimidated individuals to more comfortably purchase illegal drugs. The sketchy effects that are often associated with drug trades are severely minimized and the filtering process that comes with physical interaction fades away.

[edit] Cyber terrorism

Cyber terrorism in general, can be defined as an act of terrorism committed through the use of cyberspace or computer resources (Parker 1983). As such, a simple propaganda in the Internet, that there will be bomb attacks during the holidays can be considered cyberterrorism. As well there are also hacking activities directed towards individuals, families, organized by groups within networks, tending to cause fear among people, demonstrate power, collecting information relevant for ruining peoples' lives, robberies, blackmailing etc.

[edit] Documented cases

One of the highest profiled banking computer crime occurred during a course of three years beginning in 1970. The chief teller at the Park Avenue branch of New York's Union Dime Savings Bank embezzled over $1.5 million from hundreds of accounts.[12] A hacking group called MOD (Masters of Deception), allegedly stole passwords and technical data from Pacific Bell, Nynex, and other telephone companies as well as several big credit agencies and two major universities. The damage caused was extensive, one company, Southwestern Bell suffered losses of $370,000 alone.[12] In 1983, a nineteen year old UCLA student used his PC to break into a Defense Department international communications system.[12]

Between 1995 and 1998 the Newscorp satellite pay to view encrypted SKY-TV service was hacked several times during an on-going technological arms race between a pan-European hacking group and Newscorp. The original motivation of the hackers was to watch Star Trek reruns in Germany; which was something which Newscorp did not have the copyright to allow.[13] On 26 March 1999, the Melissa worm infected a document on a victim's computer, then automatically sent that document and copy of the virus via e-mail to other people. In February 2000 a individual going by the alias of MafiaBoy began a series denial-of-service attacks against high profile websites, including Yahoo!, Amazon.com, Dell, Inc., E*TRADE, eBay, and CNN. About fifty computers at Stanford University, and also computers at the University of California at Santa Barbara, were amongst the zombie computers sending pings in DDoS attacks. On 3 August 2000, Canadian federal prosecutors charged MafiaBoy with 54 counts of illegal access to computers, plus a total of ten counts of mischief to data for his attacks.

Computer Crime, E-Crime, Hi-Tech Crime or Electronic Crime is a crime in which a computer plays an essential part. This type of crime is the illegal exploitation of computer technologies, usually involving the Internet, to support crimes such as fraud, identity theft, sharing of information, and embezzlement. Exactly what is illegal varies greatly from territory to territory. Consequently, the growth of international data communications and in particular the Internet has made these crimes both more common and more difficult to police. Luckily there are people fighting computer crime and it is taken very seriously by government agencies. See below for a link to the U.S. Department of Justice's website about e-crime and their computer forensics activities. Examples of computer crime are: * Fraud achieved by the manipulation of computer records. * Spamming wherever outlawed completely or where regulations controlling it are violated. * Deliberate circumvention of computer security systems.

* Unauthorised access to or modification of o programs (see software cracking and hacking). o data. * Intellectual property theft, including software piracy. * Industrial espionage by means of access to or theft of computer materials. * Identity theft where this is accomplished by use of fraudulent computer transactions. * Writing or spreading computer viruses or worms. * Salami slicing is the practice of stealing money repeatedly in extremely small quantities * Denial-of-service attack, where company websites are flooded with service requests and their website is overloaded and either slowed or crashes completely * Making and digitally distributing child pornography Computer Crime, E-Crime, Hi-Tech Crime or Electronic Crime is a crime in which a computer plays an essential part. This type of crime is the illegal exploitation of computer technologies, usually involving the Internet, to support crimes such as fraud, identity theft, sharing of information, and embezzlement. Exactly what is illegal varies greatly from territory to territory. Consequently, the growth of international data communications and in particular the Internet has made these crimes both more common and more difficult to police. Luckily there are people fighting computer crime and it is taken very seriously by government agencies. See below for a link to the U.S. Department of Justice's website about e-crime and their computer forensics activities. Examples of computer crime are: * Fraud achieved by the manipulation of computer records. * Spamming wherever outlawed completely or where regulations controlling it are violated. * Deliberate circumvention of computer security systems. * Unauthorised access to or modification of o programs (see software cracking and hacking). o data. * Intellectual property theft, including software piracy. * Industrial espionage by means of access to or theft of computer materials. * Identity theft where this is accomplished by use of fraudulent computer transactions. * Writing or spreading computer viruses or worms. * Salami slicing is the practice of stealing money repeatedly in extremely small quantities * Denial-of-service attack, where company websites are flooded with service requests and their website is overloaded and either slowed or crashes completely * Making and digitally distributing child pornography

Computer Crime One of the newest areas of crime is what we call computer crime. The at least seeming anonymity of computer technologies may actually encourage some people who would not otherwise be tempted to commit crimes to do so using the Internet. They may simply believe that they will never be caught, or they may not think about being caught at all. They may simply find the lure of committing virtual crimes too psychologically appealing to resist. Many of those who commit crimes on the Internet are in fact psychologically disturbed and need compassionate treatment by psychiatric professionals. However, this does not lessen the real harm that they can do to people and they must be stopped. Combating the global computer crime pandemic is becoming an increasingly urgent issue, as identity theft and spyware are occurring with alarming frequency. Early instances of computer crime found individuals, corporations and law enforcement unprepared, uninformed and immobilized to address computer crime responsively. This resulted in victims suffering long drawn-out battles to regain their identities. With no guidelines to assist them, many victims endured frustrating battles that yielded little benefit. Corporations likewise faced many obstacles in their uncharted course to recover from data theft. As defined, technology has created a gateway for computer criminals, allowing for easy access to personal or business computers via the internet. Cyber criminals use several different methods to infiltrate business and personal computers; fraudulent marketing schemes, on-line auctions, work-at-home schemes, gambling operations, and spam, just to name a few. Many times home owners and businesses have no idea they have been the victim of a cyber crime. Types of computer crime can sometimes lose their significance when we as citizens wrap it all up into one expression, computer crime. There needs to be a further breakdown and a better public understanding of what computer crime actually is and these types of computer crime will hopefully shed some light on the current problems faced today. Cyber terrorism is the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It is generally understood to mean unlawful attacks and threats of attack against, computers, networks, and information stored on these mediums. Its done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in to promote political or social objectives. To qualify as cyber terrorism, an attack should result in; violence against persons or property, cause enough harm to generate fear, attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, plane crashes, and severe economic loss. Furthermore, traditional drug recipes were carefully kept secrets, but with modern computer technology, this information is now being made available to anyone with computer access. Another serious cyber crime is child pornography and this refers to pornographic material depicting children. It is widely regarded as a form of child sexual abuse and as such these images and videos are illegal in most countries. While some legal jurisdictions outlaw only production of child pornography, others also prohibit distributing, possessing, and accessing child pornography. Piracy is a fairly new cyber crime and as technology starts getting into the hands of criminals, it becomes a large scale issue that the software, music and movie industries were not prepared to deal with. So, with this huge amount of piracy going on, more than just your average criminal is taking part. Other than for saving money or profiting, do any other reasons exist for software pirating? Some people feel this should not be a crime at all, but for the time being their fight is being lost and the software, music and movie industries are getting their way. Numerous federal and state statutes address computer crime. Some of the more significant legislation includes the following: No Electronic Theft (NET) Act This Act provided greater copyright protection by amending criminal copyright infringement provisions. It

permitted, for example, federal prosecution of large-scale, willful copyright infringement even where the infringer does not act for a commercial purpose or for private financial gain, thus closing a loophole in criminal enforcement of copyright infringement. With the government enacting this legislation it is helping deter criminals that once had free reign in cyber space, but at the same time the government can only do so much to prevent computer crime. The United States government tries to protect the public by investigating network and other computer crimes, ensuring that it has the technical and legal tools to obtain necessary electronic evidence, along with hiring the best computer minds in the business. Yes, the government does look out for us on the internet but you as a user need to take the proper steps to make sure you are always protected from computer criminals.

Cyber crime is the new breed of crime, which is either perpetrated using computers, or is otherwise related to them. Its origin can be traced to the growing dependence on computers in modern life. Cyber crime has assumed sinister implications today as everything from microwave ovens and refrigerators to nuclear power plants is being run on computers. Today, the world is moving towards a point where everything from banking stock exchanges, are traffic control, telephones to electric power, health care, welfare and education depends on software. This exponential growth, and the increase in the capacity and accessibility of computers coupled with the decrease in cost, has brought about revolutionary changes in every aspect of human civilization, including crime. As a result, the increased capacities of information systems today come at the cost of increased vu Inerrability. Information technology has begun to produce criminal opportunities of a variety that the brightest criminals of yore could not even begin to dream about. A cyber crime may be theft o ~f information services, communications in furtherance of criminal conspiracies, telecommunications piracy, electronic money laundering, electronic vandalism and terrorism, sales and investment fraud, illegal interception of telecommunications, and electronic funds transfer fraud. The precedent for theft of information services was set by the 'phone breakers' more than three decades ago for what has become a major criminal industry. In this method of crime, the perpetrators gain access to the PBX board of an organization, and make their own calls or sell call time to third parties. The advent of information technology has enhanced the activities the right middleware, a cloud computing system could execute all the programs a normal computer could run. Potentially, everything from generic word processing software to customized computer programs designed for a specific company could work on a cloud computing system. It is a good idea to rely on another computer system to run programs and store data as it would enable clients to access their applications and data from anywhere at any time. They could access the cloud computing system using any computer linked to the Internet. Data would not be confined to a hard drive on one user's computer or even a corporation's internal network. Also, it

could bring hardware costs down as the client would not need to buy the fastest computer with the most memory, because the cloud system would take care of the rest. Instead, a client could buy an inexpensive computer terminal with a monitor, a keyboard and mouse and just enough processing power to run the middleware necessary to connect to the cloud system. If the cloud computing system's back end is a grid computing system, then the client could take advantage of the entire network's processing power. Often, scientists and researchers work with calculations so complex that it would take years for individual computers to complete them. On a grid computing system, the client could send the calculation to the cloud for processing. The cloud system would tap into the processing power of all available computers on the back end, significantly speeding up the calculation. While the benefits of cloud computing seem convincing, security and privacy are perhaps its biggest concerns. The idea of handing over important data to another company worries some people. Corporate executives might hesitate to take advantage of a cloud computing system because it would not allow them to keep their company's information under lock and key. The counterargument to this position is that the companies offering cloud computing services live and die by their reputations. It benefits these companies to have reliable security measures in place. Otherwise, the service would lose all its clients. Hence, it's in their interest to employ the most advanced techniques to protect their clients' data. Cloud computing companies will need to find ways to protect client privacy. One way is to use authentication techniques such as user names and passwords. Another is to employ an authorization format whereby each user can access only the data and applications relevant to his or her job. Then there are a few standard hacker tricks that could cause In a cloud computing system, there is a significant workload shift. Instead of local computers, the network of computers that make up the cloud do all the heavy lifting when it comes to running applications. This results in decrease of hardware and software demands on the user's side. The only thing the user's computer needs to be able to run is the cloud computing systems interface software, which can be as simple as a Web browser, and the cloud's network takes care of the rest. Web- based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail do not run an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a Web e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account does not exist on your computer but on the service's computer cloud. Although cloud computing is an emerging field, the idea has been around for a few years. It is called cloud computing because the data and applications exist on a 'cloud' of Web servers. A cloud computing system can be divided into two sections: the front end and the back end. They connect to each other through a network, usually the Internet. The front end is the side the computer user, or client, sees. It includes the client's computer (or computer network) and the application required to access the cloud computing system.

The back end is the 'cloud' section of the system. Various computers, servers and data storage systems that create the 'cloud' of computing services are present here. In theory, a cloud computing system could include practically any computer program you can imagine, from data processing to video games. Usually, each application will have its own dedicated server. A central server administers the system, monitoring traffic and client demands to ensure everything runs smoothly. It follows a set of rules called protocols and uses a special kind of software called middleware. Middleware allows networked computers to communicate with each other. If a cloud computing company has a lot of clients, there is likely to be a high demand for a lot of storage space. Some companies require hundreds of digital storage devices. Cloud computing systems need at least twice the number of storage devices it requires to keep all its clients' information stored. That is because these devices, like all computers, occasionally break down. A cloud computing system must make a copy of all its clients' information and store it on other devices. The copies enable the central server to access backup machines to retrieve data that otherwise would be unreachable. Making copies of data as a backup is called redundancy. The applications of cloud computing are practically limitless. With the orientation of the craft in space. The first star sensor packed up on April 26, and even the back-up sensor failed during the second week of May. Moon/Space mission failures are not unusual for countries and organizations. Chandrayaan-1 will act as a great motivator for planning of Chandrayaan-2. India has joined the United States, the former Soviet Union and the European Space Agency comprising 17 countries who already have their flags on the moon. ISRO) is planning second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 in 2013. Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) is joining with ISRO for development of Chandrayaan-2 Lander/Rover. Chandrayaan-2 will consist of the spacecraft and a landing platform with the moon rover. The rover would move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, do a chemical analysis and send the data to the spacecraft orbiting above. The rover will weigh between 30 kg and 100 kg, depending on whether it is to do a semi-hard landing or soft landing. The rover will have an operating life-span of a month. It will run predominantly on solar power