Cybernetic tomfoolery and crimes

A"computer crime" normally requires breaking into a computer system, and includes those crimes where knowledge of a computer system is a necessary element for the commission of the crime. Internet fraud usually involves stealing e-data such as credit card numbers, or transmitting funds to a numbered account in another country. And the remaining consists of all other varieties, such as infringement, harassment, treason, industrial espionage, etc. These are the oldest known computer crimes dating as far back as the late ’70s. Graduating into what are now called Internet crimes, the field of study of such crimes today has expanded to such a mind-boggling milieu of sophisticated capers involving billions of dollars, limited only by man’s devilish genius and imagination.

While no special set of Internet crimes exist, there is a common distinction drawn between hackers who have innocuous objectives such as exploration or showing off their skills (remember the young Filipino hacker who made news all over the world?), and the Internet criminals who have the criminal intent to copy, alter, and/or destroy e-data or e-programs with malevolent goals in mind.

There is, of course, a world of difference between the tomfoolery of the hacker with no malicious intent, and that of the criminal with criminal intent to defraud and to gain.

One of the biggest known computer crimes at the time it was committed was the Equity Funding scandal in the US in 1973. Computers were used to create fictitious insurance policy-holder records, which the company used in order to bilk funds from companies that reinsure policies. Every year, the company had to manufacture a lot more fictitious policies in order to generate the cash needed to pay premiums on the ones sold in previous years.

This scheme, in which 64,000 out of 97,000 policy holders were found to be non-existent, fell apart when disgruntled former employees began leaking information to Wall Street analysts and the New York police. The lawsuits that exploded out of Equity Funding’s collapse reverberated through the US courts for a long time.

Out of Equity Funding’s $3.3 billion in assets, $2.1 billion were fraudulently obtained. This crime was big enough to include a fraud within a fraud because $140,000 was siphoned off to conspirators unknown to the managers masterminding the bigger theft.

The smallest known computer crime happened on April Fool’s Day in 1981. A guy by the name of Lloyd Allen of Oakland, California was nabbed for defrauding the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), an automated transit system, of $0.50, the cost of his ticket. By inserting a $5 bill into the computerized machine, Allen was able to get both a ticket and his $5-bill back. And, when he was taken into custody, Allen ate the $5.00 bill!

I still remember the story quite well because it is a ridiculous story of a man who probably was "off his rocker," as Ambassador Travis Marshall, the head of the US delegation to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in 1989, said at a dinner he gave with about nine other heads of delegation in attendance, in Nice, France. Being one of the invited guests, I remember how the story of Allen was intended to stress the fact that the computer can be a good source of both cybernetic tomfoolery and crime.

I had also been informed that the most notorious criminal in the US at that time was Kevin Mitwick who was finally indicted after evading authorities for two years. He used the computer to access information from business and educational institutions as well as to steal 20,000 credit card numbers over a two-year period. Today the figures have grown bigger – and the methodology more complex – because these man-made machines and their intricacies have grown more sophisticated, though safety nets just as sophisticated have evolved.

Using the Internet to threaten another person constitutes a crime. However, the standard for a real threat requires an evaluation of a defendant’s behavior in relation to the circumstances. Whether or not the sender of the threatening e-mail has any intention of acting on the threat is irrelevant. The judicial authorities generally rely on the reactions of foreseeable recipients of the e-communication. If the e-mail recipient can reasonably interpret the e-communication as a serious expression of an intention, then that is what is material. Of course, as I mentioned in an earlier article, there’s e-harassment. A common stance of the judicial authorities worldwide is that, in an employment context, unwelcome sexual advances that create an offensive or hostile environment constitute sexual harassment.

Future Internet criminal activities will likely be international in nature. To battle Internet crimes, an Internet criminal law convention accompanied by a multilateral treaty would be within the bounds of international law. The ITU, the United Nations’ specialized agency governing world information and communications technology, could adopt a convention that will form the framework for the multilateral treaty. I have information that this is in the planning stage.

Right now, most extradition treaties do not explicitly cover Internet-related crimes. Absent such coverage, the prosecution of e-crimes committed by individuals from foreign countries is very difficult.

An international convention organized by the ITU with respect to Internet crimes could require signatory states to order disclosure of the sources of messages transmitted via anonymous re-mailers, if there was prima facie evidence that a crime had been committed. Similarly, another provision could make disclosure available for a defined list of crimes as criminal copyright infringement, unlawful Internet access, or the international destruction of e-data.

To stress one area which affects the young all over the world, said convention could be used to reduce the now frequent and repugnant distribution of child pornography over the Internet, by requiring that signatory states enact national anti e-pornography legislation.

Since the United Nations Convention on narcotic trafficking required signatory countries to criminalize money laundering, the same could be done at the Internet crime convention with the objective to criminalize such offenses as data theft, possession of stolen data, and electronic vandalism.

There is need now, on a global basis, to attend to the following criminal transactions: a) computer attacks using the Internet; b) use of the Internet to alter, delete, damage or destroy e-data or e-programs; c) use of the Internet to trespass or gain unauthorized access; d) use of the Internet for embezzlement or fraud; e) use of the Internet for unauthorized copying; f) use of the Internet to contaminate e-programs as using "viruses", "worms", etc.; and g) use of the Internet to view personal confidential information.

The world order today is being attacked by problems that may be considered far greater than cybernetic tomfoolery and crimes, but if not given the proper timely attention, we will be giving credence to what some philosophers have said that the tragedy of man is that he is a paradox – he is his own genius and destruction.

* * *

Thanks for your e-mail sent to jtl@pldtdsl.net.