Wicked play on the Internet: The challenge to society

(Part 2)

Last week, among the e-mails I received was one from Irving Gutierrez, an American citizen with roots in the Philippines. He was "amazed at the very profitable IT and telecom sector in the Philippines," and appreciative of my previous article. He also injected a quote from a political scientist by the name of Stuart Chase: "To condemn technology in toto is to forget gardens made green by desalination of sea water, while to idealize technology is to forget Hiroshima."

It’s a good statement and I believe we, the citizens of this global village, the borderless world right now, while enjoying all the benefits technology has brought us, do have great responsibilities as well. We have to measure up to this challenge to human society.

While no special set of Internet crimes exists, there is a common distinction drawn between "hackers" who have innocuous goals such as exploration and showing off their skills, and Internet criminals who have a criminal intent to copy, alter and/or destroy e-data or e-programs.

At the turn of the century, the most notorious Internet criminal was Kevin Mitnick, who was finally indicted after escaping the long arm of the law for over two years. He used the Internet to access information from businesses and educational institutions, as well as to steal 20,000 credit card numbers over a period of two years. Mitnick is still serving his sentence.

One of the most common offenses on the Internet is sexual harassment, which I wrote about a couple of months ago. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that in an employment context, unwelcome sexual advances that create an offensive or hostile environment constitute sexual harassment. Other courts in Europe have provided foreign judicial precedents, so that the same should hold true in our country.

Using the Internet to threaten another person may constitute a crime. In the Philippines, where threatening of all sorts has become a national pastime, it is important to assess/evaluate the defendant’s behavior in relation to the circumstances. Whether or not the sender of the threatening e-mail had any intention of really acting on the threat is irrelevant. The courts must simply 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 it is a crime.

Since geographical boundaries do not necessarily provide insulation from Internet crimes, future Internet criminal activities will likely be global in nature. A beneficial action to undertake would be an Internet criminal law convention, accompanied by a multilateral treaty covering Internet crimes. In other words, the world governing body for information and communications technology, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), could adopt a convention that will have universal effectivity.

Right now, most extradition treaties do not as yet explicitly cover Internet-related crimes. With the absence of such coverage, the prosecution of e-crimes committed by individuals from foreign countries is difficult. Of course, it is possible that the authorities of the world telecommunity find themselves with more critical crimes to attend to.

An ITU conference in relation to Internet crimes might oblige the member-states to mandate disclosure of the sources of messages transmitted via anonymous remailers if there was prima facie evidence that a crime had been committed. One other provision could make disclosure available for a strictly defined list of crimes, such as the intentional destruction of e-data, criminal copyright infringement, unlawful Internet access, etc.

This ITU global conference could be used to reduce the repugnant and abominable distribution of child pornography over the Internet by requiring that signatory nations enact very strict anti e-pornography statutes.

The United Nations Convention on Narcotics Trafficking, as we all know, requires signatory states to criminalize money laundering. An Internet crime convention that will similarly mandate the criminalization of such offenses as data theft, possession of stolen data and electronic vandalism would be extremely relevant and beneficial today.

It is difficult to comprehend sometimes how the world has come to be what it is today. One thing is certain: we have to cope with technology as it exists today.

The age of innocent faith in science and technology may be over. Every major advance in the technological competence of man has indeed enforced revolutionary changes and challenges for every fabric of human society.

We, of this Internet age, have to meet this challenge.

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Thanks for you e-mails sent to jtl@pldtdsl.net.