NCJ Number
171890
Date Published
1997
Length
224 pages
Annotation
This volume examines computer security and computer-related crimes, the increasing role of computers and telecommunications networks in business and personal lives, the use of the Internet to support both legal and criminal activities, and ways in which police agencies are responding to computer-related crime.
Abstract
The discussion focuses on crimes against computers, including theft of computer components, computer viruses, and crimes caused by computers. It also explains crime supported by computers, including computer pornography, bootleg software distribution, fraud on the Internet, and electronic money laundering. It notes that no universally accepted mechanism exists for addressing new forms of crimes in terms of seizing, reading, and analyzing the contents of a suspect's personal computer or a fraudulent organization's computer. The text discusses the ways in which criminal justice, military, and other government agencies are seeking to define and understand the requirements placed on them by the emergence of a "cybernation," the methods they are evolving to police this new internationally connected phenomenon, issues related to collecting and presenting digital information as evidence for prosecutors, the possibilities of digital terrorism and cyberwar, and the problems of the worldwide jurisdiction of the Internet. Notes, index, and 49 references (Publisher summary modified)