Lesson 4. Computer crimes

I. Read and translate the text.

The headlines tell us about computer crimes after they have been discovered. Hackers are arrested for using telephone and credit card numbers other than their own to acquire goods and money; someone with a distinctly different sense of humor infects software with a virus that causes fish to swim across the spreadsheet. Another someone changes all the scholarship information in the financial office, and yet another uses the company computer — on company time — to do a little freelance writing or software development for an outside client. These are not jokes. These are crimes.

Like most other technological advances, the computer is a tool, one that can be used for good or ill. You can save time with computers, writing better spelled and better typed papers. You can balance budgets, from the personal to professional; input and store and process and output all kinds of information; and send it around the world as fast as telephone lines and satellites can carry it. You can use computers to spy. To lie and cheat. To steal. To do harm.

Although peeking at someone’s private records may not seem a heinous crime, electronic trespass is a crime. Peekers who gain access to a co-worker’s personal file or to a neighbour’s checking account records are trespassing, just as they would be if they were physically in the bank. They have entered another’s computer system or file without permission — hence, illegally.

The problem of trespassing is compounded when data is altered or destroyed. Although there may sometimes be no intent to alter data and the changes are only the result of striking the wrong key, this is a very rare occurrence. In most cases, the trespasser has something to gain from the alterations. The gain may be real, as in stealing company secrets for example. The gain may be strictly personal and vengeful: changing hospital records or credit ratings, destroying social security records, or inserting false and defamatory information in a personal file. These crimes are serious, and they are costly.

Electronic funds transfers take money from one account and move it to another. Banks do this when authorized by legitimate customers. But bank employees have also been known to do it without authorization, directing the funds into their own accounts. The transfer of a million dollars will be quickly noted, but transfer of one-tenth of a cent from every customer’s monthly interest will not — and those fractional cents can quickly add up to many dollars.

Business and industry also have much to lose through electronic trespass. Information about new products, stock transfers, plans to acquire another company and other proprietary information can be worth millions of dollars to the company or its competitors.

The danger of computer’s misuse increases. We have an obligation to use computers responsibly — in ways that are not harmful to the society in which we live and work.

II. Look at the list of cybercrimes and discuss these questions.

1. Which crimes are the most dangerous? 2. Is it fair or unfair to pay for the songs, videos, books or articles that you download? Should copyright infringement be allowed online? 3. What measures can be taken by governments to stop cybercrime? 4. Do you think governments have the right to censor material on the Internet? 5. Personal information such as our address, salary, and civil and criminal records is held in databases by marketing companies. Is our privacy in danger?

Cybercrimes

•Piracy — the illegal copy and distribution of copyrighted software, games or music files

•Plagiarism and theft of intellectual property — pretending that someone else’s work is your own

•Spreading of malicious software

•Phishing (p assword h avesting f ishing) — getting passwords for online bank accounts or credit card numbers by using emails that look like they are from real organizations, but are in fact fake; people believe the message is from their bank and send their security details

•IPspooning — making one computer look like another in order to gain unauthorized access

•Cyberstalking — online harassment or abuse, mainly in chat rooms or newsgroups

•Distribution of indecent or offensive material

III. Write a summary of your discussion on PowerPoint and present it to the rest of the class.