Computer Crime :: essays research papers

Computer Crime has become a very large issue in our society today; this paper will look at this issue from a sociological perspective. It will analyze the various crimes that make up computer crime and see what changes it has brought about in the world in which we live in. Computer crime first is a very new problem in our society today and it is crimes that are committed from a computer. These include embezzling, breaking into other computers, cyber porn and various other crimes that have a drastic affect on the society and the institutions that each of us hold to keep our global society running. To first understand computer crime one must understand first what crime is. According to Diana Kendall, â€Å"crime is a behavior that violates criminal law and is punishable with fines, jail or other sanctions†(Kendall 1999; 161). Yet since computer technology is so new it has really no laws to govern it. A law is formal norms that are enforced, norms being established rules of behavior. Many of the crimes committed on computers often times go unpunished. As stated by David Pitchford in the London journal Focus when writing on pornography on the Internet, â€Å" the only way illegal pornographers can be caught is through chance leads, tip-offs and telephone tracing† (Focus 1995; p10-12). Many of the crimes that are also committed on computers via the Internet are very new also. New subcultures have formed around the Internet for the possibilities it brings. Computer crime despite the many problems it has brought has also brought some needed social controls to the Inter net and as stated before some laws have been formed to protect many of the institutions that because of computer crime have become targets for criminals. Now that I have briefly explained computer crime, I will go into further depth into explaining computer crime from the different sociological perspective theories. To start with is the integrationist perspective looks at of society as the sum of the interactions of individuals and groups† (Kendall; 17). Many of those that commit computer crimes are hackers or people who hack into computer systems for both fun and for gaining access to information. They have formed their own subcultures and hold many different beliefs about the information that is stored in personal computers. Said best by J. Thomas McEwen in the article Computer Ethics many hackers believe that â€Å"computerized data [is] free and should be accessible to anyone (McEwen 1991; 8-11).