Computer Crime (2899 words) Essay Example For Students

Computer Crime (2899 words) Essay Computer CrimeIts the weekend, you have nothing to do so you decide to play around on yourcomputer. You turn it on and then start up, you start calling people with yourmodem, connecting to another world, with people just like you at a button pressaway. This is all fine but what happens when you start getting into otherpeoples computer files. Then it becomes a crime, but what is a computer crimereally, obviously it involves the use of a computer but what are these crimes. Well they are: Hacking, Phreaking, ; Software Piracy. To begin I will startwith Hacking, what is hacking. Hacking is basically using your computer toHack your way into another. They use programs called scanners whichrandomly dials numbers any generating tones or carriers are recorded. Thesenumbers are looked at by hackers and then used again, when the hacker calls upthe number and gets on hes presented with a logon prompt, this is where thehacking really begins, the hacker tries to bypass this anyway he knows how toand tries to gain access to the system. Why do they do it, well lets go to abook and see Avid young computer hackers in their preteens and teens arefrequently involved in computer crimes that take the form of trespassing,invasion of privacy, or vandalism. Quite often they are mearly out for a fun andgames evening, and they get entangled in the illegal use of their machineswithout realizing the full import of what they are doing, I have a hardtime believing that so lets see what a hacker has to say about whathe does Just as they were enthraled with their pursuit of information, soare we. The thrill of the hack is not in breaking the law, its in the pursuitand capture of knowledge., as you can see the hacker doesntgo out to do destroy things although some do. Its in the pursuit of knowledge. Of course this is still against the law. But where did all of this start, MIT iswhere hacking started the people there would learn and explore computer systemsall around the world. In the views of professional hacking is like drugs or anyother addictive substance, its an addiction for the mind and once started itsdifficult to stop. This could be true, as hackers know what they are doing iswrong and they know odds are they will be caught. But as I mentioned somehackers are just above average criminals, using there skills to break in banksand other places where they can get money, or where they can destroyinformation. What a hacker does at a bank is take a few cents or even a fewfractions of a cents from many different accounts this may seem like nothing butwhen all compiled can be alot. A stick up robber averages about $8,000 eachjob, and he has to put his life and personal freedom on the line todo it while the computer hacker in the comfort of his own living room averages$500,000 a j ob. As for people destroying information, this is fortaking some one down, destruction of data could end a business which for some isvery attractive. It can cost a company thousands of dollars to restore thedamage done. Now that you have an understanding of what a hacker is,it time to move on to someone closely associates with a hacker. This is a Phreak,but what is that. For the answer we turn to the what is known as theOfficial Phreakers Manual Phreak 1. The action ofusing mischievous and mostly illegal ways in order to not pay for some sort oftelecommunications bill, order, transfer, or other service. It often involvesusage of highly illegal boxes and machines in order to defeat the security thatis set up to avoid this sort of happening. v. 2. A person who usesthe above methods of destruction and chaos in order to make a better life forall. A true phreaker will not go against his fellows or narc on people who haveragged on him or do anything termed to be dishonourable to phreaks . n. 3. A certain code or dialup useful in the action of being a phreak. (Example:I hacked a new metro phreak last night.) The latter 2 ideas ofwhat a phreak is, is rather weird. A Phreak like the hacker likes to explore andexperiment, however his choice of exploring is not other computer but the phonesystem as a whole. Phreaks explore the phone system finding many different waysto do things, most often make free calls. Why do they do this, A hackerand phreaker will have need to use telephone systems much more than an averageindividual, therefore, methods which can be used to avoid toll charges are inorder. . A phreak has two basic ways of making free calls, he can call upcodes or PBXs on his phone and then enter a code and make his call or he can useElectronic Toll Fraud Devices. Codes are rather easy to get the phreak will scanfor them, but unlike a hacker will only save the tone(s) number instead of thecarrier(s). Then he will attempt to hack the code to use it, these codes rangefrom numbers 0 9 and can be any length, although most are not more than 10. Electronic Toll Fraud Devices are known as Boxes in the underground. Most arethe size of a pack of smokes, or than can be smaller or bigger. I will not gotoo deep. They are electronic devices than do various things, such as makeoutgoing calls free, make incoming calls free, simulate coins dropping in aphone, etc. People who Phreak are caught alot these days thanks tothe new technology. Software Piracy is the most common computer crime, it is theillegal coping of software. People wouldnt think of shoplifting softwarefrom a retail store, but dont think twice about going home and making severalillegal copies of the same software. and this is true because I myself amguilty of this. The major problem is not people going out and buying thesoftware then making copies for everyone, its the Bulletin Boards that cater topirating software, that really cause the problem. On anyone one of these boardsone can find an upwards of 300 1000+ of pirated software open for anyone totake. This is a probl em and nothing can really be done about it. Few arrests aremade in this area of computer crime. I will now devote a brief section to theabove mentioned BBS , most are legal and do nothing wrong. However there aremany more that do accept pirated software, pornographic pictures, animations ,and texts. As well as a trading area for phone codes, other BBS, Credit Cardnumbers, etc. This is where a majority of Hackers and Phreaks come, as well asthose who continue to pirate software come to meet and share stories. In this isa new world, where you can do anything, there are groups that get, crack, andcourier software all over the world some of them are called: INC: InternationalNetwork Of Crackers, THG: The Humble Guys, TDT: The Dream Team. As well a numberof other groups have followed suit such as Phalcon/SKISM (Smart Kids Into SickMethods), NuKE, and YAM (Youngsters Against McAfee) these are virus groups whowrite and courier their work anywhere they can, they just send it somewhere,where anyone can take it and use it in any manner they wish, such as gettingeven with someone. All of these activities are illegal but nothing can be done,the people running these boards know what they are doing. As it stands rightnow, the BBS world is in two parts Pirating and the Underground, which consistsof Hackers/Phreaks/Anarchists/Carders(Credit Card Fraud)/Virus programmers. Allhave different boards and offer a variety of information on virtually anysubject. Well from all of this reading you just did you should have a fairlygood idea of what computer crime is. I didnt mention it in the sections but thepolice, phone companies are arresting and stopping alot of things every day. The sun also rises: Summary and Analysis of Epigraph and Chapters 1-4 Essay(McDonald, 1997) Clearly, anti-virus software is one of the smartest buys acomputer owner can make. There are nearly 10,000 known computer virusesthreatening the worlds personal computers, with effects ranging fromrelatively harmless to ferociously destructive. (Cope, 1998) Thesetroublemakers can spread to personal computers easily from an infected floppydisk, as well as from files downloaded onto the hard drive from an e- mailattachment and the Internet. (McDonald, 1997) Despite the great reviews of theseantivirus programs, many computer researchers maintain a sense of skepticismtowards complete protection. Regardless of how sophisticated antivirustechnology may become, computer viruses will forever remain in an uneasycoexistence with us and our computers. (Chess, 1997) Unless there areupdates to virus scanners every few minutes, no one is completely safe from adestructive virus. New viruses are popping up so fast that virus scanner vendorscannot hope to keep up with them. Even with the best of tools and policies,bulletproof security is probably unattainable. High costs, changingnetworks and software versions, incomplete security tools, and the growing poolof ingenious and dedicated hackers prohibit this. (Hackers,1997) The numbers of people who can create new viruses have also increased. (Yang, 1998) , a group of hackers quickly cracked amuch-vauntedcode using relatively simple brute force techniques.(Hackers, 1997) This breach of security was only five weeks afterthe data security invited the attack in the hope of proving its codes resistantto such attacks. Over several years, people have been perfecting the care ofpersonal computers. However, over that same amount of time, others have beenhard at work to develop new ways to cause a system to crash. Someproblems with a personal computer cannot be stopped, but preventative action cantake place for viruses. Every computer user should be equipped with an antivirusprogram; there is no way of predicting whether or not a simple file contains atremendous virus. The user must leave such a decision to the computer itself;only it can detect and destroy the virus. By purchasing a simple antiviruspackage, each computer user can hamper viruses from entering and destroying hispersonal computer. After taking all of the costs into consideration, it is muchmore expensive to rebuild a computer after destruction than it is to purchase aneffective antivirus software package. BibliographyChess, David, Jeffrey Kephart, Gregory Sorkin, and Steve White. Fighting Computer Viruses: Biological Metaphors Offer Insight into ManyAspects of Computer Viruses and Can Inspire Defenses Against Them.Scientific American Nov. 1997: 134-138. Computer. The World BookEncyclopedia. 1997. Cope, Jim. A Buyers Guide To Virus Protection: Getthe Lowdown on Six Win 95 Programs that Keep Digital Bugs from Invading your PCand Destroying your Files. NetGuide Mar. 1998: 143-146 Hackers,Terrorists, and Spies: You know theyre coming at you. Can you stop them?Software Magazine Oct. 1997: 76. McDonald, Glenn. Viruses: An Anatomy ofMass Hysteria. PCWorld Sept. 1997: 123-125 Miastkowski, Stan. VirusKillers 1998: This Year, Macro Viruses are Running Rampant. Which AntivirusProgram is Your Best Defense? PC World Mar. 1998: 114-116. Yang, W.D. Be Aware of Viruses and Use Protection. Computer Times 18 February1998: 85-89. Yegulalp, Serdar. Head to Head: Antivirus Software VirusProtection Superheroes. Windows Magazin