Regulating cyberspace : an approach to studying criminal behaviour on the internet

Abstract

The Internet has opened up a Pandora's Box of crime: the proliferation of traditional as well as the emergence of new forms of crime; the extension of opportunities and methods to carry out crime; new offender profiles; and the ease of recruiting willing participants in global organised networks. Central themes that explain criminal behaviour on the Internet are motivated offenders, availability of suitable targets, absence of capable guardianship, and strategies of trust violation. This thesis provides an exploratory analysis of criminal behaviour by examining five promising criminological theories against a diverse range of cyber crimes. Much of the scholarship of computer and cyber crime initially focused on. defining new types of crime and analysing the behaviour of particular offender groups, such as hackers, pirates, and paedophiles. Despite the significance of research in these areas, few studies have sought to examine criminal behaviour through the lenses of existing theories, and identify whether there are criminological attributes specific to the Internet that explain the rise and proliferation of cyber crime. The study of white-collar crime is traced and the various contributions that have shaped its definition and development over the past seven decades are outlined. The thesis questions whether traditional categories of white-collar crime -and criminals can adequately embrace new forms of crime such as cyber crime. It argues that the study of criminal behaviour should not be confined to pre-existing criminological categories of conventional crime on the one hand and white-collar crime on the other. The growth and proliferation of computer and cyber crime is analysed. A broad range of theories of criminal behaviour are assessed in terms of whether they can explain cyber crime. This analysis concludes that Cohen and Felson's (1979) routine activity theory and Shapiro's (1990) theory of trust violation are most fertile for explaining different forms of cyber crime. This is because three criminogenic attributes of the Internet are found to assist in the facilitation and growth of cyber crime: anonymity, multiplicity, and target exploration. Moreover, it is found that violation of trust is a significant element that assists in the commission of cyber crime. Trust violations on the Internet are patterned. The following types of trust violation recurrently appear in the literature: lying, self-dealing, corruption, and role conflict. As the study of crime and criminal behaviour on the Internet gathers momentum, the thesis raises a number of new questions about its effective methods of control, and the future role of regulatory networks on the Internet. Given the Internet's global nature and lack of harmonised laws, an approach that emphasises credible self-regulation, well attuned market strategies, law enforcement, and mutual global cooperation will be necessary to control the phenomenon of cyber crime. In doing so, this thesis opens up alternative paths to understanding trust and guardianship in the Internet age. Show more