FREE ESSAY ON LEGISLATION PASSED TO ADDRESS COMPUTER CRIMES

LEGISLATION PASSED TO ADDRESS COMPUTER CRIMES

Over the past month you could not pick up a newspaper without finding an article about the
recent Denial of Service (DOS) attacks on E-commerce sites over the Internet. This
increase in Internet security problems and crimes, is paving the way for tougher
legislation in regards to monitoring and tracking computer hackers. We the people should
ask ourselves how far we should allow the federal government to go to catch online
criminals. Legislation passed to address computer crimes should be carefully written as
not to give government agencies powers that would infringe on innocent computer users
rights.
The need for computer-related laws is undeniably necessary. Computer crimes are estimated
to cost businesses billions of dollars each year throughout the United States. An
accurate dollar amount cannot be compiled for losses programming companies sustain due to
piracy of their software. Potential income is lost when copies of their programs are
found easily via the Internet. Pirated software is distributed freely among underground
Internet groups via email, File Transfer Protocols (FTP's), newsgroups and various other
means. Individuals post copies of software that was either stolen from its company's
producers, or that was paid for originally for a one-user license. These copies of
software posted in one or more of the above-mentioned ways, allow a single copy to be
downloaded by nearly any number of people out of the million that have Internet access
today. Hacking does not play a role in software theft until there is a need for the code
(better known as programming) of the software to be reverse engineered. Software
companies instill certain protections to prevent their software from being freely
distributed in the above manner. Hackers remove these protections or reverse what has
been written into the software to allow this software to be used by anyone possessing a
copy. Piracy is just one of many reasons federal legislation is necessary, but with the
advancement of computer technology there has been a rising need for protection of persons
using the Internet from crimes involving computers.
Hacking groups have used the Internet as a means to inflict damages against businesses,
individuals, and even their own or other countries governments. Hackers use their
knowledge of security flaws to exploit information or services from companies that use
the Internet as a means of business. Hackers have been known to gain passwords, or access
backdoors to web pages offering services such as information, product sales, or even
online backing, or credit card information. Once they have gotten through security,
critical or personal information stored there can be altered, erased, or used to gain
cash, dependent upon the situation. Individual's private information stored on hacked web
sites, whether it's their own, or businesses storing information about them on these
sites, can cause numerous problems or damages to them. These problems can range from a
minor inconvenience to them, or extend into serious issues if the information was
relating to social security numbers, or bank and credit card numbers. Individuals have
even had their identities used by criminals to commit illegal acts electronically, or to
gain access to their victims credit and bank accounts. Governments, and their agencies
are not immune to computer-related crimes; there are thousands of attacks each day on
their servers that maintain massive amounts of information about people, and other
critically important materials. Many hackers' sole reasons for trying to access these
sites are for their own personal satisfaction to know that they could deface, obtain
access to them, or basically extort any information they wanted once they are in. It is a
well know fact that government computers are protected from the highest security
available, and also watched over very closely, making them a very risky target for
potential hackers, and computer vandals. Given all these above mentioned computer
security threats and crimes, we must then try to develop laws to protect individuals that
use computers for their means of pleasure, profit, and transfer of information.
Legislation covering computer-related crimes is needed to be ever changing with new
advances in technologies happening each day. Unfortunately the evolution of laws is a
very slow process. It can take the government years to pass a single law offering
guidelines that regulating a single new advance in technology. We see problems in dealing
with monopolies in the software industry today. Those enforcing them, if not carefully
thought out can always misuse laws, however important they may seem to be needed at the
time. By passing laws to pursue computer-related criminals, we can also take away from
freedoms of innocent people. Search and seizure laws used to gain evidence on criminals,
can violate innocent parties also using the same equipment. In one case Steve Jackson, a
computer game programmer, and maker of a game called Hacker, was charged for making games
that published information on how to commit computer crimes. The seizure of his company's
computer equipment meant 8 persons working for him losing their jobs since the only means
of making games was through the use of the seized equipment. Lawmakers need to take in
account many different, sometimes unseen of issues at the time of developing laws. We
need to ensure that legislators are fully educated, and given every information necessary
to making laws regarding technologies. Leaders in the computer industry should never be
ruled out as a possible source in helping advise our public officials. Although laws
maybe needed to fund and grant powers to law enforcement agencies in an expedient manner,
this does not mean lawmakers should ever rush into making a law that could inadvertently
take away innocent citizens rights.
Computer-related crime is unfortunately becoming a serious issue in relation to
individuals, businesses, and governments' welfares as we become more dependent upon
electronic information exchange. Computer criminals are using the Internet as a means of
high-tech crimes nowadays. With this ever growing, and changing problem of
computer-related theft, and vandalism, we are requiring laws allowing us to combat these
crimes. However, when developing these laws, we need to make sure the lawmakers are
careful not to give powers that could be misused to harm innocent citizens in the
process. 
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