Cyber Crime and IT Misuse

Introduction3

Computer Crimes and Technology Misuse3

Ethical Implications5

Ethical Considerations6

Software Piracy6

Cyber-stalking and Cyber-bullying7

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)8

Credit Card Misuse9

Phishing and Spoofing12

Hacking13

Ethical Impacts14

How to address technology misuse from an ethical perspective15

Computer Crime Prevention Laws15

Government Agencies Programs -Laws and Jurisdiction16

Conclusion17

References19

Cyber Crime and IT Misuse

Introduction

With the evolution of the information era and the computers, the lives of people on this planet have taken a new turn which was once thought of as inconceivable. All over the world, the technical innovations are surfacing as regularly as daily. Now the Internet and computers are being launched in many of the most isolated and distant areas of the world. Since this world is connected more obscurely than ever before, the more security and privacy levels are pushed. With the increasing connectivity of this world, the access to copyrighted and private information becomes much easier and simple, and also it becomes more susceptible to the misuse of technology as well as cyber crimes. However, prior to understanding the reason for the increase in cyber crimes and the improper use of technology, it is imperative for us to realize the origins of technology and computers ethics and the reason for it being so important for us to incorporate ethics into our routine usages with information technology and computers.

Computer Crimes and Technology Misuse

Computer crimes refer to the criminal activities which have been carried out employing a computer as the fundamental contrivance. The misuses of technology may be described as the unintentional or the intentional acts which cause harm to the technological software or hardware, and the individuals employing the software or hardware. The computer crimes, for our purposes, come under the classification of the disruptive acts which are in opposition with the international, federal, state, and local regulations (Williams, 2004). The misuses of technology are frequently vague and their legitimacies unclear as to what is taken as opposed to law and what not. Computer crimes may be classified as the following two sorts of offenses;

Crimes targeting the computer devices or networks; and

Crimes using the computer devices or networks

A widespread premise found is this concept that computer crimes are free of victims for the reason that they take place only in digital form. At the same time as there may be any apparent physical harm, there certainly are harms caused by the computer crimes. Computers have a great amount of data stored in them, varying from the public content of domain to the copyrighted and personal information. As a misfortune, a great range of cyber crimes often go unnoticed. It is evident from research that nine out of every ten frauds are not reported. The reason for this may be that the organizations fear having the computer crimes reported since it may display susceptibility to the prospect attacks or impart a negative and unwanted publicity to them. In addition, it may be commonly seen in organizations that the computer crimes are brushed under the rug in the fear of having their customer base lost. Nevertheless, it is not at all ethical ...