The Internet, a network of interconnected computer networks, provides a wealth of information for just about every purpose imaginable. Students can access pertinent information regarding their courses, children can watch streamlining cartoons, corporations can conduct e-commerce transactions, and independent artists can promote their latest album. The multi-media aspect has attracted millions of visitors around the world to download the latest songs, albums, movies, ringtones, ebooks, video games, software, and more. The temptation overwhelms most people considering most of these items are available at the click of a mouse. Criminals understand the enticing effect these multi-media treasure troves create, which likely has some salivating over the infinite possibilities to steal financial information and personal identification records.
Internet surfers need to take the appropriate steps to safeguard their computer from these anonymous thieves. Internet surfers can reclaim their vanguard position against these shadow threats with an edge of technical savvy, small collection of the appropriate software and hardware, plus the ability to exercise common sense.
Viruses and worms
Viruses and worms used to scare Internet users in the last few decades; however, emerging threats continue to evolve with each technological advancement. Spyware, spam, and phishing scams have exploded in today's market. Viruses and worms still present a real threat in cyberspace, which can disrupt computer usage entirely, depending on the infection.
A virus is a small computer program that infects and replicates existing code. A complex virus can delete or corrupt existing files, change computer settings, and cause the computer to crash. On the oth...
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...with Peer-to-Peer File sharing: A resourceful website providing helpful tips and information while using P2P file sharing software.
Federation Against Software Theft: An anti-piracy organization aimed at protecting members from Internet piracy.
The Federation Against Copyright Theft: An anti-piracy organization based in the United Kingdom with aims at curtailing counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringements.
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry: An international anti-piracy organization aimed to protect the rights of the record companies enrolled under their membership.
Georgetown University: Where to Download Music, Movies, and Software Legally?: A resourceful article providing credible reliable links to legal downloading platforms.
University of South Florida; Download Legally: A list of resources to legally download multi-media files.
The entertainment industry and many musicians regarded P2P as a big crisis for copyright, so that they sued the company that produced Napster. “Anger leads Metallica to the Internet,” an article by Karen Schubert in USA TODAY, noticed that heavy-metal band Metallica was suing Napster. And now some people in the music industry are fighting with a distributor of P2P software even in the Supreme Court, and lobbying to outlaw P2P technology. In “File sharing goes to High Court,” USA ...
However, despite the strong copyright policy and punishment of the United States Federal Copyright Act, as enforced by police as well as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), piracy still rages on, especially...
Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks have had a staggering growth in the past few years. Since Napster, dozens of P2P networks have been created in its imitation. Due to the growing accessibility of broadband, which increases the speed of downloads, P2P networks generate nearly 1.8 billion downloads per month. Popularity and acceptance is still continually growing.
...ed “torrenting”. When something is “torrented”, it is spread across multiple computers in hundred of fragments. After someone has there “torrenting” software setup properly it tracks the fragments, downloads them, and re-assembles them into a duplicate of the original file. Torrenting is most common because it provides a degree of anonymity too music sharing, it is safety in numbers.
Internet-based file-sharing systems are gaining popularity, and consequently the sharing of copyrighted materials has become rampant. Fueled by server-based systems such as FreeDrive and peer-to-peer systems such as Napster, copyrighted materials are being propagated all over the Internet, and while shutting down such systems seems to answer some of these problems, it is in no way a complete solution. By examining these file-sharing systems and the legal issues that envelope them, more appropriate regulatory means may be discovered.
The World Wide Web has become a catalyst for hackers, organize criminals, insider threats, political, social action groups, and anonymous groups to excite fear on individuals, private and the public sector. These threat actors can launch malware, rootkits, spam, botnets and a host of other threat vectors at any occasion.
Piracy is the copying of copyrighted material without permission from the author. Because technology is always changing, there are no fail safe methods of preventing piracy. Soon after a new preventative method comes out, someone finds a way around it, making pr...
Every day millions in some cases billions of dollars are made by businesses from income brought in by online sale of products and services. As businesses continually develop and expand their client base with online products and services so does the desire by criminals to exploit vulnerabilities in their e-commerce setup. The mass worldwide internet usage growth within the last 20 years has been “an approximate 16 million users in 1995 to an estimated 2,937 million in March of 2014” As the importance of e-commerce increases so does the need to protect the technological infrastructure that will carry out online transactions for each business regardless of its size. I will attempt to highlight and review the history of a few cyber crimes to show the progression of the crimes within the last 30-40 years. I also plan to review how the economy and consumers are impacted by cyber crimes. Finally I will make an effort to contribute with information gathering on how to lower the risk of a cyber attack from and individual user to a large scale business.
Although online file sharing debuted in 1999, lawmakers and copyright industries are just beginning to address the myriad questions the practice has generated. In At Issue: Internet Piracy, authors attempt to answer some of those questions.
With the popularity of the Internet, sales for CDs, DVDs, Movies, and many other products have increased. Along with the increase of sales has brought forth an ever increasing problem of illegal media being downloaded. Programs such as Bittorent, Kazaa, and other direct-connect networking programs have allowed the transferring of such illegal media. Downloading song files from the Internet over a free peer to peer network is the moral equivalent of shoplifting music CDs from the local mall.
Virus is one of the most common malware. Unlike spyware, virus is largely designed to harm useful programs or wreck down an entire operating system. There are many ways through which virus may enter a computer. The most common way is via email attachments. A...
Millions of people around the world use computers and the internet every day. We all use it in school, work even at home, computers have made us life easier, it has brought so many benefits to the society but it has also brought some problems and cybercrimes is one of them. “The times have really changed,” said Greg Garcia, the department’s assistant secretary for cyber security and communications. “We’re seeing now phishing, farming, botnets … war dialing and domain server spoofing. And we’re seeing coordinated cyber-attacks against nation states.” (Fowler 5) Cybercrime is one of the most prevalent and most popular rising crimes being committed today. This is criminal activity done using computers and the Internet. There are millions victims around the world everyday who face these problems. Most people become victims of these at one time or another, but there are ways to avoid or deal with cybercrime by protecting yourself appropriately. I also was one of those victims who faced a similar problem. This unfortunate truth forces me to understand that computers and the Internet have made our lives easier in many ways. However, it is unfortunate that people also use these technologies to take advantage of others through identity theft, hacking attempts, and malicious use of software.
The Internet is a connection of computers across the world through a network. Its origin dates back to the 1960s when the U.S Military used it for research, but it became more available to the public from the late 1980s. The World Wide Web was created in 1989 and browsers began appearing in the early 1990s. Over the last 24 years, the Internet has enabled people to shop, play, do research, communicate and conduct business online. It has also become cheaper and faster in performing different tasks. As much as the Internet has done immeasurable good to society, it has also dominated people’s lives and brought with it an array of cybercrimes. According to Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way we Think, Read and Remember (Carr, 2010). He debates on whether the Internet has done more harm than good. People use the Internet daily to exchange accurate information and constantly personal data such as credit cards, passwords and Social Security numbers are travelling through the network from one computer to another. With security measures put in place on the Internet, personal information remains confidential. But unfortunately, criminals have adapted to innovations in technology, and today, more people are increasingly becoming victims of cybercrime. The Internet has had profound effects on the public, both positive and negative. In this paper we will examine how access to personal information has led to an increase in online and offline crimes. The essay will particularly focus on ecommerce and hacking.
At the dawn of the internet, many things such as books and text became obsolete, due to insufficient monitoring of internet activity and sites. Individuals were able to gain free access to books and publications that normally needed to be bought, or required a fee. This is something that has caused problems for booksellers and publishers. Now, as technology advances, it also begins the decline of music, software, and television industries—but something can be done before it’s too late. Illegal downloading is a problem that affects us all, either directly or indirectly. Many people do not take it too seriously. They have not realized that it is an epidemic; like a disease that keeps growing as people become more knowledgeable about computers and learn more about how software runs. People openly burn music CDs and download music and movies for friends who in turn give it to their friends; it’s a never-ending cycle on illegal practices. The problem started when Napster came out and should have ended when it was shutdown. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to stop the illegal transfer of files. It’s time someone takes full action and ends this detrimental offense.
Cybercrime, also called computer crime, is an illegal act that includes a computer system. The growing problem of cybercrime is an important issue facing researchers today. The number of internet users has grown exponentially over the last twenty years. However, it is really only in the last decade that researchers have really begun to study the problem. The purpose of this paper is to take a look at areas related to cybercrime today. In this paper I will discuss major types of cybercrimes: identity theft, computer use by pedophiles, cyberbullying,cyberstalking, unauthorized access to computers (hacking), computer viruses, spam, and illegal gambling on the internet.