Lecture 5 - Crime, venality, and stewardship
What is crime?
Crime is most commonly defined as a violation of law that is punishable by the entity responsible for that law.
While criminal violations and ethical violations are not identical, there is clearly overlap when laws themselves embody ethical principles.
One opposite of legal behavior is criminal behavior; one opposite of ethical behavior is nihilistic behavior (in this sense, you can regard it as a denial of ethical meaning)
Criminal categories
- Crimes generally fall into three broad types: doing, not doing, and deception, though of course it is possible for a single act to encompass more than one of these types.
Criminal categories: doing
- Within "doing" we generally find crimes broken down into offenses against some category, such as people, morals, or things, although others have been also created, such as creating laws that protect "the environment", though there have also been crimes of being, such as attainder or in rem proceedings.
Criminal categories: not doing
- Generally, "not doing" falls into some sort of negligence, such as criminal negligence; however, there are sometimes service obligations such as jury duty and military conscription that failure to do can result in legal punishment.
Criminal categories: deception
- Generally, "deception" includes actions such as fraud (victim consents due to lies or other misrepresentation) or "swatting" (law enforcement is misinformed as to the commission of a serious violent crime).
Computer technology as an integral part of crime
While computer technology often is an adjunct to many crimes (for example, someone uses a hard drive as a bludgeon), it can integral, such as the very prevalent (and profitable) crime of ransomware.
The widespread adoption of technology is creating many venues for crime; the ever-popular 419 / advance-fee scams.
The current successful cybercrime categories
According to RSA; credit card fraud, account takeover, identity theft particularly prevalent.
Hacktivism and more
As you can see from the Wikipedia page, it's hard to use a single word to characterize the group "Anonymous"; maybe "group" isn't even an accurate word.
Whatever Anonymous might be, it certainly receives credit for various acts of "hacktivism".
Scambaiting
- Groups like 419eater use the Internet to "scambait" fraudsters. So far, this seems to be another 'Canutian' exercise.
Leaking
From Wikileaks "About" page: "WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses."
Doxing (or "doxxing")
Not the exclusive province of the Internet; public release of data about individuals in order to harass or otherwise embarrass has long been done. The Internet however makes for a substantially more powerful platform for these type of attacks.
Air is a medium, not a "gap": Cross-device tracking via audio
Pervasive sensors and actuators
- Interesting not only from the perspective of privacy, but from the other implications of this technology; for instance, instead of requiring a specialized token like an ATM card, Cardless cash from Mastercard
Pervasive sensors and actuators
Pervasive sensors and actuators
Making a market in cybernetic arms
Making a market in cybernetic arms
Making a market in cybernetic arms
Ethical questions about cyberwar
Proactivity: Vigilantism, or Stewardship?
