Why 'Cyber Crime' Should Just Be Called 'Crime'

netzar writes "CAUSE executive director Neil Schwartzman, in a post on CircleID, urges governments and law enforcement to treat cyber crime as what it really is: 'crime': 'When someone is mugged, harassed, kidnapped or raped on a sidewalk, we don't call it "sidewalk crime" and call for new laws to regulate sidewalks. It is crime, and those who commit crimes are subject to the full force of the law. For too long, people have referred to spam in dismissive terms: just hit delete, some say, or let the filters take care of it. Others — most of us, in fact — refer to phishing, which is the first step in theft of real money from real people and institutions, as "cyber crime." It's time for that to stop... This isn't just email. This isn't a war. This isn't "cyber." This is crime.'"

Also Naive

[betterunixthanunix]

Many modern criminal investigations require specialists. Rape, murder, arson, and so forth -- commonly investigated by specialists. Why should a crime that involves computers suddenly have a special category, when other forms of crime do not?

Crime doesn't pay

[RLiegh]

But 'cyber crime' pays off in the form of increased profits, boosted ratings, legislation...

Boogiemen are big business, as /. knows too well...

Re:As soon as they ...

[selven]

Personally I'm not much interested in someone's motivations for committing a crime

So you don't care if someone's motivation for killing is self-defense?

I don't support hate crimes either, but intent is, and should be, very important in determining the punishment for an action.

Re:As soon as they ...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

I agree. i'm a little uneasy charging someone for what amounts to a thought crime, but if you smash a synagogue's window in, vandalize the place, and spray paint swastikas all over the place or you kill a transvestite and carve "FAG" into their chest, it's *very* clear, then let's call it what it is, terrorism.

Re:Also Naive

[_Sprocket_]

Because cyber-crime doesn't refer to a mere specialized type of crime, but an entirely different paradigm. This new paradigm of crime not only requires completely new types of training and skill-building, it will require well-written and clear laws that don't yet exist if we're ever going to get out of the "wild west" in which we currently reside.

New laws? Ahhh - I see. You're part of the problem.

Re:As soon as they ...

[AuMatar]

The idea behind hate crime is that its twofold.

1)Kill your wife/parents/lover and there's a personal reason for killing that specific person. Kill for reason of skin color or religion and it's random-- anyone in that group is a possible next target. Due to this, the killer is more dangerous to the general population than a normal killer.

2)There was a time when white men who killed black men in the south were almost always let off, due to the prejudice of the juries. This allowed the whites to be held accountable in federal court for federal crimes, and circumvented a corrupt localized system of justice. Obviously not a good long term solution for this, but it was a necessary short term one.

How we got here

[selil]

In the 1970s a court case in California during an evidence hearing had an interesting discussion. The evidence of an intellectual property case was bounced as the evidence was all digital in nature. How can you have a theft when you still possess the original? Several avenues were considered and the result were the first computer laws detailing crimes that happened on computers versus normal property thefts. Much abridged version, but this is basically a United States issue that isn't necessarily found in other countries as their property rights are considered differently. Though, the United States has managed to export many of the concerns along with the Internet. Much of this is detailed by Thomas Whiteside in a book called "Computer Capers" circa 1978,