An overview of cyberspace
crimes Author: Yu Jianqiang Specialized researcher in the Criminal Law specialty of East China College of Politics and Law, 98
The computer
network undoubtedly is one of the most exciting high and advanced technologies in the current world. Its emergence and rapid development, especially the constant progress and rapid development of the Internet, together build a quick and convenient virtual world-the cyberspace for the human beings. However, there are also dark sides in this space, of which Internet crimes are a typical example.
I. Diverse kinds of Internet crimes
The development of technology increasingly makes computers a popularized tool, the development of Internet shapes a virtual space which is relatively independent from the real world, wherein Internet crimes propagate. For Internet crimes are characterized by indirectness, i.e. the criminal does not need to be on scene, Internet crimes exhibit diverse forms.
1. Network invasion, crimes of
spreading destructive viruses, logic bombs or planting backdoor programs, this kind of cyber crimes aim to cause maximum
damage, the consequence of such an invasion is very severe, light damage as causing failures of system's partial functions, heavy damage as causing overall collapse of computer systems, along with heavy economic losses.
2. Network invasion, crimes of peeping, copying, altering or deleting computer
information. The development of the Internet actually opens a gate for the outside world to access user information, the invader can invade into the information system without the victim's perceiving it, and peep, copy, alter or delete computer information, thus damaging the interest of valid users.
3. Internet bilk and crime abetting. For the Internet is characterized by fast spreading, extensive distribution and anonymity, and the regulations concerning spreading information through the Internet are far less strict and complete than through traditional media, this provides convenience for the spreading of fake information and misguiding advertisements, also facilitates the distribution of criminal materials and encouragement of crimes.
4. Crimes of insulting, slandering and intimidating others through Internet. Out of different kinds of purposes, send or paste a great number of attacking articles to emails and noticeboards or distribute all kinds of rumors, what's even more wicked, is to synthesize people's portraits with all kinds of image processing software, and synthesize the picture of the object of attack with some pornographic images and concoct so-called "picture album" to distribute. Because Internet is characterized by openness, it's a piece of cake to send out thousands of emails, to whose influence and consequence traditional measures are by no means comparable.
5. Crimes of Internet pornography spreading. Because the Internet supports image transmission, so a great number of pornographic materials take a part in it, with improvement of network speed and development of multimedia technology as well as the betterment of digital compression technology, pornographic materials are increasingly emerging on the Internet in forms of multimedia such as audio and video files.
II. Characteristics of Internet crimes. Compared to traditional crimes, Internet crimes have some distinctive...