Created to be a military intelligence weapon by the US Defense Department, the Internet is now a vast mediocre commodity. The Internet is a publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. Therefore, people from every corner and crevice of the world can be found on the web. The Internet is becoming an increasingly popular form of entertainment and supplements the television. People of all types go online to entertain themselves, keep up to date with the news, and now with e- commerce, conduct their business. However, anything that appears to be too good is usually just that. "People of all types" includes the opportunistic criminals of the world whom look only to benefit themselves at the expense of other's lives, misfortune, and misery. With good intentions the internet can be a safe place, but the Internet can also be used as a mediated channel of communication in which criminals can research, conduct, and conceal their crimes with little or no resistance from security. It is a channel that has given birth to a new breed of criminals that have only just begun to uncover the depths and horrifying potential of cyber crime. .
The Internet is immensely vast. With little effort one can find information on anything online. Not only can one find information on anything, often times a web surfer can interact with other surfers by means of instant messaging, chat rooms and talk forums. Although this interaction sounds innocent enough, in "Netcrimes," David Mann and Mike Sutton state that, "Criminals can exchange information in newsgroups that advise others on how to commit crimes."(Mann, Sutton 27) this means that new techniques and skills can be shared by criminals making them more efficient and harder to catch. Mann and Sutton went on talking about how some nation's satellite cable companies have lost well over $200 million dollars from illegal satellite hacking.