0 This written report is an overview of the social and ethical implications of technological forgery, fraud and theft. It will discuss the affects of the latest advances in technological crime and how they impact socially and ethically on the world community. This is a very real problem, it may not affect you personally but someone you love and/or care about will have at least one or more of these crimes committed against him or her. Gone are the days when creating a forged document could take days, weeks or even months and someone with a high degree of skill to process. Now any Joe Blow with modern equipment can create forged documents to pass even the most rigid security safeguards. The impact upon these technological crimes reach is unlimited. A victim could be anyone at anytime, which means we are all potential victims.
2.0 These days it is very easy for anyone with a modern printer and scanner to create personal documents, cheques, passports, birth certificates and many other important documents. There is software available today that has image manipulating capabilities and printers with the same capabilities as the ones that print the original documents. "The forgers and the banks are engaged in a technological superiority race. Tellers can run cheques through scanners to make sure they've got the right kind of magnetic ink on them, but then magnetic-ink printers are widely available. Image manipulation programs allow for "authenticating" stamps and signatures to be forged as well. When forged cheques are discovered, some banks fax the pertinent information to every other bank branch in the same region of the country. The forgers may have made several copies of the cheques and be simultaneously cashing them at different banks/branches as fast as they can before the alarm is sounded. This story illustrates one of the many subterranean interactions between computer technology and social institutions" (Saul Hansell - http://dlis.