Living in the twenty-first century has brought many new and exciting technological discoveries; one being so important to our everyday lives is the invention and use of the computer. Computers help our lives run faster and more effectively. We no longer have to painstakingly write out papers or have to manually search for information in books. We now have word processors to help us type out papers and the use of the internet to assist us in search of any kind of information. The drawback to the positive side of computer is the negative side: computer crime.
Computer crime involves a broad variety of criminal offenses, activities, or issues. The list that the FBI National Computer Crime Squad investigates includes: intrusions of the Public Switched Network (telephone company), major computer network intrusions, network integrity violations, privacy violations, industrial espionage, pirated computer software, and other crimes where the computer is a major factor in committing the criminal offense. .
The computer crimes that hit more closer to home, just to name a few are: harassing and stalking, altering of websites, credit card fraud, and creating and releasing a damaging computer program. .
Harassing and stalking can also occur outside of the computer world, but is starting to grow. A stalker can repeated harass their victim online by sending vicious emails or even sending a damaging virus over the internet. The good thing about an internet stalker is that you can always change your email address.
Alternating of websites is not as threatening as other crimes, but still leaves temporary damage. In most attacks the hacker will delete some graphics or pages, then upload new pages with the same name as the old file, so that the hacker controls the messages controlled by the site. Fortunately, the owner of the website can close the website temporarily, restore the all of the files, improve its security, and then reopen the site.