GAC028: Social Science

One of the World Leaders(China)

Cyber Issue

Student Name: Alifiyo Rayhan Darmawan

Student ID: 1505160604

Teacher: Irfanda Adie Prabowo

Due Date: February 13rd 2019

Word count: 2157

Table of Contents

Abstract.....................................................................................................................................1

1.0 Introduction.........................................................................................................................1

2.0 Method................................................................................................................................2

3.0 Findings...............................................................................................................................3

3.1 One of the Biggest Cybercrime.............................................................................................3

3.2 Most Common Case.............................................................................................................4

3.3 Underground Case...............................................................................................................4

3.4 Government and Citizen Point of View on Cybercrime........................................................5

4.0 Discussion............................................................................................................................6

5.0 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................7

Reference List............................................................................................................................8
One of The World Leaders (China) Cyber issue Alifiyo R. Darmawan GAC028

Abstract

This research is mainly concerned on cybercrime in China. In Specific, this research talked

about one of the biggest cybercrime case in China, the most common case in China, the unnoticed

case in China, and how citizen and government viewed cybercrime. The biggest cybercrime case in

China was the hacking of Google database by Chinese hackers, the hackers managed to accessed

sensitive data regarding the United States court orders related surveillance, as at the time there were

Chinese surveillance in the United States. The most popular case in China was cyber fraud, this case

involved fake websites or fake campaign made by the criminals that managed to steal millions

RMB from the victims of the fraudulent sites or campaigns. The underground case was the Chinese

dark web, this was pretty much a black market in the internet, the dark web is the place to buy and

sale illegal goods and services, this case is yet to be the concern of the government. Last the

government and the citizen awareness, citizen awareness regarding cybercrime was low most

citizen believed that hacking was a fun thing to do and to prove to the society someone’s ability of

coding or computing techniques and the government started their move to fight cybercrime nation.

The recommendation is for the citizen to be more aware of fraudulent sites which led to cyber fraud,

database should increase their security to prevent any hacker, the government should be aware of

the dark web and should fight it, then the citizen should consider cybercrime seriously as it is a

serious problem and the government should extend its program regarding taking down cybercrime.

To sum up, cybercrime in China is shown to be a complicated issue of the country, and major

companies, citizen, and government should be more concern on this issue.

1.0 Introduction

Global issue has been known as an issue which affected multinationals, or the global

community. Global issue is similar with the term globalization, although they have different

meaning, as globalization means the interdependent of global citizens and economies with driven by

trade (Bhargava, 2006). Due to the globalization, the international border has disappeared as more

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and more culture, fashion trend, news can be known or recognize globally in matter of seconds

(Bhargava, 2006). Despite all the positive outcome of globalization, it also drives more global issue

to occurs as well as the emerging of digital age which caused more integration between people that

caused a new global issue which is cybercrime (Bhargava, 2006). Cybercrime is similar with digital

issue which is crime action that happened digitally in the internet, or digital platform (Technopedia,

2019). Cybercrime have different kinds, such as cyberbully, cyber-scam, dark web, and many more

crime activity that happens in real life that also occurs in digital (Technopedia, 2019).

China as mostly know is the country with the biggest population, which around 1,4 million

population. And as one of the leaders of global economic (worldometers,2019). China is also

known as the country with rapid technology invention, with a lot of major technology developer

based in China, also china has lot of industries as many products in the market are made in China

(Mullen, 2016). Currently, China is the home of several major industries that involve around

telecommunication technology, such as Huawei, which is well-known for its smart phone such as

the Mate 20 Pro which released in 2018, other than that, an e-commerce giant Alibaba which

founded by Jack Ma (Mullen, 2016). The reason on why to choose this topic is that cybercrime is

the type of crime which is still emerging, and China is the second largest country of cybercrime

case. Therefore, cybercrime in China, could be major problem to the country, with the high amount

of population, and it is one of the world’s leader of technology development. The outcomes of this

research expected to gains recommendation regarding the issue. In this research, it will focus on one

of China’s biggest cybercrime case, the most popular form of cybercrime, and how China and its

citizen handles cybercrime.

2.0 Method

This research is qualitative research, then the result of this research will mostly writings or

description of the topic (Do, 2019). Regarding the data collecting process, this research use

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secondary data as references of the research. In this particular research, it will use several web

articles and a journal that are related to cybercrime in China and the law of cybercrime in China.

The web articles will be used for both introduction and the findings of the research. The

web articles are from relatable with the findings. The article sources are many but also reliable

sources from Forbes, CNN, The Guardian, Washington Post, and several others, and the journal is

from World Bank journal regarding global issue. Most of the online article will be used in the

findings. Forbes article is about online fraud ad will be one of the sources in the findings. CNN

article is about the technology which will be one of the supporting explanation on the introduction,

and the World Bank journal will only be on the introduction.

3.0 Findings

In the findings, it is explained 4 topics regarding the cybercrime in China. Thus, this section

will be separated into 4 section, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4. 3.1, will discuss the one of the biggest

cybercrime case that ever conducted in China. 3.2 will discuss the most common cybercrime case in

China. 3.3 will discuss the underground case in China. 3.4 will discuss the citizen reaction and the

cybercrime law in China.

3.1 One of the Biggest Cybercrime

As mentioned earlier, China is the home of many telecommunication industry giants, therefore

there are many people who advanced in the usage of online technology. In the other hand, several

persons miss used their knowledge that leads to one of the biggest cybercrime in the past few years,

in 2009 Chinese hackers manage to break into Google corporate database. But until 2013 the United

States officials said that the hackers manage to accessed Google sensitive database (Nakashima,

2013). The Database is believed to consist of information about United States surveillance targets,

said by current and former government officials (Nakashima, 2013). The hackers appeared to have

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been aimed at dig into the identities of Chinese intelligence operatives in the United States, who

may have been under surveillance by American law enforcement agencies (Nakashima, 2013). It is

not exact how deep the hackers able to discover, but it is confirmed that the databased they hacked

into contain information about court orders authorizing surveillance (Nakashima, 2013). This

hacking definitely one of the biggest cybercrime that ever occurs until this period of time, the case

involves major billion dollars company, and arguably two of the most powerful countries in the

entire world, and sensitive information about one nation’s law information.

3.2 Most Common Case

Next case cyber scam or online fraud, this form of cybercrime is widely spread to the entire

world, as this one seems to be easier crime to pull off. As in China this form of cybercrime is the

most well-known out of the other in the past few years (Cheng, 2017). As popular as this

cybercrime is, it cost the victim in total of RMB 195 million in 2016, with 20,623 reports (Cheng,

2017). The frauds that are happen in China are common issues, these online frauds happened

frequently due to the frequent usage of mobile device or online devices (Cheng, 2017). The motive

of the frauds are vary first, through SIM card information that done by text messages which then for

the victim to conduct fraudulent transactions (Cheng, 2017). Second, online beauty or popularity

contests in this case the victim will pay for numbers of vote to win that will never happens (Cheng,

2017). Third, part-time employment that due by a fraud company that made to be a doppelganger of

a legitimate company, which then will have requirement for the victims or the applicants to

purchase certain amount of item on the fake site to gain the job that never exists (Cheng, 2017).

Fourth, Tickets for entertainment and other events, that being sold by fraudulent ticketing site that

also look similar to the legitimate one (Cheng, 2017).

3.3 Underground Case

Last case is the dark web, or most known as the ‘illegal e-commerce’ or an anonymous

marketplace that is located online, or mostly call it the “dark side of the internet” (Cox, 2015). This

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marketplace had been dominated by Chinese and Russians, as a marketplace where the customers

are able to purchase unusual goods and services. The goods involve sketchy stuff such as credit card

numbers, fake passport, drugs, fake college degrees, spirits of a child, even hacked PayPal accounts

(Rothschild, 2019). For the service, it could be scary or odd, such as a hitman or hitmen are offered

in the dark web in order to murder someone or some people, on the odd side is a writing on a female

breast (Rothschild, 2019). Despite all that the users of this dark web kept rising and yet to gain

enough of government attention (Cox, 2015).

3.4 Government and Citizen Point of View on Cybercrime

Despite the cybercrime in Chine getting bigger, its citizen remains unaware of how fatal

cybercrime could be (Stilgherian, 2017). Most Chinese claimed that cybercrime, especially hacking

is not considered as a serious crime, instead as jokes or to test out their computing or coding skills

(Stilgherian, 2017). They still believe that stealing someone’s social media account is a fun thing to

do, and for those who able to hack particular social media account are admired, and it also happens

for document stealing and fraud (Stilgherian, 2017).. In the governmental side, the law regarding

cybercrime is exist, although its punishments were relatively lenient, although the government

started to step up their games, as in 2015 they started to shuts down impersonator accounts,

advertisement, and pornography (Stilgherian, 2017).

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One of the world's

biggest hacking case
Google
Hacking Impacted the USA
sensitive database and
intellectual data.

The most popular

cybercrime case in China
Cyber Fraud It made the Chinese
citizen large amount of
money

Illegal Online trading

Black Market
Still around nowadays

Still give less attention to

Government this problem
and Citizen Government started to take
care this issue

4.0 Discussion

China cybercrime issue, can concluded as it is in critical condition with many cases and the

government is still at the beginning of its way to handles cybercrime. As it is the home of the

hackers that managed to broke into Google sensitive database, the government only able to take

down small portion of cybercrime. Therefore, it is important for sites such as google which contains

billions of data and some very sensitive and could be confidential data should increase their data

security, as it been proven by Chinese hackers that they manage to hack the database and could

resulted a massive conflict between two nations.

The fraud issue is still the nation’s biggest cybercrime issue. The way this issue can solve

by the government to take down these fraudulent sites. Although that method has been conducted

by China, the take down of these sites cannot been done rapidly. Thus, the most effective way to

prevent online fraud is for the Chinese to be aware on which is legitimate site or fraudulent site, by

doing more research on every website before any transaction going to be made.

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The last issue is the dark web, which until today still access able. This platform has been

around for years, and yet to be take down. For this issue the best way to handle the issue is to

involve the government to take down the site and as it is a crime scene, the one that did transaction

there should also be arrested as they are criminal.

Lastly, the government and the public, first the government should put more security on

major database which content sensitive data. Second, the government should take down fraudulent

sites intensively. Third, the government should put action to the dark web, and take it down. In the

other hand, the citizen got to be more aware of cybercrime as a serious crime activity, and should be

responsible user of the internet or the cyber world

5.0 Conclusion

To sum up, cybercrime in China is shown to be a complicated issue of the country. The

country consists few hackers which are responsible for one of the world biggest hacking issue in

2009, which involved the United States and Google, as they able to accessed sensitive data on

Gmail. Second issue of cybercrime in China, is online fraud that being the most popular form of

cybercrime, as this issue that able to fraud millions of dollars in recent years as it is easy to attract

victim with fraudulent site that similar with the legitimate one. Third case, the dark web which is an

illegal marketplace which sell goods and services that are not available anywhere else, such as

hitman, fake passport, fake credit card, etc. Last the government and the citizen which do not focus

on cybercrime, and rather misjudge it not as a serious crime. The solutions are to increase database

security, government to be aggressive on fraudulent sites and dark web, and give stricter

punishment to the criminals.

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Reference List

Bhargava, V. (2006). Introduction to Global Issues. Global Issues for Global Citizens, [online] pp.1-3.

Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTABOUTUS/Resources/Chapter1.pdf

[Accessed 25 Jan. 2019].

Techopedia.com. (2019). What is Cybercrime? - Definition from Techopedia. [online] Available at:

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/2387/cybercrime [Accessed 25 Jan. 2019].

Mullen, J. (2016). Meet China's tech behemoths. [online] CNN. Available at:

https://money.cnn.com/2016/05/17/technology/china-tech-behemoths/index.html [Accessed 25

Jan. 2019].

Nakashima, E. (2013). Chinese hackers who breached Google gained access to sensitive data, U.S.
officials say. [online] The Washington Post. Available at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chinese-hackers-who-breached-
google-gained-access-to-sensitive-data-us-officials-say/2013/05/20/51330428-be34-11e2-
89c9-3be8095fe767_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b048ae54529e [Accessed 19
Jan. 2019].
Cheng, R. (2019). Cybercrime in China: Online Fraud. [online] Forbes.com. Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roncheng/2017/03/28/cybercrime-in-china-online-
fraud/#26b22f447ac3 [Accessed 22 Jan. 2019].
Rothschild, M. (2019). 26 Crazy Things You Can Buy on the Dark Web. [online] Ranker. Available
at: https://www.ranker.com/list/things-you-can-buy-on-the-dark-web/mike-rothschild
[Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].
Stilgherrian (2017). Cybercrime in China is the same, but different | ZDNet. [online] ZDNet.
Available at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybercrime-in-china-is-the-same-but-different/
[Accessed 3 Feb. 2019].

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