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Week 1 - Week 1 Notes

Cyber Law (Swinburne University of Technology)

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Week 1
Introduction – History and
Development of Cyber Crime
and Security
LECTURE OUTLINE

 Looking at why it is important now

 Rising information in society
 Fundamental transformation in the earlier decades
 Looking at different theories with this
 Why is it so challenging?
o Traditional law enforcement methods, techniques and investigative strategies often
fundamentally do not work online
 Completely different to how crime should be investigated by the book
 Police does not have enough sources

PART 1: WHAT ARE WE RESEARCHING?

Cyberspace
 “The electronic world created by interconnected networks of information technology and
the information on those networks. It is a global common where…people are linked together
to exchange ideas, services and friendship”
(Public Safety Canada 2010)
 “A virtual environment in which economic value is attached to ideas and their virtual
expression rather than physical property”

(Barlow 1994)

 Personal reasons – commercial reasons – governmental – education

reasons
 Google has a lot of wealth, when earlier in the years it was the coal
mining.

Defining cybercrime
 Crimes that are committed in ‘cyberspace’

(Wall 2007:10)

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 Anything that uses digital technology – that platform – digital

communication
 “Computer mediated activities which are either illegal or considered illicit by certain parties
and which can be conducted through global electronic networks”

(Thomas & Loeder 2000:3)

Three generations of cybercrime (Wall 2007)

1. Crimes using computers to assist traditional offending
 Example: New Win in Old Bottles = essentially the same thing with
computers
 Wicker – anonymous messages
o Used by drug users and dealers
o Deletes messages after a while
o First generation cybercrime – example
 Offence looks pretty much the same, but it is taking place else where and
looks a bit different
 Bank Robbery – Hacking Online

2. Opportunities for crimes across a global span of networks

 Darknet = darknet drugs trade – crypto-market
o Fundamentally different kind of offence – reaching way more
customers over the world
 2nd generation kind of cyber offence (example)
o Distribution of child exploitation material on the internet
 Darknet in particular and the internet on the internet have
facilitated the sharing and the dissemination, the creation of
child exploitation material on a scale we have not seen
before – significantly changes the nature of the offence
o Global networks change the whole dynamic of these offences

3. ‘True’ cybercrimes wholly mediated by technology

 Don’t only use the global communications networks BUT use the process
of automation as well
o Malware sort of stuff
 Botnet  if you download this dodgy software it allows hackers to take
remote control of your computer
 Automation – digital techniques

Defining Cybersecurity (Craigen 2014)

 Cyber security is very different and focuses on the more protective side of
things
 Looking at more the ‘threats’ side of things than the actual ‘security’

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 “Cybersecurity is the organisation and collection of resources, processes, and structures used
to protect cyberspace and cyberspace-enabled systems from occurrences that misalign de
jure (perceived) from de facto (reality) property rights.”

Threats to cybersecurity (Kremling & Parker 2018)

 Confidentiality of data – ensuring no one other than authorised persons have access
o Online Medicare system online
o More important the more our data goes online
o If you trust the government, you need to trust them to not exploit
the data or share that with anyone else, and to keep it safe
 Integrity of data – ensuring no one other than authorised persons can alter data
o Big problem
o Dealing with significant problems associated with people
compromising the integrity of your data and manipulating it for
their own ends.
 Availability of data – ensuring that authorised persons can access data at all times
o Ransomware – paying to get it off?

PART 2: WHY ARE CYBERCRIME AND SECURITY IMPORTANT?

 Increases in connectivity
 In the older days – internet did not exist
o Bulletin boards + old dial up internet modem

(Looking at Graph 1) – (ITU 2015)

 Only 20 years ago, 17% of the population of developed countries in the
world had access to the internet
 That figure for Australia is well over 90% now

(Graph 2)
 More people have smartphones now
 This kind of digital literacy that were seeing now is accompanying access
to digital technologies

(Graph 3) (Federal government 2019)

 Over 90% of Australians have access to something online
 2/3 Australians have social media accounts
 Most Australians spend about one day online per week
 Important for business/private life

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 All global commons

o Cyberspace has enabled, ahs become an absolutely critical part of
our daily lives
o People who can control access to that are also becoming or people
who can manipulate it are also becoming increased increasingly
important

The Rise of the Information Society

 Dependent on cyberspace on everything we do.
 Information technology (IT) is now integrated into practically every aspect of our daily lives:
o Banking
o Healthcare
o Business
o Education
o Recreation
o Critical systems infrastructure
 All are dependent on cyber
 Banking = touch & go payments + send money anywhere in the world
 Everything would become chaos if the internet stopped working
 Example: Gollum – Lord of the Rings:
o Want digital connectivity  also made us completely dependent on
it
 Increased connectivity = increased vulnerability
o Was through the internet
 Instead of the first gun shot  they would be turning off
access and everyone would be affected as they are so
dependant
o Focus on cyber espionage
o Suicide of Dolly Everett – (Example)
 What kinds of technologies – what are the
underpinning dynamics that facilitate an offence like
that?
 Example of a theory how changes in technology and
changes in society affect different kinds of offences.

Routine Activity Theory

 Routine activity theory examples crime as the result of the coming together in time and
space of:
o A likely offender
o A suitable target
o The absence of a capable guardian
 Changes (social, technological, etc) can affect how these factors interact
 In reality;
o You are not home – your house is a suitable target
o Dog is the capable guardian – will protect house

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o Potential likely offender

o Woman now work especially after WW2  there is an absence of a
guardian at home now
 Other technological changes
o Invention of motor car
 Weapon, transportation = lets you get away with more
robberies
 Bullying
o Children would at home and people would have to break into your
home, threaten them. Now give them a phone
 People could contact them from all over the world.
 No longer is there a capable guardian there
o Unless, you are in the room with them – but still can be reached
 Spam Attacks – Nigerian Scams (example)
o Most don’t originate even in Australia
o Offenders located in all parts of the globe
 Who reach your phone, your computer
 That can victimise you from another part of the world
 More exposed to a larger scales of offenders

Routine Activity Theory + Cybercrime

 Online interconnectivity radically alters how these three factors converge
 Likely offenders have dramatically improved access to an increased range of suitable targets
 Capable guardianship – personal, business or government – remains woefully
underdeveloped

PART 3: CHALLENGES FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

 Traditional:
o Physical robbery – alarms – witnesses – CCTV
 Online Attack:
o No alarm – notification from alarm – only if sophisticated systems –
no one wants to report it

Challenges for law enforcement

 Identify crimes and victims
o Many don’t know they’ve been victimised; crimes go unreported to police ‘dark
figure of crime’
 Locating offenders
o Protecting anonymity, encryption and physical distance
 Gathering evidence
o Often complicated, complex and costly, traditional policing methods interactive

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 Transactional operations
o Police limited by national borders and sovereignty
 Dark figure of crime = simple crime that does not make it into official
statistics
 Digital forensics small – developing field
o Not available to your average police commander/police station
 Transitional operations – police limited usually by state sovereignty
o Need agreements with states or have Federal Police Intervene
 Become problematic when a transnational scale
o Would be difficult to cooperate Chinese + Australian authorities
o Offenders know that
o Purposely pick where it would be difficult for countries or authorities
to cooperate.

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