Computer Crimes: Computers as Targets

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On March 12, 2003 Cynthia Simmons started receiving threatening and harassing emails from whom she believed to be her 29 year old ex-boyfriend Jacob Myers. She reported the crime as cyberstalking to her local police department. After the investigation began Cynthia changed her e-mail address, instant message Id and any other way’s Jacob might have been able to find her online. Despite all the changes, Cynthia continued to receive harassing unwanted communications from an unknown subject. She still believes that the communications are coming from her ex Mr. Myers.
Along with the unwanted communications, Cynthia also started receiving phone calls at home propositioning her services. After asking where these callers were getting her information she found that her contact information had been placed on an online escort service website. Again she took this information to the police department, along with a new email she received. This email stated that in order for the harassment to stop she would need to follow the instructions for PayPal and submit four payments of $999.99 each.
Based on the new information, this investigation has included three new crimes, including cyber-extortion, cyberharassment, and identity theft.
According to Britz, cyber-extortion is the use or the implicit threat of use of technological means to cause harm to the physical being, reputation, or property of an individual, organization, or company as a means to obtain the consensual exchange of property from that individual, organization or company. (p.84)
In this case the extortion falls under the email’s telling Cynthia that all she needs to do to stop the harassment is to send four payments to a PayPal account.
The second crime we included in this i...

... middle of paper ...

...ivation. A motivation of sexual gratification usually results in some form of harassment or stalking. (Britz, 2009) The last crime of identity theft was in the offenders mind justified because he needed to know that Cynthia wasn’t going to get away with ending the long relationship, yet at the same time being able to sitting back to watch her suffer humiliation and degradation from the soliciting phone calls.
In conclusion, we find the offender charged with cyberstalking to begin with, but also identify theft, cyber-extortion and cyberharassment. We also realized that just because you think it is justified doesn’t mean it really is. An offender really needs to know that his justification is right before committing his crimes.

Works Cited

Britz, Marjie T. (2009) Computer Forensics and Cyber Crime: An Introduction. (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ; Prentice Hall

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