Senator Orrin Hatch is digging hole much to deep. Hatch has proposed legislation to "destroy" the computers of copyright violators using P2P (peer to peer) networks. Yes, that's right. A member of the United States government is "interested in doing that [destroying personal property]. After all "That may be the only way you can teach someone about copyright...That would be the ultimate" lesson learned (McCullagh). Not only is destroying personal property, dare say, illegal, bringing about technology to do so would be brainless. As soon as the government starts their rampage of razing computers, criminals are going to find a way to gain control of the technology.
New developments are sometimes puzzling and frustrating; as soon as it is thought of baddies have it, except they make it better. Terrorists, foreign governments, and hackers would all grab the ability to destroy a computer remotely. "Hackers would get the technology very, very quickly. Terrorists would get the technology very, very quickly." As soon as they have it, "Hatch would be unable to compute anymore. Neither, for that matter, would I. Neither would you. That code would spread, not like a virus, but like spam, and destroy the Internet forever" ("Senator"). At that point, the United States, as well as everyone who has an Internet connection, would have a pile of zapped computers on their hands. (Weren't environmentalists complaining about waste?)
Although excess environmental waste produced from zapped computers would be appalling, the integrity of destroying personal property has to be questioned. While violating copyright laws is obviously illegal, demolishing a personal computer is illegal as well. In order for such action to be illegal (not moral) the "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" would have to be altered. This act is meant to protect users from "fraud and abuse," but allowing remote destruction of computers would only harm.
Copyright infringement, however, is also unlawful. Although the government should take steps to prevent all crimes, some are more important than others. For example: On block A, someone was killed and the murderer is still aboard. On block B, someone reported the usage of a P2P network to download copyrighted material. If the police could only tend to one matter to avoid being overextended, where would they go? Unless the world really has been turned upside down, it is obvious they would go to the murder scene. How come the police couldn't be in both places?
At this juncture, it may be somewhat difficult to accept the proposition that a threat to the telecommunications grid, both wired and wireless, in the United States could potentially be subject to a catastrophic cyber attack. After careful research on the subject, it appears the potentiality of an event of such magnitude, which either disrupts one or the other grids for a long period or destroys either, is both theoretically and realistically impossible. It may be that proponents—those who advance such theories—equate such “doomsday” scenarios as if a cyber attack would or could be of the same magnitude as a conventional or nuclear military strike. Terms such as “cyber Pearl Harbor,” “cyber 9/11” and “cyber Vietnam” have been used to describes potential catastrophic cyber attacks and yet, “Though many have posited notions on what a ‘real’ cyber war would be like, we lack the understanding of how such conflicts will be conducted and evolve.” (Rattray & Healey, 2010, p. 77). Yet, the U.S. government continues to focus on such events, as if the plausibility of small-scale cyber attacks were not as pressing.
Much of Rose's argument for the retention of current copyright laws stems from the faulty belief that copyright infringement will remain much of an underground practice. In his article Rose asserts that "Net users who aren't at least mildly familiar with the [file-sharing] underworld will never even hear about such systems before they are dismembered" [1]. While file-sharing might not have been an important issue in 1995, the word "underworld" does not accurately describe the flourishing file sharing situation today.
The threats to security from the United States Department of Defense, the national power grid and the Chamber of Commerce are very real and omnipresent. The Defense Department made an admission of the first major cyber attack upon its systems in August 2010. It was revealed that the attack actually took place in 2008 and was accomplished by placing a malicious code into the flash drive of a U.S. military laptop. “The code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital breachhead.” (2) This quote, attributed to then Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, is just part of the shocking revelations that were disclosed in his speech made on July 14, 2011.
There is constant concern about different kinds of devices and tools because of their vulnerability: laptops; personal computers in the home; libraries and public workstations; USB Flash Drives and email, to name a few. These items are easily accessible for those attempting to breach security.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Ever since day one, people have been developing and creating all sorts of new methods and machines to help better everyday life in one way or another. Who can forget the invention of the ever-wondrous telephone? And we can’t forget how innovative and life-changing computers have been. However, while all machines have their positive uses, there can also be many negatives depending on how one uses said machines, wiretapping in on phone conversations, using spyware to quietly survey every keystroke and click one makes, and many other methods of unwanted snooping have arisen. As a result, laws have been made to make sure these negative uses are not taken advantage of by anyone.
Kevin Mitnick, "the worlds most notorious hacker" hacked into his first computer at the age of 16 when he hacked into Digital Equipment Corp. ( DEC) by phoning the company and claiming to be the lead developer of a new product (Weintraub, 2003). DEC then proceed to give him the passwords needed to hack into their system. Many of the jobs that Mitnick pulled exploited the ignorance of humans rather than the security software of the companies. Based on what he accomplished, he showed that a path can be made into a system without a computer or modem. This "social engineering", was Mitnick's forte. Mitnick tries to warn corporations now that "There is no patch for stupidity." (Mitnick, 2003) We are getting to an era in life were humans are not smart enough to run the machines they created. Someday computers may be run and created by other computers completely making humans obsolete in the realm of computer operation. This is a very scary thing to think about. When computers start having the ability to run themselves without human interference who knows what will happen. This is a fear that is embedded into the minds of many luddites. Where will this new technology end up? How far will it go before it destroys the integrity of life as it is now?
Many nations in the world - the United States, China, Russia, Iran, Germany, and more- use cyber warfare as a method of conducting sabotage and espionage. Nations, such as China and Russia, use espionage in order to prevent their economy and their military technology from falling behind by stealing advanced nations’ technology. Other nations, including Israel and Iran, focus on sabotaging other nations to cripple them, by sending malwares that destroy important data on the system, from advancing their technology and costing them a decent amount of money due to repairs. Another popular cyber attack used, mainly with hacktivist, government- sympathetic groups not owned by the government, and nations less advanced in technology, is Denial-of-service, or DoS. DoS is used to hinder the target’s website and other things that are maintained by computers by making it unavailable to intended users. People argue there are no benefits for cyber warfare due to its potential destructive powers and instant process of destruction. While other people-looking from a different view find that cyber warfare does have its benefits. They argue that an important benefit is that cyber warfare takes place in cyber space meaning that it does not physically harm people. They also argue that cyber warfare draws the awareness of the nation on the ever increasing dangers of cyber warfare and forces the government to set up stronger cyber security to fend off international attacks, which also help protect the government from internal hackers. It also creates more jobs for hackers, who use their knowledge to increase the security instead of harm it. Although cyber warfare produces damaging effects on a nation, in the long run, it crea...
...ecome alarming as these machines could become very complex. With new forms of computers on the horizon, the exposure and availability is greatly increasing. It is true that computers bring a lot of benefits however they also enhance the potential for unimaginable chaos. The day will come, sooner than we expect, when humans will no longer be needed to maintain the earth. Computers will for instance, be able to control vehicles and other devices. Providing all the computers are programmed correctly then nothing can go wrong however if one small program fails this could result in disaster. As humans we must take heed of the power of computers and try to maintain our role in the world as the ruling beings and ensure that we are still in a position where we are able to control technology as it will be all too easy to suddenly discover that technology is controlling us.
The September 11th terrorist attacks have had both positive and negative impacts on the use of computers and technology. It is hard for many to believe that good things can come from bad situations. In this case it took a terrorist attack to make us realize that there is room for improvement in the quality of our technology that we rely so much on today.
In order to wipe out computer crimes, an agency specialized in computer crimes should be at task to take care of such crimes and special devices provided to them in their lab. The devices they have available is what they will use in curbing the crimes hence the need to provide them with sophisticated devices.
Piracy is primarily a problem for the entertainment and software industries, and therefore piracy most often involves violations of copyright law. Copyright is a legal right that protects creative works from being reproduced, performed, or disseminated without permission of the copyright owner. Essentially, a copyright gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of the material in question.
All of us know about the crimes committed every day by people all over the world. Theft, assault, grand theft auto, underage drinking, fraud, prostitution, and rape. But what about crimes on the internet? Last year, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was introduced to the world. If this bill was passed, many sites would have to censor certain pieces of information, as well as remove a lot of the content already uploaded. SOPA would also crack down on terminating torrent sites, which are used to share files such as music, movies, video games, e-books, and whatever else is a digital file. In my opinion, SOPA should not be passed due to the fact that censoring information on the internet is an act against the first amendment. SOPA should not be passed due to the fact that it goes against the first amendment and will lead to a corrupt information sharing system.
The nation has become dependent on technology, furthermore, cyberspace. It’s encompassed in everything we deliver in our daily lives, our phones, internet, communication, purchases, entertainment, flying airplane, launching missiles, operating nuclear plants, and implicitly, our protection. The more ever-growing technology empower Americans, the more they become prey to cyber threats. The United States Executive Office of the President stated, “The President identified cybersecurity as one of the top priorities of his administration in doing so, directed a 60-day review to assess polices.” (United States Executive Office of the President, 2009, p.2). Furthermore, critical infrastructure, our network, and internet alike are identified as national assets upon which the administration will orchestrate integrated cybersecurity policies without infringing upon and protecting privacy. While protecting our infrastructure, personal privacy, and civil liberties, we have to keep in mind the private sector owns and operates the majority of our critical and digital infrastructure.
Many countries have already embraced the power of cyber space. “In Japan, a new strategy has been put forward that includes the use of cyber space in defense policy and military doctrine” (Olender 1). The strange thing about cyber warfare is that the larger and more advanced countries are the countries that are most at risk. Those countries, such as the United States, have become so dependent on technology that if they were attacked, they would have the most to lose. Works Cited Crowther, G. Alexander, and Shaheen Ghori.
Once the police educate themselves, they can work to educate local businesses and people to combat cybercrime as well. Individuals and law enforcement agencies must take steps in raising awareness and educating themselves in order to take action against cybercrime. Cybercrime is a global issue that threatens the cyber security of citizens, businesses, governments, and the entire international community. The globalization of the world has increased cybercrime due to the new way that technology has been incorporated into so many aspects of daily life, and the risk that the increased use presents to the users. Law enforcement also lacks the means to combat cybercrime in an effective way, which only further increases the threat of this security threat.