From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/:
computer crime
n.
Criminal activity directly related to the use of computers, specifically illegal trespass into the computer system or database of another, manipulation or theft of stored or on-line data, or sabotage of equipment and data.
A computer crime is generally described as any crime accomplished through special knowledge of computer technology (Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge). It cannot be denied that even the use of computers has extended to becoming instruments of crime. Funny to think that due to technology advancement even crimes are done using computers. Crimes that were supposedly done by criminals before have been perpetrated by the use of computers. Because of these crimes, it won’t take long before a computer becomes a murder weapon. Computers have simply become objects of crime.
Computers are objects of crime when they are used to destroy, damage, or disturb other computers. Another, computers become instruments of crime when they are used to plan or control such criminal acts as complex embezzlements over long periods of time or when a person uses a computer to steal personal and valuable information.
Computer crimes include fraud, theft, larceny, embezzlement and felony. A very good example of these crimes is the credit card fraud wherein stealing of personal information and fraud are clearly committed by the perpetrator. Impairment of computer services, delaying of computer services and illegal use of other computers’ resources are also considered computer crimes. The release of the Melissa virus, which caused substantial interruption of the Internet and overloading of mail servers, is a concrete example of these kinds of crimes.
With the advent of personal computers to manipulate information and vandalism by telephone (Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge) or though the internet, increasing number of crimes-mostly simple but costly electronic trespassing, piracy of copyrighted or classified information-have been done by computer hobbyists, known as “hackers”, who use their technical expertise in stealing or destroying valuable information. The hacking of USA’s security agencies is a very good example of this.
Still other crimes are called white-collar crimes, because these involve crimes conducted in company offices, and were mostly done by trusted computer users within the businesses. Stealing company information, abuse of company resources and theft of company properties and assets through the use of computers. The stock fraud in Cisco Systems, Inc. would very much belong to these kinds of crime.
As a student, I hope that people would stop using computers as objects of crime or better yet to stop committing these crimes because the creation of computers was not to destroy or embarrass other persons’ lives because just like other machines, computers were created to aid man in his work.
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