WHEN CYBERCRIME COMES KNOCKING

Having sushi for dinner, mmmm…yum!

This could easily be somebody’s twit on twiter or a status on facebook. But who the hell really cares. Well I don’t, but apparently a lot of people do, about what somebody has for dinner, or what she thinks about the person across her on the train or the snotty girl who just walk past her.

Over 18. 1 M people use twitter and over 250 M subscribe to facebook. Social networking through high speed internet connection has been the trend in recent years.

I understand and I agree that web social networking is the future, but it does not mean that I am into it too. I do use it for communication purposes. I am the sort who values privacy too much to post what I’m going to wear or what I am going to do or am doing at the moment. Although I have nothing against people who are avid users of these social networks, my concern really is whether they are aware of the risks of internet social networking. Cybercrime often is alluded only to identity theft, fraud, account hacking and the like--- Crimes that happen in cyberspace. I dare not undermine these crimes for they themselves are a menace to society.

But as human technology evolved so did the criminals. If police enforcers are using technology to their advantage to catch the bad guys, the bad guys are somehow one step ahead and have likewise used the internet to their advantage.

Case in point child molesters and pedophiles, stalkers and sociopaths ---- Criminals have evolved, it does not happen in cyberspace anymore but criminals have used it to stalk and track their prey. An episode in Criminal Minds (an American TV series), revolved around a sociopath who used the social network available at his disposal to track the habits and routine of his victims by taking note of their posts and updates. That is how he remained undetected when he did his surveillance and pick the time and place convenient for abduction. The first part of his Modus Operandi was done in the confines of his own home, though internet social network. Another episode showed how pedophiles, use these networks to chat with 12 year olds and some get to meet them.

“The internet is first thing that humanity has built that humanity does not understand the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.” - Eric Schmidt, CEO of google

PHOEBE HIDALGO Entry #5