Cybercrime

Cybercrime

Cyber crime is not an old sort of crime to the world. It is defined as any criminal activity which takes place on or over the medium of computers or internet or other technology recognised by the Information Technology Act. Cyber crime is the most prevalent crime playing a devastating role in Modern India. Not only are the criminals causing enormous losses to the society and the government but are also able to conceal their identity to a great extent. There are a number of illegal activities which are committed over the internet by technically skilled criminals. Taking a wider interpretation it can be said that, Cyber crime includes any illegal activity where computer or internet is either a tool or target or both.

The term cyber crime may be judicially interpreted in some judgments passed by courts in India, however it is not defined in any act or statute passed by the Indian Legislature. Cyber crime is an uncontrollable evil having its base in the misuse of growing dependence on computers in modern life. Usage of computers and other allied technology in daily life is growing rapidly and has become an urge which facilitates user convenience. It is a medium which is infinite and immeasurable. Whatever the good internet does to us, it has its dark sides too.1 Some of the newly emerged cybercrimes are cyber-stalking, cyber-terrorism, e-mail spoofing, e-mail bombing, cyber pornography, cyber defamation etc. Some conventional crimes may also come under the category of cybercrimes if they are committed through the medium of computer or Internet. 

Dr. Debarati Halder and Dr. K. Jaishankar define cyber crimes as: “Offenses that are committed against individuals or groups of individuals with a criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm, or loss, to the victim directly or indirectly, using modern telecommunication networks such as Internet (Chat rooms, emails, notice boards and groups) and mobile phones (SMS/MMS)”

Nature

Crime is a socially correlated phenomenon. No matter how much we try, we cannot experience a society without cybercrime. In actual sense, when we are not yet able to control the crime rate to the desirable minimum in the real world, how would it be possible to curb the same in the virtual world, as the same is comparatively more unreal, everlasting and legally less controllable. However with the time, nature and scope and definition of crime changes in a given society. Crimeless society is a myth and crime cannot be segregated from a society. Thus the nature of the crime depends upon the nature of a society. 

Complexity of the society determines the complexity of the crime that evolves around it. To understand the crime in a society, it is essential and crucial to verify all the factors which influence and contribute to the crime.The socio- economic and political structure of the society needs to understand the crime and the recourse that may curb the same. The preventive and

Corrective measures adopted by the machinery to control the crime and delinquent behaviour in the society are also taken into consideration while studying the nature and scope of a crime.

The advancement of the technology has produced new socio-economic and political problem in the society and instead of helping the state in controlling the problem it has created new complex situation which is difficult to understand and even more difficult to apply current law to face the

situation. The state machinery is not equipped with enough sources and knowledge to handle modern crime.

Computers have transformed modern society beyond expectations in the last three to four decades. It has made life not only convenient but has also immensely helped different sections of the world come closer socially, economically and culturally. Computer technology has made it possible to have access to all corners of the world while sitting in a room. Modern technology has put an end to the barriers of time and space. However, unlikely with the remarkable merits of having computers today, due to this the jurisdictional issue has been created in the legal system.

Jurisdiction is one aspect which is very difficult to determine in transnational transactions over the internet. There was unmanageable ambiguity when courts were subjected to questions pertaining to jurisdiction law and were unable to decide the proper forum to entertain cases involving cyber crime as the cyberspace or virtual world is borderless if we compare it with

physical world and that is why it is very difficult to control cybercrime. Through the local machinery we are not able to tackle the problem related with cyber crime because our machinery is not compatible to deal with transnational crimes. The law applicable to the territory is not advanced enough to regulate cyber crime as their nature is far different from the existing crime.

Thus, the global dimension of cyber crime has made it difficult to handle and deal with. The evolution of internet technology has given us so many advantages to deal with future problems and grow at a rapid rate but also it has provided the scope for criminals to commit their crime with the least chance of detection. The cyberspace has proved a boon to the deviant behaviour in the society. The concept of cyber crime has gained speed and we are facing a great threat of its impact on world society. Human society is becoming vulnerable to cyber crime due to more and more dependence on technology. 

Cyber crime becomes a global phenomenon and hence the nationwide generalisation of crime cannot work in the present scenario. Our understanding and regulation of cyber crime cannot be national but has to be international. We have to enact new laws and prepare preventive and

defensive mechanism globally, only then we are able to protect our society from this evil called ‘Cyber Crime’.

Therefore, the threat of cyber terrorism throws serious challenges to the world and its agencies. The terrorist organisations use technology to spread hatred among people and use it to recruit militants and train them using teaching tools. They are also launching websites which show them how to use weapons, make bombs etc. 

Classification of Cyber crime:

There are two groups of crimes. One group is computer crimes where crime is committed by the computer or a tool used to commit crime is a computer. Other group is computer related crime where computers can be used in evidence. 

Computer crime is done against an individual or an organisation where the perpetrator of a crime uses a computer or computer technology to commit crime. Computer related crimes are hacking, creation of viruses, credit card theft, electronic fund transfer fraud, etc. These are the crimes in which the computer acts as a necessary tool. But the computer acts as evidence of crime which is not related to the computer but where information is taken about a registered code then it is easy to prove the case.