Chapter 3

Traditional Computer Crime

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  Questions of Vicinage
 Lack of international cooperation –
disincentives for some countries
 Perception of Anonymity – increases activity
 Encryption & Steganography
 Delayed detection
 Judicial inconsistency
 Administrative apathy
 Cultural skepticism
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  cryptology – the study of secret written messages
usually of a military or diplomatic nature
 Cryptography – the making or encrypting of
secret messages
 May involve simple manipulation of letters – i.e. HAL
(2001:Space Odyssey) represented IBM (following
letter in the alphabet)
 Cyptanalysis – the breaking or decrypting of
secret messages
 Steganography – secret messages hidden from
normal view

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  First crime unclear – theft of abacus?
 First computer sabotage –destruction of
Jacquard’s automated textile machine (early
19th century)
 Theft of components
 Three Incidents

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Computer Forensics and Cyber Crime, 2nd ed. © 2009 Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
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 Definition – the manipulation of
telecommunications carriers to gain knowledge of
telecommunications, and/or theft of applicable
services.
 Includes any activity that incorporates the illegal
use or manipulation of access codes, access tones,
PBX’s, or switches
 Methods
 Shoulder surfing
 Blue boxes
 Current version – “call-sell” operations (prepaid
phone cards)

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  1960’s – term “hacking” is used by MIT
students to refer to either the development of
novel techniques to identify computer
shortcuts or clever pranks
 “hacking” away at an object until it gives way
 Term popularized in the 1980’s War Games
 Hacker ethos – lashing out at big business, no
profit, etc.

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 Kevin Mitnick
 Downfall – breaking into computer of fellow hacker –
Tsutomo Shimomura – who tracked him down with the FBI
 cOmrade
 First teen to be incarcerated for hacking
Targets included Miami-Dad school system, BellSouth, DOD, etc.
 Terminus
 Unix programmer & AT&T minicomputer expert
 Targeted AT&T among others
 Shadowhawk
 Sentenced to 9 months for breaking and entering into U.S.
Missile Command
 Also targeted AT&T
 Kyrie
 One of the few female hackers
 Specialty involved abuse of corporate voice mail
 Also involved her children in her activities
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 Initially
 Young, socially inept individuals enamored of computers
and computer technology through role-playing games
 Expense associated with downloading led to
manipulation of telephone exchanges
 Anti- establishment ideology

• Contemporary communities
• Lost much of the original ideology
• Motivations now include easy money, revenge, personal
notoriety
• Increase in hacking for profit

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  Six categories based on motivation
 Boredom - Informational Voyeurism
 Intellectual challenge – pure hackers, mining for
knowledge
 Revenge – insiders, disgruntled employees, etc.
 Economic (criminals)
 Sexual gratification (stalking, harassment)
 Political (terrorists, spies, etc.)

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  Insiders – most dangerous
 May be accidental or intentional
 How can you prevent it?
 Security awareness training

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 Script kiddies
 Aka – skidiots, skiddie, or Victor Skill Deficiency (VSD)
 Inexperienced hackers who employ scripts or other
programs authored by others to exploit security
vulnerabilities or otherwise compromise computer systems
 Do not understand the programs they are actually
employing
 Cyberpunks
 Hotly contested term – used by LE to refer to those intent
on wreaking havoc via the Internet
 Hackers/Crackers
 Cyber-criminal organizations

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  Hardware
 Black market
 Grey market
 Software
 counterfeiting
 Data piracy
 Theft of Computer Components
 10/2006 – Brothers Jimmy Luong and Danny Hung Leung
– convicted of money laundering in connection with the
theft of over $10 million in computer components
 2/2001 – Employees of SoftBank - $700K of computer
products
 6/2001 - $4 million in disk drives stolen from IBM in San
Jose

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  Film piracy
 Optical disc piracy
 Internet piracy
 Videocassette piracy
 Theatrical print theft
 Signal theft
 Broadcast piracy
 Public performances
 Parallel imports
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Counterfeit software
Committed via burners
Increasingly organized
Methods of identification
o Counterfeit hologram; absence of original reserve label & absence
of polygraphic packing; absence of Copyright and Adjacent Rights
Protection sign; abnormalities in packaging material
o Absence of high quality images on the CD

Counterfeit chips
Commodities
Popular in U.S. and Asia

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Computer Forensics and Cyber Crime, 2nd ed. © 2009 Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.
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