Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Your Topic 3 – Some mental health and criminal justice professionals contend that hacking is an” addiction,” and causes obsessive, risk taking behavior in a manner similar to illegal narcotics – hackers hack to ” get high” from the thrill of breaking into a system and getting away with it. Should policymakers look towards treatment, rather than incarceration, as the disposition of hacker cases? Why or why not?
The study conducted by Solmaz, Bell and Saygili (2011) is interesting. At first, after reading the article, there seems to be a dilemma between hacking as a form of addiction, which requires treatment to just simply being a criminal case. But going through further to their findings, it became clearer that internet addiction does seem to be a mental disorder. As to the question of policymakers going for treatment, and considering internet addiction as a disorder, rather than imprisonment of hacking cases, I think it would be a better solution because development of these policies will not only benefit those who commit cyber-crimes, but also those who have forgotten to live a normal human life.
The study of the boy who had a good cause using the internet, does not differ much from a hacker, because both of them would probably be spending almost an entire day facing the computer and doing what challenges them the most. And on a general note, those people who have become too attached to social networking sites like Facebook, spend more time in front of the computer rather than interacting personally with friends and families, or even neglecting responsibilities at home or at school.
Policymakers must be able to properly identify the root cause of a person’s addiction to the internet. It may not necessarily be a disorder but the effect on the over-all wellness of the person makes it appear to be so. I think that the laws or guidelines that should be made must focus more on the more controllable factors like the allowed time to use the internet or related things to that to be able to force those affected individuals to stop and live like any normal human being should. Since internet addiction at one point is seen as a disorder, counseling may also prove to be a good solution to understand why hackers and other “ internet addicts” find more fulfillment in front of the computer than in the real world.
Topic 4 – While psychological profiling of criminals is not a new field, should we attempt to profile cyber criminals? What sort of things do we already know about the personalities of cyber criminals? Do we have enough evidence to indicate there is a distinct psychological pattern that would help in the apprehension of cyber criminals?
Cybercrime is no longer new, but authorities still have not created a single, specific profile that will easily determine a person to be a hacker or an identity thief over the internet. The study by Nykodym, Taylor and Viela (2005) discussed different approaches to profiling of cyber-criminals and from a common person’s perspective, attempting to profile these types of criminals seems to be a waste of time. It is like trying to draw a person’s face when you have completely no idea who he or she is.
Given the fact that a cyber-criminal is faceless, meaning we have no idea how they look like, all we know is that they spend so much of their time in front of a computer destroying and stealing data for reasons ranging from hate to simply enjoying a challenge. Trying to know their characteristics will be very difficult because it will put every individual as a suspect. Those we call “ genius” cannot be prejudiced to have greater tendencies of becoming a cyber-criminal because these criminals do not need to have Ph. D.’s to be able to steal data. It can be implied that every individual who knows how to use a computer can be considered a possible cyber-criminal, or has the tendency of becoming one.
The psychological approach to controlling cyber-crime still does not have enough evidence to identify the pattern with which cyber-criminals can be characterized. The challenge that profilers face is not just the individual, but the complexity of the crime scene in its entirety. The internet is not localized to one region, and these cyber-criminals that may be committing a crime in a particular region, could be committing that crime a thousand miles from the scene itself. I think the profiling of the cyber-criminals still has a long way to go, or probably a different approach may have to be created or conceptualized to be able to limit the factors that have to be identified because the internet has connected the entire world in a manner that no single authority can handle.
References
Nikodym, N., Taylor, R., & Vilela, J. (2005). Profiling of cyber crime: Criminal profiling and
insider cyber crime. Computer Law And Security Review: The International Journal Of Technology And Practice, 21408-414. doi: 10. 1016/j. clsr. 2005. 07. 001
Solmaz, M., Belli, H., & Saygili, S. (2011). An adolescent case with internet addiction and
hacking: How are we dealing with this diverse spectrum of disorder?. General Hospital Psychiatry, 33(4), e15-e16. doi: 10. 1016/j. genhosppsych. 2011. 04. 001