ABSTRACT

This chapter describes two organizing ideas: the digital environment and several types of cybercrime. It discusses the four categories of cybercrime: cybertrespass, cyberpornography, cyberviolence, and cyberdeception. Economic incentives were also the foundation for the many innovations that occurred, as companies developed services and products to sell through the technology. Criminal behavior via technology is often the result of people taking technology designed for one purpose, and finding new, illegal uses for the technology. Computer scientists and engineers often conceptualize technological systems as layered systems. Layering can also help organize one’s thoughts about cybercrime because crime and deviance occur in each layer. Hacking is arguably the most talked about cybercrime in the media. Cyberdeception describes “the different types of acquisitive harm that can take place” in the digital environment. Cyberviolence describes theviolent impact of the cyberactivities of another upon an individual or a social or political grouping.