FREE ESSAY ON COMPUTER CRIME

COMPUTER CRIME

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John Sforza
Miss. Hilleman
English 10R
December 7, 1999
Computer Crime
Computer crime is defined as a criminal act that has been committed 
With a computer as the principle tool(Judson, 30). These computer 
criminals are people with advanced knowledge of operating systems, phone 
systems, and other computer related devices. Some computer 
criminals break into other people's computers, and steal data, these criminals 
are known as hackers. Yet others might make a phone call without even 
paying for it, or receive phone services that they did not pay for, these 
people are known as phreakers. And yet there are other computer criminals 
that illegally copy software, these criminals are known as Software Pirates. 
Although authorities try to combat the doings of these criminals, Computer 
Crime is still a huge market for criminals of all kinds. 
The first part of this paper is going to be dedicated to hackers. 
Hackers are the robbers of cyberspace. They are able to gain access to 
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peoples computers using special tools, methods and programs. Some of 
these are backdoors, viruses, and port scanners. The most popular 
form of virus, is known as the Trojan horse, named after the Greek Trojan 
Horse. This virus is implanted in a computer, then it lets someone from 
another computer have access to all the computers information, including 
passwords and any other personal data that might be present. Hackers do not 
just invade personal computers, they also invade corporate and government 
computers. The Pentagon has recently come under a fire from hackers. After 
these hackers penetrate the Pentagons defenses, they begin to raid 
unclassified documents. Some of these hackers have stolen data pertaining to 
the Energy Department Nuclear Weapons and Research Facility. They have 
also gathered information that was used by the National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration. Although the FBI has used all resources available to them, 
they still have been unable to identify these hackers. The only thing that they 
know is these hackers are based in a place 20 miles outside of Moscow. 
Since these attacks happen during the day, 5am-8pm Moscow time, the FBI 
believes these individuals are working out of an office. Many believe that 
these hackers are working for the Russian Government, and are using 
espionage to gain access to sensitive information.
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Although these hackers motives were to sabotage and destroy, not all 
hackers are like this. Most are just after information, they might make a 
mistake now and then but most do not cause damage. Enclosed in this paper 
is Mentor's Last Words. Something that Mentor wrote because he felt 
people should hear it. He was tired of people mislabeling and mis-judging his 
kind. He wanted to show the world that the newspapers, magazines, and 
radio stations were not right. Hacker was a term originally given to those 
who went in search of knowledge inside other peoples computers. They did 
not cause any damage, they just wished to learn more.( 
A Phreaker is a person that has extensive knowledge of the phone 
system. These people spend hours reading text documents and browsing 
around phone company's computers. Most phreakers will say that what 
they do is for the pursuit of knowledge, which is true, but there are always 
those people that take advantage of things. Some things that phreakers can 
do are, make free calls from payphones, enable call waiting, caller id, call 
conferencing, and receive no phone bills. They also know how to make 
phone calls using other peoples telephone lines, charging them instead of 
themselves. 
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The last group of computer criminals, and probably the easiest to 
identify are the Software Pirates. These are the people that make copies of 
software, and either register the program illegally, or sell the software to 
another party. Any pirated software is known as warez. Warez is divided 
into sub categories, these are the following; Applications of any sort are 
known as Appz, Computer games are changed into image files 
known as ISOs, and full-length movies are known as VCDs. Software 
pirates usually have a high-speed connection, such as T1, T3, Cable 
Modem, DSL, ADSL, HDSL, or VDSL. Almost all software pirates have 
CD recordable drives, to make copies of their material. Many attempts have 
been made to stop software piracy, the most popular is a registration key. A 
registration key is the code you are given when you purchase or 
legally register a piece of software. The only problem is, these Software 
Pirates have learned how to bypass the registration key. Another attempt 
was made by Microsoft to make it harder to copy the cds, but that also 
failed. 
Although authorities try to combat the doings of these criminals, 
Computer Crime is still a huge market for criminals of all kinds. Although 
authorities try to combat the doings of these criminals, Computer Crime is 
still a huge market for criminals of all kinds.