The Actual Reasons for the Perpetuation of Internet Crimes Essay

The Actual Reasons for the Perpetuation of Internet Crimes - Essay Example Nevertheless, despite security measures and laws against cyber crimes, such a situation of clear and present danger persists for a number of reasons. The reasons why Internet crimes remain despite the law enforced against them include the ease in which they can be committed, poor security measures, and carelessness on the part of the victims. One reason why Internet crimes persist is the mere fact that they are relatively easy to commit. A teenage hacker, Nicholas Webber, is the brains behind the ?16.2M-credit card theft at Ghostmarket.net in 2009. This is roughly $25.3M of stolen consumer money from an estimated 8,000 members of Ghostmarket.net all over the world. Webber was only 18 and his accomplice Ryan Thomas was only 17. They were imprisoned for 8 and 4 years respectively for channeling the money of the consumers to an offshore bank account located in Costa Rica (Malik, 2012). Therefore, teenagers like Webber and Thomas who simply know hacking and banking basically already have all the means to easily carry out an Internet crime. They can do this easily especially with anonymous programs. In fact, according to the December 2000 report by McConnell International, the occurrence of Internet crimes is caused by the following factors: â€Å"They are easy to learn how to commit; they require few resources relative to the potential damage caused; they can be committed in a jurisdiction without being physically present in it; and they are often not clearly illegal† (â€Å"Cyber Crime,† 2000). There is clearly a problem with Internet crimes when it comes to legalities. In fact, according to the report, there are still 33 countries which have not had their laws updated – like Egypt, Italy, Norway, New Zealand and France. Moreover, there are only 52 which have definitely stated laws against Internet crimes (â€Å"Cyber Crime,† 2000). However for the 33 countries, the vague and confusing laws simply translate as a difficult due process an d a possibility of the suspect being exonerated. Another reason why it is relatively easy to commit Internet crimes is that the suspect knows that he can simply make a plea on invasion of privacy and may claim that for the government to pry on his own private transactions is against his freedom and right. The reason for this is definitely a confusing system of legalities governing Internet crimes, making such crimes irreconcilable with the idea of freedom of speech and the right to privacy. For example, How different is it if libelous and malicious statements are written on private accounts in social, in March 2006, a British woman named Tracy Williams was accused of and charged with libel by the British court for â€Å"posting false sexual allegations† at an unnamed online social networking site about a Parliamentary candidate that the police believed she had issues with (Darlington, 2010). It is therefore really unclear which part of the Internet crime merely expresses free dom and which part violates the law. Due to these problems with legalities, only a mere 30% of an estimated 1,600 identity thieves in the United States alone end up prosecuted and even in relatively less jail time despite the fact that 8.3M victims have been harassed, according to the FBI. Moreover, only about 1,400 cases are given attention from around 300,000 complaints about