A characteristic feature of the information society is the penetration of modern informationtechnology in almost all areas of life, making possible the more effective administration,office work, commerce, communication. However the new society does not only hold outadvantages, its disadvantages are emerging too. Like on any field of life where economicinterests come into conflict or it is possible to obtain economic advantages with crime, thereappeared such criminal actions in this field too, which use the new technology. The criminalactions connected with computers do not come upon all countries equally. They cause muchtrouble mainly in those countries, where the technology is developed, and the new means,tools became integral parts of the life of society.In parallel to the development of the technological conditions of the information society thequestion of the computer crime touches more and more people in the last years in Hungarytoo: in the second half of the last decade we had to live together with the computer viruses,and the e-mail viruses began to spread. Soon such popular sites as Yahoo, Amazon or - inHungary - Elender got into the middle of the attack of the crackers. The moral and materialdamage caused to the service providers is significant. Not only, the service providers mayloose however, but the users too as by joining the net we become potential victims. Therefore,we are in sore need to find a solution of suppressing computer crime.To be able to take up fight against it we must know what we must mean by computer crimereally, and how big is the damage it causes. In this paper, we look over the crime connectedwith computers, drafting its recent law-regulation frameworks, which at the same timedetermines their statistical classification too. Then based on the Ministry of Interior weexamine the position of the Hungarian computer crime in the mirror of statistics.2. DefinitionsAlthough the first criminal actions connected with computers happened before the end of thefifties, (e.g. embezzlement in USA in 1959, committed with help of punched cards) due tomany-coloured nature of the actions, the jurists undertook to a comprehensive definition onlyat the beginning of the seventies. Mühlen gave the first: computer crime is any criminal actionthe tool or object of which is computer. Between 1983-85 OECD examined the Europeansituation, and summarised the experiments. In the second half of the eighteen.s the EuropeanCouncil prepared a list of the actions to be penalised especially.In Hungary the lawmakers became engaged in the computer crime more seriously in the firsthalf of eighties. .Computer may be the tool and the target of the crime. as Peter Poltestablished 1983.Most recently Imre Kunos determined it as follows: .Computer crime is the complex of thosecriminal actions which are directed against information technological tools, system elementsor use information technological tools, systems as tools of crime..Before turning to the examination of the crimes, we characterise the worldwide developmentwe are witnesses in the field of the target and tool of computer crime i.e. the informationtechnologytools.23. The development of the information-technology toolsBasic conditions to the spread of the information society and at the same time itscharacterisation is the rapid growth of the number of the computers among them thoseswitched to the Internet. In 1998, the number of PC-s was estimated to 335 million. In 1999,this number grew up with 15% to 387 million. Even bigger is the growth of number ofInternet hosts: In 1998 this number was 43 and in 1999 71 million computers were switchedto Internet i.e. the growth was 65%.Internet indicators, 1999Internet Estimated PCsHosts Hosts per10’000 inhab.Users(‘000s)Users per10,000 inhab.Total(‘000s)Per 100inhab.Africa 184.726 2.1 2.655 34.6 5.877 0.9Americas 56.005.129 684.6 131.126 1.602.8 169.977 21.3USA 53.175.956 1.925.1 110.000 3.982.4 141.000 51.1Asia 4.212.751 11.8 49.234 140.9 86.562 2.5Japan 2.636.541 208.4 18.300 1.446.6 36.300 28.7Europe 10.054.738 125.9 70.255 880.0 144.460 14.6Austria 262.632 321.2 850 1.039.5 2.100 25.7Czech Republic 122.253 119.1 700 682.1 1.100 10.7France 1.233.071 209.4 5.660 961.2 13.000 22.1Poland 171.217 44.2 2.100 542.1 2.400 6.2Hungary 119’642 117.2 600 587.7 750 7.4Germany 1.635.067 199.0 15.900 1.934.8 24.400 29.7Óceania 1.368.016 455.1 6.736 2.244.7 10.195 42.7World 71’825’360 120.1 260’095 439.8 387’071 6.8Source: ITUThe number of Internet users in Europe reached 70 million in 1999. That is 27% of the wholenumber of Internet users. In Hungary the growth is a bit behind the world average: in 1998,there were 660 thousands and in 1999, 750 thousands of computers, that means 14% growth.The situation is worth concerning the Internet hosts: their number increased from 95.931 to119.642, i.e. by 25%.The market of information and telecommunication technology plays increasingly importantrole in the economy too. Its turnover grows yearly with about 150 billion Euro, and in 2000, itmay be expected to reach 1.700 billion Euro. From this market, Europe shares 32%, USA 355and Japan 10%.3Internet hosts and incomes of telecommunication marketSource: ITUThe penetration of the Internet usage created the basis to the development of European ecommercetoo, which had the turnover of two billions of Euro in 1999. In 1999, 16 millionEuropeans joined to Internet, and spent there 40 billions Euro. The income from the ecommercewill reach by 2004 6.3% of the total commerce.s. i.e. 1.6 billion of USD. Theincome from the on-line advertisement which is now 309 millions Euro by 2004 may reach8.6 billion Euro.According to market forecasts in 2004 there will be 219 millions mobile Internet users (WAPusers) in Europe and m-commerce (mobile e-commerce) will have by 2003 23.6 billions Euro.It appears from the listed data, that wider and wider strata of society get into connection withthe computer networks. .depend., .are on they mercy.. One of the most critical issues of ourdays is to create the conditions the reliable use of these tools.4. Statistical observation of computer crimeIt is not easy to observe criminal actions, as the perpetrator does everything for keepinghidden his illegal behaviour and himself. There are some special phenomena in addition to theusual distorting formal factors, making even more difficult to observe criminal actionsconnected with computer.? Clearing up and following crime connected with computers is made difficult by the factthat technology gives possibility the perpetrator to hide: the action may be committedusing the passwords and identifiers of other people. The electronic networks goingthrough state borders make possible the computer crime so that the perpetrator breaks theHungarian laws staying in other country. Moreover, some of them are non-punishableyoungsters.? For the maintenance of good reputation, the injured parties (e.g. banks) try to cover up theactions.? The novelty of the crime makes more difficult to take into consideration statistically it.Some of them got into the Criminal Code in this decade, as new statements of facts. Nounified juridical practice was shaped concerning the new criminal actions. Therefore, it isnot surprising, that there is a big latency in the field of computer crime.Proportion of Internet hosts Share from the turnover of the telecommunication marketJapan4%Europe14%Other8%USA74%Japan10%
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ying3 said on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 22:40
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