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Why 'Cyber Crime' Should Just Be Called 'Crime'

Posted by Soulskill on from the prefixes-that-have-worn-out-their-welcome dept.

netzar writes "CAUSE executive director Neil Schwartzman, in a post on CircleID, urges governments and law enforcement to treat cyber crime as what it really is: 'crime': 'When someone is mugged, harassed, kidnapped or raped on a sidewalk, we don't call it "sidewalk crime" and call for new laws to regulate sidewalks. It is crime, and those who commit crimes are subject to the full force of the law. For too long, people have referred to spam in dismissive terms: just hit delete, some say, or let the filters take care of it. Others — most of us, in fact — refer to phishing, which is the first step in theft of real money from real people and institutions, as "cyber crime." It's time for that to stop... This isn't just email. This isn't a war. This isn't "cyber." This is crime.'"

6 of 368 comments (clear)

  1. As soon as they ... by Intron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great idea. It will happen about the same time that "white collar crimes" are treated the same as mugging or burglary.

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    Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
    1. Re:As soon as they ... by RapmasterT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      and while we're at it can we get rid of the "hate" category of crime too? Personally I'm not much interested in someone's motivations for committing a crime, only the results and their actual actions. I'll even compromise and agree to ratchet the levels of punishment UP to the "hate crime" level for everything.

    2. Re:As soon as they ... by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The idea behind hate crime is that its twofold.

      1)Kill your wife/parents/lover and there's a personal reason for killing that specific person. Kill for reason of skin color or religion and it's random-- anyone in that group is a possible next target. Due to this, the killer is more dangerous to the general population than a normal killer.

      2)There was a time when white men who killed black men in the south were almost always let off, due to the prejudice of the juries. This allowed the whites to be held accountable in federal court for federal crimes, and circumvented a corrupt localized system of justice. Obviously not a good long term solution for this, but it was a necessary short term one.

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      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    3. Re:As soon as they ... by stevie.f · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Problem is, here (England) a hate crime is only when the race, religion, sexual orientation or disibility of the victim is a motivating factor.

      This makes me uncomfortable, because it makes attacking someone outside of a mosque because you have a problem with their religion somehow worse than attacking someone outside a sci-fi convention because you have a problem with geeks.

      In my mind this legitimises some kinds of hate. I'd be much happier if the whole hate crime thing was done away with, at least until someone figures out how to word it so that it's fairer and doesn't elevate only certain groups to having special 'victim' status'.

  2. Naive by loteck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We call it cyber-crime because of the special skills and knowledge required to appropriately investigate and prosecute it. I really don't want a beat cop who makes arrests for street muggings responsible for investigating high-tech crime. Specially trained members of law enforcement will probably be required to enforce especially complex types of crime.

  3. Also Naive by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Many modern criminal investigations require specialists. Rape, murder, arson, and so forth -- commonly investigated by specialists. Why should a crime that involves computers suddenly have a special category, when other forms of crime do not?

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    Palm trees and 8