Internet Crime Schemes: The New Technology of Crime

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Internet Crime Schemes The New Technology of
Crime

• Professor Byrne
• Technology and the Criminal Justice System

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Techno-Crime

• Advances in both hard and soft technology have
  not been restricted to the criminal justice
  systems response to crime
• these advances have resulted in new opportunities
  for crime,
• new forms of criminality,
• new techniques for committing crime, and
• the creation of new categories of both offenders
  and victims.

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Techno-Criminals

• Exploring the impact of technology on criminal
  opportunity    (e.g. new Drugs/new crimes the
  internet and criminal opportunity)
• New forms of criminality (e.g. internet scams and
  sex crimes)
• New techniques for committing crimes through
  advances in hard and Soft technology (e.g.
  computer software programs, pirating, firearms)

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New categories of offenders and victims

• New Offenders

• New Victims

• New types of sex crime offenderspornography,solic
  itation, trafficking
• New types of stalking and Harrassment sexting,
  email monitoring
• New types of drug offenders prescription drugs,
  date rape drugs

• New categories of Sex crime victims
• New categories of Stalking Victims
• New categories drug-related victimization

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Internet Crime Schemes An Overview of Crime
Types and Techniques
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Auction Fraud

• Misinterpretation of a product or non-delivery of
  products through web

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Counterfeit Cashiers Check

• Targets individuals using internet classified ads
• An interested party located outside the U.S.
  contacts seller
• Check is for more than specified amount and
  seller is told to send check back for difference
  after it clears
• Check turns out fraudulent and victim is
  responsible for sum of check

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Credit Card Fraud

• Unauthorized use of credit/debit cards or card
• Card numbers stolen from unsecure website or as
  part of identity theft scheme
• Victim generally lose between 5,000-20,000

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Debt Elimination

• Participant sends 1-2k along with specifics of
  loan information, and power of atty to make
  decisions over house deed
• Participant then pays another of total debt
• Bonds and promissory notes issued to participants
  true lenders
• Potential risk of ID theft immense because all
  personal info is released

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Employment/Business Opportunities

• Foreign based companies contact via employment
  websites for work from home
• They hire you, get all personal info, explain you
  will be paid via U.S. creditor that works with
  the company
• A check comes higher than salary permits employee
  is asked to deposit the check into personal
  account and wire back the rest.
• Check is fraudulent

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Escrow Services Fraud

• Wary internet auction participant is persuaded to
  use third party escrow account
• Perpetrator has compromised a true escrow website
  and creates a similar looking site
• Victim sends payment, never sees product

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ID Theft

• Individuals give personal information in the
  belief it is for legitimate business purpose, in
  response to email looking to update billing or
  membership info, or job hiring
• Often use for further internet crime
• In 2004, 3 of households in U.S. had at least
  victim in in previous 6 months (ncjrs)

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Internet Extortion

• Hacking into controlling various industry
  databases
• Ask for funds in return for releasing control
  back to the company
• Often threats of compromising consumer information

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Investment fraud

• Using false claims to solicit investments, loans,
  forged or counterfeit securities

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Lotteries

• Contacted via email that person has won large
  lump sum payment from lottery
• The winner must pay fee, 1-5k to initiate
  process, more fees once process has begun

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Nigerian Letter/ 419

• Victim is contacted via email to give opportunity
  to share in of millions of to place money in
  overseas bank accounts
• Victim is knowingly involving self in crime
  unknowing the irony
• Victim is asked to send money in installments for
  variety of reasons
• Millions of dollars are lost annually

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Phishing/Spoofing

• Emails are sent appearing to be from legitimate
  business in attempts to divulge personal info
• Directs user to website which is fraudulent but
  appears to be legitimate
• 176 unique phishing attacks in Jan. 2004

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Ponzi/Pyramid

• Investors are promised high return on
  investments, no investments are made
• Early investors are paid with fund received from
  later investors
• System collapses and lose investment

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Reshipping

• Subject is hired as a reshipper for employment
  individual divulges personal information
• Schemer opens credit in victims
• Victim receives products that were bought with
  his/her credit (unknowingly)
• Victim reships products as instructed in hiring

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SPAM

• Bulk email act as a vehicle for accessing
  computers and servers transmitting viruses and
  Botnets

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Third Party Receiver of Funds

• Job sites solicit assistance from U.S. citizens
• Foreign web based entrepreneurs explain they
  cannot receive funds for their online business
  because their foreign base
• Victims sets up account to receive funds and then
  forwards it overseas
• U.S. citizens receives funds from victim and
  forwards overseas and becomes victim as well

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Crime Prevention

• Six Social-Engineering Strategies
• Target Removal
• Target Devaluation
• Target Insulation
• Offender Incapacitation
• Offender Exclusion
• Offense, Offender, and Target Identification

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Target Removal

• The logic of prevention is clearest and most
  effective when a target is removed. Something
  that is not there cannot be taken.
• Some Examples
• The move toward a cashless society is one example
  of target removal.
• Furniture built in to the wall cannot be stolen,
  and that bolted or welded to the floor is
  unlikely to be.
• A number of urban schools have created dress
  codes banning signs of gang affiliation and
  expensive clothes and jewelry

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Target Devaluation

• The goal of target devaluation is to reduce or
  eliminate the value of a potential target to
  anyone but authorized users.
• Examples of devalued targets include products
  that self-destruct (some car radios when tampered
  with) or that leave dear proof of theft
  (exploding red dye packs that stain money taken
  in bank robberies).
• There is a device that, via cellular phone, can
  remotely cut off the engine of a stolen car.
  Another system, called Auto Avenger, is triggered
  if the door is opened while the engine is
  running. If not disengaged by a hidden switch,
  the engine will shut down after a few minutes and
  the system tells the thief he has fifteen seconds
  to get out or face a 50,000-volt shock.

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Target Insulation

• Target insulation is probably among the oldest of
  techniques for preventing violations
• We can separate perimeter-maintaining strategies
  such as fences, walls, moats, guards, and guard
  dogs from more specific protections such as
  safes, chastity belts, and placing goods in
  locked cases, chaining them to immovable objects,
  and hiding them.
• "Skywalks" linking downtown buildings shield
  their occupants from life on the street.

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Offender Incapacitation

• Offender incapacitation renders the potential
  offender harmless.
• There are a variety of "immobilizers,"
  "restrainers," and "containers" that seek to
  prevent violations by weakening the potential
  offender's will or ability to commit the offense.
  
• psychosurgery for the violent, literal or
  chemical castration for sex offenders, and the
  practice in some Middle Eastern countries of
  cutting off the hands of pickpockets. Excessively
  aggressive behavior may be treated with
  tranquilizers. Drugs such as Depo-Provera may be
  used to reduce the sex drive.

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Offender Exclusion

• offender exclusion is the opposite of target
  insulation. The offender, rather than the
  potential target, is restricted.
• In short, the goal of offender exclusion is to
  keep potential offenders away from persons or
  environments that may tempt them to commit
  violations.
• Capital punishment is the most extreme form of
  this strategy.

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Examples of Offender Exclusion

• Other examples are exile, prison, curfews, and
  mobility restrictions (such as house arrests or
  restraining orders).
• At the group level, the creation of red light and
  drug districts away from residential areas (as in
  Amsterdam and Zurich) is also based on the idea
  of exclusion.
• Electronic location devices have recently made
  individual exclusion easier.
• the ultimate exclusion may be genetic screening
  persons believed to have a biological
  predisposition to undesirable behavior simply
  never appear-they aren't born. This screening
  could be voluntary or mandatory.

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Offense, Offender, and Target Identification

• The goal of identification is to document the
  occurrence of the violation and identify or even
  trap the violator.
• Various sensors and alarms fit here.
• Another expanding area involves immobilization or
  seizure strategies.
• One system involves a super-glue that spreads
  onto the floor after an explosion. Persons may be
  able to get into a building, but the human
  flypaper makes it impossible for them to get out.
  

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Other Examples of Identification Strategies

• A more general form of identification is the
  stigmatic mark of the "scarlet letter," which
  gives evidence of past violations.
• In some jurisdictions convicted drunk drivers
  must have special identifying license plates or
  signs on their cars. The requirement that
  individuals carry their records, or that these be
  checked, is equivalent.
• In some jurisdictions sex offenders are required
  to take out newspaper ads accompanied by
  photographs with warnings that they have been
  convicted of particular crimes or their pictures
  may be prominently displayed around playgrounds.
• There is a proposal to electrically shock those
  under house arrest if they attempt to leave and,
  if they succeed in leaving, to increase the
  voltage the farther they stray