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Stefan Fafinski, IT law specialist at Leeds University law school, will deliver the BA Award lecture tomorrow at 12:00 GMT. A live webcast will be available. While the impact of file sharing technologies on the media industry is fiercely debated, the impact of computer crime on individuals arguably does not receive much attention. In his Award lecture, Stefan Fafinski looks at the impact of computer misuse on individuals.
Computer crime in Britain is covered by the Computer Misuse Act, which primarily concerns hacking - regardless of intent to facilitate a further offence, as well as malicious "modification of data", including viruses. When the Act came into force 16 years ago, these problems received extensive media attention. In the public debate surrounding the Act, 'hackers' were portrayed as 'clever', leading 'drug-based lifestyles', 'sexually inadequate', and 'often unemployed'. Today, the Act is inadequate, as many malicious acts - such as denial of service attacks - fall outside its scope and cannot be prosecuted. Moreover, its enforcement is difficult, as shown by the low number of prosecutions: only 126 prosecutions were made in its first 12 years. An aggravating factor is that many businesses dont want the publicity. All this raises raises the question of how potential victims of computer misuse can be protected, and what the impact of computer misuse on victims is. Take spam, for instance. It is estimated that 140 million users across the EU receive spam daily, 20 million of them open it, and 1 million even make a purchase. Spam plays on basic human desires: promises of instant wealth through "investment opportunities", "mortages", "419", or sexual performance with "viagra", personal appearance through "dieting", personal status with "degree certificates and branded merchandise", while your "your online bank account is at risk". One type of spam is the so-called 419 Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud, named after a section of Nigerian law. Generically, these are emails that purport to come from abroad (often Africa), where some wealth needs to be disposed of, and assistance is needed in transferring millions of dollars out of the country. This type of fraud used to be propagated by post, and then by fax. Initially, victims were targeted specifically, but now, 419-fraud is perpetrated en-masse by email. It was estimated in 2005 that the worlwide financial impact of 419 frauds came to 3000 million dollars. But what is the social impact? Overall, it is thought that 419 fraud led to eight suicides, 13,000 brankruptcies, 90,000 job-losses, while 11,000 people lost their home. More statistics can be found at www.ultrascan.nl. Another type of scam is medicine-related, where it is estimated that one in every 150 spam emails leads to a purchase. Even if we ignore the issue of counterfeit drugs, that is still highly problematic. Instead of a consultation with a doctor, a self-diagnosis takes place followed by a decision on treatment, and this without any follow-up on side-effects. There is an added danger where the direct effects of the drugs themselves cannot be monitored. With Viagra, onne would think that it should be obvious whether it is effective, but with many other drugs, such as cholesterol control drugs, the effects cannot easily be monitored. Stefan Fafinski will also talk about the motivations of perpetrators, who they are, and what can be done to provide better protection for individuals. It is important to bear in mind that technology will always evolve faster than the law, which means that to some extent computer misuse will always be ill-defined. The Internet has global reach, so computer misuse is a multi-stakeholder problem. However, a solution will only be found if sufficient awareness for the problem can be raised, and victims can make their voices heard. |
