Mary Jean Harrold 1 CS 4001

Class 25

Computer crime Assign

Term paper—due 11/20

Mary Jean Harrold 2 CS 4001

Computer Crime

Mary Jean Harrold 3 CS 4001

Why Worry About Computer Crime?

Crimes committed using computer or Internet can be more costly (monetarily) than other crimes e.g., a bank robber may get $2,500 to $5,000 on average; average loss

from computer fraud is $100,000) estimates are that computer crime costs victims in the USA at least

$5×108/year, and true value of such crime might be substantially higher Computer crimes are larger and affect more people (a hacker

breaking into an e-commerce database can steal hundreds or thousands of credit card numbers)

Computer crimes are harder to detect and trace (e.g., the anonymity of the Web)

Computing provides new challenges for prevention, detection, and prosecution; challenges that professionals will be asked to meet.

Mary Jean Harrold 4 CS 4001

Why Worry About Computer Crime?

What are some examples of computer crime of which you are aware?

Mary Jean Harrold 5 CS 4001

Hacking Discussion

Use of the word “hacker” What did the word “hacker” mean in the early days of

computing (1960-70)? How did the use of “hacker” change after 1970?

Justification of “hacking” How do hackers justify their activities? What are counterarguments to their justifications?

What are some techniques used to catch hackers? Give examples (real and recent) of a computer crime

committed by insiders (employees) in a company? What are some problems with electronic voting?

Mary Jean Harrold 9 CS 4001

Hacking Discussion (cont’d)

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement by Ken Thompson (for what is he known?) The act of breaking into a computer system has to

have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor’s house. It should not matter that the neighbor’s door is unlocked.

Write a paragraph or two. Give reasons.

Mary Jean Harrold 10 CS 4001

Hacking Discussion (cont’d)

Consider the following question:

Do hackers do public service by finding and publicizing computer security weaknesses?

Select a side and write a few because clauses.

Mary Jean Harrold 11 CS 4001

On-line Voting

Suppose you are on a consulting team to design a voting system for your state in which people will vote by logging on to a Web site. What are some important design considerations? What are some pros and cons for such a system? Overall, is it a good idea?

Mary Jean Harrold 12 CS 4001

Computer Viruses

More than 85,000 virus-type threats exist today. Complicated because there are many virus hoaxes,

which may be in the form of dire email warnings about disk-eating (or computer destroying!) attachments that may land in your inbox.

See www.sophos.com/virusinfo/ or www.ciac.org/ciac/ciac_virus_info.html

Internet hoaxes—see http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/

Mary Jean Harrold 13 CS 4001

Types of Viruses

Malicious worms (e.g., the Love Bug) that propagate using email and destroy the contents of computers.

Denial-of-service attacks; more recently there are distributed DNS attacks.

“Back-door” worms that exploit vulnerabilities to enter surreptitiously and copy private information.

Mary Jean Harrold 14 CS 4001

Class discussion for Thursday

3-minute presentations by each group 1. Handout describes situation2. Favor of criminal action; defense against criminal action

Everyone not on that issue votes for or against the person

1. Student in a course...not responsible2. Student who activated…responsible3. President of college…not responsible4. President of college’s ISP…5. Director of hospital…

Discuss