Computer Crime

Computer Crime


 A young man sits illuminated only by the light of a computer screen.  His

fingers dance across the keyboard.  While it appears that he is only word

processing or playing a game, he may be committing a felony.


 In the state of Connecticut, computer crime is defined as: 53a-251.  Computer

Crime

 (a) Defined.  A person commits computer crime when he violates any of the

provisions of this section.

 (b)  Unauthorized access to a computer system.  (1) A person is guilty of the

computer crime of unauthorized access to a computer system when, knowing that he

is not authorized to do so, he accesses or causes the be accessed any computer

system without authorization...

 (c)  Theft of computer services.  A person is guilty of the computer crime o f

theft of computer services when he accesses or causes to be accessed or

otherwise uses or causes to be used a computer system with the intent to obtain

unauthorized computer services.

 (d)  Interruption of computer services.  A person is guilty of the computer

crime of interruption of computer services when he, without authorization,

intentionally or recklessly disrupts or degrades or causes the disruption or

degradation of computer services or denies or causes the denial of computer

services to an authorized user of a computer system.

 (e)  Misuse of computer system information.  A person is guilty of the computer

crime of misuse of computer system information when: (1) As a result of his

accessing or causing to be accessed a computer system, he intentionally makes or

causes to be made an unauthorized display, use, disclosure or copy, in any form,

of data residing in, communicated by or produced by a computer system.


 Penalties for committing computer crime range from a class B misdemeanor to a

class B felony.  The severity of the penalty is determined based on the monetary

value of the damages inflicted.  (2)


 The law has not always had much success stopping computer crime.  In 1990 there

was a nationwide crackdown on illicit computer hackers, with arrests, criminal

charges, one dramatic show-trial, several guilty pleas, and huge confiscations

of data and equipment all over the USA.


 The Hacker Crackdown of 1990 was larger, better organized, more deliberate, and

more resolute than any previous efforts. The U.S. Secret Service, private

telephone security, and state and local law enforcement groups across the

country all joined forces in a determined attempt to break the back of

America's electronic underground. It was a fascinating effort, with very mixed

results.


 In 1982, William Gibson coined the term "Cyberspace".  Cyberspace is defined as

"the "place" where a telephone conversation appears to occur.  Not inside your

actual phone, the plastic device on your desk...  The place between the phones.

The indefinite place out there." (1, p. 1)


 The words "community" and "communication" share the same root.  Wherever one

allows many people to communicate, one creates a community.  “Cyberspace” is as

much of a community as any neighborhood or special interest group.  People will

fight more to defend the communities that they have built then they would fight

to protect themselves.


 This two-sided fight truly began when the AT&T telephone network crashed on

January 15, 1990.


 The crash occurred due to a small bug in AT&T's own software.  It began with a

single switching station in Manhattan, New York, but within ten minutes the

domino effect had brought down over half of AT&T's network.  The rest was

overloaded, trying to compensate for the overflow.


 This crash represented a major corporate embarrassment.  Sixty thousand people

lost their telephone service completely.  During the nine hours of effort that

it took to restore service, some seventy million telephone calls went

uncompleted.


 Because of the date of the crash, Martin Luther King Day (the most politically

touchy holiday), and the absence of a physical cause of the destruction, AT&T

did not find it difficult to rouse suspicion that the network had not crashed

b
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