More Change in the Organization of Thieving

This paper is primarily concerned urith criminal activities in the publicly accessible areas of the Internet known as newsgroups. Findings are presented from a small scale exploratory study of two Internet newsgroups and a tentative model of the structure of these newsgroups is proposed. Members of both newsgroups disseminated information and products to those who might wish to commit crimes. One newsgroup focused upon hacking encrypted satellite television services and the other was a locksmithing group with members interested in picking locks and understanding more about safes and other security devices. The Internet is a particularly effective medium for criminal recruitment and the dissemination of criminal techniques. Whilst it is possible that it will bring an increase in crime and create new problems for those concerned with crime control and criminality prevention, it is too early to tell whether the Internet or high technology crime will cause major problems for law and order in the future. However, with the expansion of the Net, various NetCrimes may become high volume crimes. If this happens, existing approaches for dealing with and seeking to understand the reasons for high volume crime will have to be widened and new ones developed to meet the challenge of crimes facilitated by, or taking place in, a radically different environment. Perhaps the most important theme to emerge from this study is the susceptibility of high-technology devices, such as smart-cards, to ingenious or systematic hacking attempts. Moreover, once 'cracked', rapid dissemination via the Internet of a new security breach can, in a matter of hours, render obsolete previously crime proof systems.