Investigating the Information Superhighway: Global Views, Local Perspectives

• NCJ Number: 162460
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1995) Pages: 311-321
• Author(s): G Z Heuston
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 11 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article defines and characterizes the outward "landscape" of the Internet; assesses the Internet's impact on the criminal justice system; and discusses the basic policing skills, training, and development of the resources necessary to establish an effective enforcement presence and response in cyberspace.

Abstract

The Internet is a matrix of interconnected computer systems, organized in a hierarchy composed of backbones and of mid-level and high-level networks. The Net, the foundation of worldwide computer networking, has grown from approximately 7 million users in 1991 to more than 35 million in 1995. The efficiency, swiftness, and sophistication of criminal activity on the Net will increase in direct proportion to the technology that facilitates it. In its malicious form, data exploitation provides the means to disrupt, steal, and destroy. A computer-driven research project or bank account that is connected to the Internet can be targeted, exploited, and gutted faster than the time required to detect, define, and articulate the violation in a warrant. By refining and exercising the fundamental techniques of investigative work and applying them to relationships on the Net, a well-grounded human interface will be achieved between the official quarters of society and the ethereal ("anything goes") elements of cyberspace. The criminal justice education process must develop a working knowledge of the Net by going hands-on as much as possible and identify the location, nature, and scope of criminal conduct. Through this process, the baseline perspective and understanding needed to gauge the severity of cyber-crime can be developed. The mission is to keep the threat posed by crime on the Internet as thinly veiled as possible. Once this mission is achieved, criminal enterprise on the Net can be prosecuted, neutralized, or prevented by augmenting investigative skills. 32 references