Technologies of Electronic Crime

• NCJ Number: 190947
• Author(s): Elizabeth Montano
• Date Published: June 2001
• Length: 4 pages
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: Paper presented at the 4th National Outlook Syumposium on Crime in Australia, "New Crimes or New Responses," held in Canberra June 21-22, 2001; downloaded October 8, 2001.

Annotation

This paper provides an overview of how E-commerce technologies facilitate specific types of crime and what law enforcement must do to respond effectively to such crimes.

Abstract

E-commerce is global; accessible; automated; immediate; capable of operating without the "collateral info" relied upon in the past; and can be hidden from scrutiny through encryption. These features of E-commerce lend themselves to the commission of old scams in new ways. Although the crimes are not new, the new technologies require that old crimes be detected and investigated in new ways. Since the new technologies are global, law enforcement agencies must cooperate and work internationally. Since E-commerce is so accessible, law enforcement agencies must work with the private technology sector to improve target hardening. Because E-commerce is automated, this requires better and earlier crime detection as well as automated anticrime strategies. Because E-commerce is immediate, law enforcement agencies must improve the pace at which they work. Because anonymity serves the aims only of criminals, reliable authentication structures must be created. In all of this effort to counter crimes committed through the new cyber-age technologies, law enforcement professionals must interact with the designers of the new technologies to make them law-enforcement friendly rather than criminal-friendly.