Virtual Crime - Essay Example

Ibrahim’s Blogs > Virtual Crime > What is Virtual Crime? What is Virtual Crime and How Prevalent is it? Monday 10th May Virtual crime is a real problem nowadays. The same crimes that occur in the ‘real’ world also take place in virtual communities. These include hate crimes, racial or religious prejudice, and bullying as well as fraud, theft, rape, murder, and so on. “Unfortunately this is becoming a common experience for many individuals who engage in online media, like interactive gaming communities.” (Indalecio, 2010) To give some examples, Tennesen (2009) describes two types of virtual crime, namely theft and rape, the former of which led to murder in the real world. A Chinese gamer named Qiu Chengwei who acquired a (virtual) sword while playing Legend of Mir 3 online. He let a friend borrow it, but the friend then sold it online for $800. Unfortunately, there was nothing the police could do for Qiu because there are no laws against it. So Qiu took the matter into his own hands and killed the thief. The virtual rape incident occurred with a Belgian user of Second Life who approached the Second Life Bar Association for help. However, again nothing could be done because there are no laws apply to computer created characters. The crime of rape is not a recent phenomenon. One of the earliest rapes in a virtual community happened in Village Voice in 1993, which was a text-based community. A certain hacker took over control of some of the avatars that then went on to commit both explicit and violent acts online. This incident was highlighted in a conference in 1994 at New York University. Eventually, the hacker’s account was simply cancelled, but the damage had been done and no physical reprimand took place. To give an idea of the scale of the problem, a study in Taiwan for example, revealed that in the space of just two years, “the numbers of theft, frauds, robberies, counterfeited documents, vandalisms, threats and illegal gambling cases from online gaming have increased to 1300 cases from 55…” (Chen et al., 2009). The researchers also note that these network-related crimes are increasing rapidly, while at the same time the average age of players is decreasing. In short, crime in virtual communities is fast becoming a reflection of crime in our own real communities. Comments | Previous | Next | Contact Ibrahim’s Blogs > Virtual Crime > Vulnerability of Virtual Communities What Makes Virtual Communities Vulnerable to Crime? Tuesday 11th May 2010 In this blog, I attempt to answer the question how and why virtual communities allow crime to proliferate - without discussing regulation (or the lack thereof), which will be tomorrow’s topic. In other words, what is it about the nature of the environment of virtual communities that makes this kind of activity possible? One reason for the proliferation of money related crime is that as virtual communities have evolved, so too has the economic development of those communities. Some virtual communities are now able to allow real financial transactions to be conducted. Therefore, it is understandable that some opportunists would take advantage of the newly created communities by committing as much fraud or other crime as possible. Criminals of all types also somehow feel ‘safer’ in committing the crime because it takes place at a ‘distance’, in another realm in which they are not physically present so cannot by physically held to account. Thus, the crime can very easily be committed anonymously. Other reasons besides this and the lack of regulation and related legislation are the lack of privacy and security measures. Therefore, it is not only the lack of legal controls but also the lack of technological controls. It is possible to suspend accounts for example, but it is also equally easy for people to create new ones with new identities for their avatars. Moreover, the vulnerability is compounded by the fact that there is not one single but numerous virtual communities within this single physical world. This poses a challenge to law enforcement agencies (Cohen 2010). If we consider the types of individuals that are most vulnerable, then these are groups that are similarly vulnerable in the real world, such as the homosexual community (Indalecio, 2010). Tennesen (2010) also mentions newcomers who linger too long at the portals and are preyed upon by ‘griefers’ and ‘goon squads’, or don’t know how to press the ‘no’ button when confronted with sexual intent. Comments | Previous | Next | Contact Ibrahim’s Blogs > Virtual Crime > Regulating Virtual Crime Regulating Virtual Crime Wednesday 12th May 2010 A statement on whether or not to regulate virtual crime was clearly expressed at the outset by John Perry Barlow, a cyber activist from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in 1996: “I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear...” (Hutton, 2009: 192) This amounted to a declaration of independence for cyberspace, and pretty much remains the situation today. In Second Life for example, users are provided with “a series of generic ‘terms of service’ and codes of conduct, yet place(s) the bulk of responsibility on individual users or groups to report misbehaviour or develop their own behavioural codes, enforcement procedures and punishments suited to their particular needs” (Jackson, 2010). In other words, although some form of stipulations are made; the onus is largely on individual users or groups to regulate their own virtual community even to the extent of enforcing and punishing. There are not even any guidelines issued by the makers of Second Life. Andrea Vanina Arias (2007) from a university law school, who notes that virtual worlds are unregulated, says there is a desperate need for regulation, especially to control virtual theft. She points out that there are two legal complications: (1) establishing in whose territory the crime took place, and (2) in the case that the thief is a foreigner, in obtaining jurisdiction. Furthermore, there is the obstacle of identifying the perpetrator in the first place. She suggests that crime is the same irrespective of where it takes place, so although there are some difficulties, the law can still be applied by reinterpreting existing laws. At present then, there are no equivalents of laws, police or courts. The only means of regulation are the initial terms of service the user agrees to when joining the virtual community, and perhaps the conscience of individuals to mature and behave themselves online for the sake of a peaceful life for all of virtual humanity. Comments | Previous | Next | Contact References Arias, Andrea Vanina. 2007. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Swords and Armor: Regulating the Theft of Virtual Goods. In Leon. 2007. Policing virtual crime. Sox First. http://www.soxfirst.com/50226711/policing_virtual_crime.php [Accessed 12 May 2010]. Chen, Ying-Chieh; Chen, Patrick, S.; Song, Ronggong & Korba, Larry. 2009. 131 Online Gaming Crime and Security Issue – Cases and Countermeasures from Taiwan. Scientific Commons. http://en.scientificcommons.org/50778672 [Accessed 10 May 2010]. Cohen, Charles. 2010. Investigating Real Crimes in Virtual Worlds. ISS World. Online Webinar held on 6 May 2010. http://www.issworldtraining.com/ISS_WEBINARS/investigating-real-crimes.htm [Accessed 11 May 2010]. Hutton, Christopher. 2009. Language, meaning and the law. Edinburgh University Press. Indalecio, Tina. 2010. Homophobia in Virtual Communities: Hate is Hate, regardless of the environment. Psychology Today, 29 March 2010. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/curious-media/201003/homophobia-in-virtual-communities [Accessed 10 May 2010]. Jackson, Anna. 2010. Regulation in a Virtual World – Second Life. CyberLaw Australia. http://cyberlaw.org.au/2010/02/28/regulation-in-a-virtual-world/ [Accessed 12 May 2010]. Tennesen, Michael. 2009. Avatar Acts: Why Online Realities Need Regulation. Scientific American Magazine, July 2009. Read More