Legal Approaches to Cybercrime

[mikesgroovin]

What sort of information are you looking for? Cases? Penalties? Typical Law? Writing a report on this general topic as an assignment could get boring and allow people to fall asleep. If you want to keep people interested, you may want to consider narrowing down your focus a little.

 

[mikesgroovin]

In most of these cases, it's a typical Civil (not criminal) suit that is started. Usually ending in a strong case that is settled outside of court. Usually, the plantiff is just asking for injunctive relief (In simple terms, "Please stop") followed with a sum of money to cover legal fees along with relief from damages...if any. Typically, you'll see these cases drag on for a couple of years from the point of the originating offense. The plantiff will most likely hire someone outside of the targeted network team to investigate too....3rd parties have an objective point of view while investigating the forensics.

Fly a couple searches by google containing "Civil Suit" "Injunctive Relief" "Unauthorized Computer Network Access" all in the similar searching patterns.

 

[Nitestick]

are you after information about how cybercrime can be fought USING LEGAL METHODS, because there are some illegal approaches that have been taken to gather information to prosecute a criminal. or do you think the question is more about the type of laws against computer crimes and how they are prosecuted?

 

[Nitestick]

well ok one method i know of is FBI agents pose as hackers in chat rooms etc and try to set up a friendship with a suspected hacker. they then talk privately with them and try to get them to reveal proof of their exploits so they can be charged. perhaps its a bit unethical but not illegal as far as i know. i might not be of much help given i'm in a different nation with different laws

 

[horndude]

^^sting operations or the internet equivalent of wiretapping

look up findlaw on google, I think its findlaw.com and do a search there, then goto the US govt's website for the attorney general and also look up the penalties under the US CFR's---> there are specific laws these days for system intrusion, defacing websites, data theft, etc etc. Most are fairly broad in nature and still going thru the process of being tweaked thru their usage in the court system itself--laws do get changed over time, precedents get set which define usual penalties and whats expected.

Id look up Kevin Mitnick as well if your not familiar with his case or history. Some of the other notable hackers stories will lead you to other avenues of info.

Case files and transcripts of public trials are public domain and can often be had for free or for the cost of making a copy. Locally, federal case histories and filings are $1.00 per page, but can be had online for free once registered with the federal court.

Alot of this you can do online, but your public library is a good source too.