Cyberspace has been identified as one of the fastest growing sites of crime and social/moral transgression. Analyse and critically evaluate this claim. (original) (raw)

Cybercrime: The Downside of the Global Internet

Although, the Internet had existed for many decades as the ARPANET since 1969, it was only after 1991 when the British MIT professor, Sir Tim Beners-Lee, invented the World Wide Web (WWW), which also runs on the Internet that the Internet attained the heights it has to this end. This major technological breakthrough helped cement the Internet in the annals of technology history because of the way it has impacted the World in information dissemination. Today, at the click of a computer mouse, one reaches a friend or family member thousands of miles away because of this extraordinary breakthrough. However, notwithstanding these positives, our confidential files and even our individual lives have become a target for would-be criminals who have specialized in the art of hacking into people's computers or intercepting people's electronic messages. These kinds of crimes are simply termed as cybercrimes. Through cybercrimes, criminals have been able to intercept people's credit...

Abuse of Computer Networks in Cyber Space: The Role of Family in the Modern Information Age

2014

The Internet introduced a global change in the methods and speed of communication, exerting significant influence on the quality of life of a "common individual". This influence can be observed in all spheres of social life in our environment. Nevertheless, positive and constructive achievements of modern information technology also caused a series of problems related to the emergence and expansion of diverse forms of computer crime. This is a relatively new form of criminal behavior that exhibits major phenomenological diversity and that cannot be defined by a single definition. Even though certain definitions have been adopted, the phenomenon of cyber crime has appeared as a much broader concept. There are numerous documents that classify various forms of cyber crime. The fact is that uncontrolled and aimless use of the Internet implies numerous dangers. Internet abuse is often associated with pornography, which implies that various websites with illegal content also inf...

The Internet: friend, foe or target?

The prospects and perils of the Internet are discussed drawing attention to the fact that the Internet has brought us into the age of post-privacy and that some countries treat the Internet as a foe.

Reflections on the Psychology and Social Science of Cyberspace

Personal computers and computer networks began to take over offices and increasingly the public in the 1980s, but the extensive adoption of the Internet did not come about until the introduction of the first browsers and the overwhelming acceptance of Microsoft Windows and Apple systems -equipped with advanced graphics -both in the mid-1990s. The world changed in many ways for numerous people from that point, as both social institutions and individuals have witnessed and participated in another social revolution: the availability and accessibility of information of all kinds and the dramatic innovation in interpersonal communication. With the assistance and encouragement of governments and many organizations (acting out of a variety of reasons), computers, linked to ever-growing networks, penetrated the general public rather quickly and relatively easily. It did not take long before numerous technological firms around the world, acknowledging significant improvements in a broad array of personal, work-related, social, businessrelated, and government-related activities, joined a competitive race for this line of business, marked by its creativity and high potential. Accordingly, they advanced and reinforced more intensive use of computers and numerous computer-related activities. This race, in turn, brought about fantastic technological developments that have changed people's world order and lives in many ways, from seeking and using information on any topic to shopping and trading, from communication with acquaintances and with strangers to virtual dating and a love life, from learning and teaching to doing research, from helping others and being helped to improved use of medicine and other facets of health care, from entertainment and leisure to self-expression. These changes in exposure to numerous areas, patterns of behaviors, and priorities are dynamic and continuously emerging, as technology is still developing rapidly and people are not only more open to such changes, but in fact expect them.

The Experience of Cyberspace: A Survey of Internet User's experience Executive summary

The rapid evolution of technology, the development of information and the widespread use of the cyberspace have brought revolutionary changes in all daily activities Cyberspace is a place that everyday thousands of people visit and spend hours, for various reasons. According to Rice et al (2007, pg 7) 'the Internet has been a major social and technical innovation, ranging from household use of the web for electronic messaging accessing information and operating ones' financial affairs. This worldwide multimedia computer and transmission network of networks is altering access to important intellectual resources and dramatically changing lives and social arraignments in many places around world'. The life of every person changed after the Internet got a space in daily actions.

Information Society in the Context of Threats 2 to Personal Security in Cyberspace

Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization and Management Series, 2019

Significant problems associated with the development and transformation of mass media, which quickly began their expansion in cyberspace, have become one of the most important areas of human life. The author drew attention to the issues of the development of cyberspace whose specific characteristics further the development of cybermedia. She presented selected issues related to cybermedia, the impact they can play in the information society that develops relatively quickly, as well as the threats they pose to personnel security. This article aims to show human threats in the online social space in the context of personal security in cyberspace on the example of pathological behaviour in online communication based on 'pathostreaming'.

O Brave New World: The Dark Side of Cyberspace

This article focuses on some of the negative aspects of cyberspace and cyberculture. First, it offers an examination of the impact of our use of social media, and Facebook in particular, on our psyches, pointing out that users of social media can be thought of as audiences. These audiences and information about them can be sold to marketers and advertisers. Next, it offers a case study of a widespread social problem in Japan, more than a million media-obsessed Japanese young men (and some young women), the hikikomori, who shut themselves off from society for months or years at a time. This is followed by a discussion of the impact of mobiles, primarily smartphones, on American adolescents, some of whom text one hundred messages a day to their friends. The effects of the enormous amount of face-time young people spend with screens-around ten hours per day-are also considered. Finally, there is an examination of the impact that Amazon.com, the leading e-commerce Internet site, has had on American shopping practices and American culture and society. The article concludes with a discussion of the work of Hubert Dreyfus about some negative effects of the Internet and, by implication, cyberspace and cyberculture, which, he argues, drain life of meaning.

Our moral condition in cyberspace

2000

Some kinds of technological change not only trigger new ethical problems, but also give rise to questions about those very approaches to addressing ethical problems that have been relied upon in the past. Writing in the aftermath of World War II, Hans Jonas called for a new "ethics of responsibility," based on the reasoning that modern technology dramatically divorces our moral condition from the assumptions under which standard ethical theories were first conceived. Can a similar claim be made about the technologies of cyberspace? Do online information technologies so alter our moral condition that standard ethical theories become ineffective in helping us address the moral problems they create? I approach this question from two angles. First, I look at the impact of online information technologies on our powers of causal efficacy. I then go on to consider their impact on self-identity. We have good reasons, I suggest, to be skeptical of any claim that there is a need for a new, cyberspace ethics to address the moral dilemmas arising from these technologies. I conclude by giving a brief sketch of why this suggestion does not imply there is nothing philosophically interesting about the ethical challenges associated with cyberspace.