ICT205 Cyber Security: Alleged Offender and Cybercrimes In NSW

You have been asked to review the feasibility of ODR for this issue in NSW. Provide a review of ODR research and applications that might provide lessons for the proposed platform, and identify the likely issues that will arise if such a facility were to be developed. Five cases involving tree disputes from Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal are provided for you. From an analysis of this group identify the key issues that can predict decisions in these matters. Provide a 100-word press release summarising your report.

You are a special adviser to the federal Attorney General, who has become concerned about the number of extradition requests received from US authorities in relation to hacking or distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks allegedly carried out by young people in western Sydney. You have been asked to write a short report to brief the AG on the issues: how common are cybercrimes of this nature with the alleged offender in NSW and the target elsewhere, what normally happens in such cases, how often are extradition requests made and what happens to them? Sketch out briefly how an international cybercrime tribunal or forum might be established to deal with these matters. Provide a 100-word press release summarising your report.

Answer:

How common are cybercrimes of this nature with the alleged offender in NSW and the target elsewhere.

There have been a collection of cybercrime activities that have been common as shown by the evidence of the research that was carried out by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) here in NSW. The research portrayed that in every 5 citizens here, has his/her personal information accessed without permission. In addition to this, 10 percent of the people have experienced this over the past year (Wall, 2015). In other regions like for instance, the United Kingdom and the United States the loss suffered as a result of cybercrime activities and to be more specific on hacking ranged between a few dollars to around $310,000. It was learned that many of the people that suffer these losses get to realize them the time they review the statements for their bank accounts (Wall, 2017). Therefore, we see that these acts of cyber-crimes are more common not only in NSW but also in other countries.

Other countries across the world are suffering the same problem of cybercrimes. For instance, Finance businesses have recorded high losses that have been incurred as a result of system hacking. When a financial institution is hacked, the expected result is high loss of money. The acts of cybercrimes have become common all across the word and are at an increase because people are gaining more computer knowledge day by day (YUE, Wang & Hui, 2018). In addition to this, the unemployment rate across many countries in the world has propagated the occurrence of this acts because people need money and there are no job opportunities therefore they end up engaging in this acts (Comer, 2017).

What normally happens in such cases when cybercrimes occur?

In case somebody commits a crime over the internet, the agencies that enforce the law work in coordination with the government agencies, private corporations and internal partners (Smith, 2018). This is because the manner in which these crimes are committed is very complicated and thus they need to work together to get the hackers. The method used by the hackers in their tactics is very complicated because the software that they use are very secure in the way they hide their location and also in how they route the routes of communication aiming at evading their direction from being detected and finally commite crimes in countries where prosecution can’t be done.

To locate them, they apply the use of a combination of traditional investigative and tactics of digital forensics. Most of the attacks that are implemented by computer gangs are like the phishing scams, ransom ware, malware, and botnets. What motivates these people to engage in cybercrime activities is because they want money (Johnson, Mora & Schmidt, 2016). When incidences of crime are detected, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) does data collection from the complainant and then forwards these data to the appropriate agency that does law enforcement for such cases. To add on this, the NW3C might work with FBI to form the IC3; they offer services to the individual law enforcement agencies with the inclusion of computer forensics, preparation of materials and evidence and research analysis for using in a court of law. Leave alone the lending of investigative support to the cases of enforcing the law; training is also done to thousands of officers every year on computer forensics, financial and cybercrime investigations and also intelligence analysis. After a series of investigations, when the person that committed the crime is finally found, he/she is taken to the court of law and charged with the act of committing cybercrime in accordance to the law of the country where he committed the crime (Davidson, Lloyd & Payter, 2015).

How often extradition requests are made and what happens to them?

The occurrence of extradition depends on the number and the rate of cybercrimes that the people in a country have done. Sometime you might find that in one year, there are no extraditions but on the following year, extraditions are high for instance now when the US is asking their extradition from New South Wales that have been involved in cybercrime activities.

When there is jurisdiction occurrence, first the person is charged with or as to have convicted a criminal offense. This is because; extradition can’t be sought if the person is only a suspect. When the person charged with cybercrime is extradited to the other country, the Department of Justice in that country requests and makes sure that the affidavits that states the facts about the case, the copies of the other country’s laws in our case the United States that have been broken, the copies of the indictment / arrest warrant if it is applicable, and the summary of the relevant evidence has been prepared in the proper way. After the completion of the extradition package, it is then transferred to the state department of the United States Embassy in the foreign country and also taken to the local government (Dunkerley, 2018). If the approval of the extradition is made, the handing over of the person to the U.S. Marshals is done, where the fugitive is taken to the United States to face justice. With the time that has been given for formal request extradition, many treaties allow for provisional arrest of fugitives in cases that are urgent.

Sketch out briefly how an international cybercrime tribunal or forum might be established to deal with these matters.

The establishment of an international cybercrime tribunal for dealing with cybercrime activities can be developed by coming together of all the nations of the world and then design on the way the desire the tribunal to work. Some of the activities that can be adopted in the development process aiming to fight against cybercrime activities like distribute denial of service and hacking are like purchasing of sophisticated software that are similar to those belonging to the offenders (East, 2017). Dealing with cybercrimes and distributed denial of service requires one to have evidence of the person that is being charged. Therefore, purchasing of software for the collection of evidence is of great important. There is a need for the implementation and the maintenance of a covert and an overt presence of police on the internet. There should also be constant warnings on the internet about the potential predatory behavior, with the utilization of the appropriate Virtual Global Taskforce (Mann, Warren & Kennedy, 2018). The use of ‘deterrence initiative’ for instance, the direction of all ‘takedown’ to a site that do warning requiring the development and the installation of the required software.

Educating of people remains one of the important elements of preventing crimes over the internet. This is because many people lose a lot of money over the internet just because of lack of knowledge on how to differentiate between a trustworthy client and a non-trustworthy client over the internet and this result to them falling into the hands of scammers. By using initiatives such as the cyber safety and a program known as thinkuknow, the engagement to the community groups becomes closer (Miquelon-Weismann, 2017). Thinkuknow involves presentations by volunteers that are trained and a comprehensive website that provides a lot of information and resources. Introduction of certain themes such as ‘Have fun’, ‘Stay in control’, and ‘Report’ also can help people as they interact on the internet to enjoy themselves and to report any form of cyber insecurity to the relevant authorities. What Thinkuknow does is that it has a button that when it is pressed, it forwards the contact details to the police and this can be followed up. A program for cyber-safety awareness in schools and NSW can also be used to educate others on the cybersecurity.

conclusion

In conclusion, the cybercrimes identified here are the ones that are mostly committed by the young people in New South Wales, this report also talks about the activities that follows when a crime has been done. This involves the identification of the crime followed by the tracking of the device that was used in performing of the crime which finally narrows down to the person that committed the crime himself. This report also talks about how the extradition requests are made and the procedure that is followed in order to get the person that performed the crime and then see him face the law. The report finally talks about the things that may lead into establishment of an international cybercrime tribunal.

References

Wall, D. S. (2017). Crime, Security and Information Communication Technologies: The Changing Cybersecurity Threat Landscape and Its Implications for Regulation and Policing.

Wall, D. S. (2015). The Internet as a conduit for criminal activity.

YUE, W. T., Wang, Q., & Hui, K. L. (2018). See No Evil, Hear No Evil? Dissecting the Impact of Online Hacker Forums. MIS Quarterly.

Comer, M. J. (2017). Corporate fraud. Routledge.

Smith, R. (2018). Crime in the digital age: Controlling telecommunications and cyberspace illegalities. Routledge.

Johnson, D. A., Mora, A., & Schmidt, A. (2016). The strategic costs of torture: How enhanced interrogation hurt America. Foreign Aff., 95, 121.

Davidson, R., Lloyd, B., & Payter, A. (2015). Recent Developments in Extradition Law–Some Practical Implications. Criminal Law Review, 62, 504-521.

Dunkerley, A. W. (2018). Exploring the use of juju in Nigerian human trafficking networks: considerations for criminal investigators. Police Practice and Research, 19(1), 83-100.

East, P. (2017). Life as the Attorney-General: Being in the Right Place at the Right Time. Auckland UL Rev., 23, 37.

Mann, M., Warren, I., & Kennedy, S. (2018). The legal geographies of transnational cyber- prosecutions: extradition, human rights and forum shifting. Global Crime, 19(2), 107- 124.

Miquelon-Weismann, M. F. (2017). The convention on cybercrime: a harmonized implementation of international penal law: what prospects for procedural due process?. In Computer Crime (pp. 171-204). Routledge.