Crime and Deviance in Cyberspace

Book excerpt: This volume presents the reader with an interesting and, at times, provocative selection of contemporary thinking about cybercrimes and their regulation. The contributions cover the years 2002-2007, during which period internet service delivery speeds increased a thousand-fold from 56kb to 56mb per second. When combined with advances in networked technology, these faster internet speeds not only made new digital environments more easily accessible, but they also helped give birth to a completely new generation of purely internet-related cybercrimes ranging from spamming, phishing and other automated frauds to automated crimes against the integrity of the systems and their content. In order to understand these developments, the volume introduces new cybercrime viewpoints and issues, but also a critical edge supported by some of the new research that is beginning to challenge and surpass the hitherto journalistically-driven news stories that were once the sole source of information about cybercrimes.