I. Find in the text equivalents to

Общественное право, на заре человеческого существования, преступное деяние, благодатная почва для новых преступлений, привести классификацию компьютерных преступлений, преступный умысел, получить необходимую информацию, причинить ущерб (вред), средство коммуникации, точные статистические данные, предъявить обвинение преступнику, руководители компании, бояться плохой огласки.

II. True or false

1. Today crime patterns remain the same as a couple of decades ago.

2. Criminals use computers and networks to facilitate their crimes.

3. Computer can be both the tool and the target of crime.

4. Nowadays we have complete and reliable statistics of computer crimes.

5. Some people reluctantly report to the authorities that they were targeted by cyber criminals.

6. Cyber criminals respect privacy of their victims.

III. Food for thought.

2006 Statistics

1. The USA was the target of the most DoS attacks, accounting for 54% of the worldwide total.

2. The Internet service provider (ISP) sector was the most frequently targeted by DoS attacks.

3. Financial services was the most heavily phished sector, accounting for 84 % of phishing activity.

4. The Symantec Probe Network detected 157,477 unique phishing messages.

5. 58% of all spam detected worldwide originated in the USA.

6. The home user sector was the most highly targeted sector, accounting for 86% of all targeted attacks.

7. Microsoft Internet Explorer was the most frequently targeted Web browser, accounting for 47% of all Web browser attacks.

1. Why is financial sector the most favourite target of phishers?

2. What is your attitude to spam?

3. Has home user sector remained the most vulnerable sector to malicious intruders’ attacks?

4. What is the motivation of DoS attackers?

IV. Discussion points

1. Does computer technology encourage fraud?

2. Fine or imprisonment? Should cyber criminals be more severe punished?

3. Is altering websites a serious crime?

4. Pirated software and copyright infringement: Whom does it trouble more companies or consumers?

5. Will the number of computer crimes reduce in near future?

In particular

Some forms of Internet fraud

Fraud has existed perhaps as long as or even longer than money. Any new technological change can engender new forms of fraud or other crime. As soon as the Internet and e-mail became widely used, they began to be exploited to defraud people. Internet fraud can be defined as any dishonest misrepresentation of fact intended to induce another to do or refrain from doing something which causes loss. Internet fraud results in obtaining a benefit by gaining unauthorized access, altering and deleting data, entering false data.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center, in 2006 released its latest annual report on victims' complaints received and referred to law enforcement. According to the report, internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 62.7% of referred complaints. Computer fraud is comprised to the top seven categories of complaints referred to law enforcement during the year." An increasing problem is the unauthorized use of credit card numbers and other personal data collected as part of identity theft. Let’s see what methods are used by criminals.

Phishing is a form of criminal activity characterized by attempts to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication. Phishing is typically carried out using email or an instant message, though it has more recently exploited fax. The first recorded mention of phishing is in January 1996. The term phishing was coined by crackers attempting to "fish" for accounts from unsuspecting AOL members. Ph is a common hacker replacement for f. More recent phishing attempts have started to target the customers of banks and online payment services. Recent research has shown that phishers may in principle be able to establish what bank a potential victim has a relationship with, and then send an appropriate spoofed email to this victim.

Spoofing. E-mail sent from someone pretending to be someone else is known as spoofing. Spoofing may take place in a number of ways. Common to all of them is that the actual sender's name and the origin of the message are concealed or masked from the recipient. Many, if not most, instances of e-mail fraud use at least minimal spoofing, as most frauds are clearly criminal acts. Criminals typically try to avoid easy traceability.

Identity theft. The term “identity theft” is used to describe when the means of people identification have been exploited for unlawful purposes. Many uses of term focus on the act of acquiring the personal information necessary to perpetrate a crime. The crimes include illegal immigration, terrorism, and blackmail, to mention a few. There are cases of identity cloning to attack payment systems, such as obtaining medical treatment. The min concern of consumers is financial crimes exploiting their credit worthiness to commit loan fraud, mortgage fraud, credit card fraud, commodities and services frauds.