11 - The Future of Computer Crime

Summary

The previous chapter discussed computer crime but its subject was metaphor. This time it is crime.

THE PAST AS PROLOGUE

In the early years, computers were large stand-alone machines; most belonged to governments, large firms, or universities. Frequently they were used by those organizations to control important real-world actions – writing checks, keeping track of orders, delivering goods. The obvious tactic for computer criminals was to get access to those machines and change the information they contained – creating fictitious orders and using them to have real goods delivered, arranging to have checks written in payment for nonexistent services, or, if the computer was used by a bank, transferring money from other people's accounts to their own.

As time passed, it became increasingly common for large machines to be accessible from offsite over telephone lines. That was an improvement from the standpoint of the criminal. Instead of having to gain admission to a computer facility – with the risk of being caught – he could access the machine from a distance, evading computer defenses rather than locked doors.

While accessing computers to steal money or stuff was the most obvious form of computer crime, there were other possibilities. One was vandalism. A discontented employee or ex-employee could crash the firm's computer or erase its data. But this was a less serious problem with computers than with other sorts of machines. If a vandal smashes your truck, you have to buy another truck.