cause messages are sent almost instantly. Many hackers also used e-mail keep up-date and to inform their customers of new information. After researching and obtaining the information they need to complete the criminal act, criminals then commit the crime. Using the Internet offers a fairly safe smokescreen which the criminals can hide. In an article by Bruce Schneirer called “Semantic Network Attacks”(2001) Schneirer writes about a forged internet wire from Emulex Corp. that dispersed false information making a business drop over 61% of its value in stocks. The perpetrator was trying to make money off the stock movements. Although this net-offender was caught rather quickly, “with better planning, a similar attack could do more damage and be more difficult to detect,” (Schneirer, 2001) anyone with a crude knowledge of computers can send out false information to companies and collect huge on the stock market. If this type of crime was perfected it would mean horror for the world stock market. Computer viruses have been a threat to people and businesses since the beginning of the computer era, but now with the use of the net, a virus can be distributed to a countless amount of people in a small amount of time. A review from the Law Review from the University of the Pacific called “Prosecuting Computer Virus Authors,” says “However, a new villain - the virus author - has surfaced, bringing a new crime into the international forum: the spread of the computer virus. Free from the fear of prosecution, the virus author feels no need to stop wreaking global havoc,” (Cesare, 2001) and because the virus is spread over the net, the author is very difficult to trace. There have been thousands of viruses spread around the world. Some of the commonly known ones are the ILOVEYOU virus, the Trojan virus and the Chernobyl virus; all can do a huge amount of harm to a computer or its user. The M...
