IT Ethics and Computer Crimes

Computer and Internet Crimes

• The module aims to understand the foundations of IT ethics, principles and cultures of IT ethics, ethics, values, and vices, and the role of ethics in social community.

Types of Computer Crimes

• Child Pornography: making or distributing child pornography.
• Copyright Violation: copyright infringement occurs when there is a violation of any of the exclusive economic or moral rights granted to the copyright owner.
• Cracking: breaking or deciphering codes designed to protect data.
• Cyber Terrorism: Hacking, threats, and blackmailing towards a business or person.
• Cyberbullying or Cyberstalking: social bullying aiming to belittle another individual or group or gender-based bullying that humiliates another on the basis of perceived or actual sexual orientation and gender identity.
• Cybersquatting: setting up a domain of another person or company with the sole intention of selling it to them later at a premium price.
• Denial of Service Attack: overloading a system with so many requests it cannot serve normal requests.
• Intellectual Property Theft: includes copyright and related rights, trademarks and service marks, geographic indications, industrial designs, patents, layout designs of ICs, and protection of undisclosed information.
• Phishing: an attempt by cybercriminals posing as legitimate institutions, usually via email, to obtain sensitive information from targeted individuals.
• Slander: the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation.
• Software Piracy: the act of illegally using, copying or distributing software without ownership or legal rights.
• Spamming: sending the same message indiscriminately to large numbers of recipients on the internet.
• Spoofing: involves a cybercriminal masquerading as a trusted entity or device to get you to do something beneficial to the hacker.
• Typo Squatting: a social engineering attack that purposely uses misspelled domains for malicious purposes.
• Wiretapping: any person, not being authorized by all parties to any private communication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any device or arrangement, to secretly overhear, intercept, or record such communication.

Types of Internet Crimes

• Cyberlibel: when someone has posted or emailed something that is untrue and damaging about someone else on the internet.
• Cyberbullying: bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets, including harassment, impersonation, inappropriate photographs, and video shaming.
• Plagiarism: presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement.

This module covers the fundamentals of IT ethics, including principles, cultures, and values, as well as the role of ethics in social communities.