New and bizarre crimes have come into being with the advent of computer technology. Organized crime to has been directly involved; the new technology offers it unlimited opportunities, such as data crimes, theft of services, property-related crimes, industrial sabotage, politically related sabotage, vandalism, crimes against the individual and financially related crimes…
Theft of data, or data crime, has attracted the interest of organized criminal syndicates. This is usually the theft or copying of valuable computer grogram. An international market already exists for computerized data, and specialized fences are said to be playing a key role in this rapidly expanding criminal market. Buyers for stolen programs may range from a firm’s competitors to foreign nations.
A competitor sabotages a company’s computer system to destroy or cripple the firm’s operational ability, thus neutralizing its competitive capability either in the private or the government sector. This computer sabotage may also be tied to an attempt by affluent investors to acquire the victim firm. With the growing reliance by firms on computers for their recordkeeping and daily operations, sabotage of their computers can result in internal havoc, after which the group interested in acquiring the firm can easily buy it at a substantially lower price. Criminal groups could also resort to sabotage if the company is a competitor of a business owned or controlled by organized crime.
Politically motivated sabotage is on the increase; political extremist groups have sprouted on every continent. Sophisticated computer technology arms these groups with awesome powers and opens technologically advanced nations to their attack. Several attempts have already been made to destroy computer facility at an air force base. A university computer facility involved in national defence work suffered more than $2 million in damages as a result of a bombing.
Computer vulnerability has been amply documented. One congressional study concluded that neither government nor private computer systems are adequately protected against sabotage. Organized criminal syndicates have shown their willingness to work with politically motivated groups. Investigators have uncovered evidence of cooperation between criminal groups and foreign governments in narcotics. Criminal groups have taken attempts in assassinating political leaders…. Computers are used in hospital life-support system, in laboratories, and in major surgery. Criminals could easily turn these computers into tools of devastation. By sabotaging the computer of a life-support system, criminals could kill an individual as easily as they had used a gun. By manipulating a computer, they could guide awesome tools of terror against large urban centers. Cities and nations could become hostages. Homicide could take a now form. The computer may become the hit man of the twentieth century.
The computer opens vast areas of crime to organized criminal groups, both national and international. It calls on them to pool their resources and increase their cooperative efforts, because many of these crimes are too complex for one group to handle, especially those requiting a vast network of fences. Although criminals have adapted to computer technology, law enforcement has not. Many still think in terms of traditional criminology.
