Cyber Stalking- Mary’s Case

Write an essay on Forensic Investigation in Cyber Crime.

In the recent years, the technological developments and enhancements have acted as a contributing factor in number of cases. But with these elevating numbers of cases of developments increase in the number of cases of major cyber crimes can also be noticed. In this regard one may expect to view cases of justice in relation of these major cases of injustice. It is required to be mentioned over here that due to these technological enhancements, the job of the forensic interrogators are becoming difficult as well (Kallenbach & Sam, 2013). The reason behind this being the fact that, it is the responsibility of the professionals to bring out the fact and highlight upon the finding so that the crime can be produced in front of the court and achieve justice, but due to the technological enhancements it is becoming difficult on the part of the forensic interrogators to bring out the truth. In this context Mary’s Case can be referred.

Mary was a student of a public university in Australia. She was in her late twenties. Suddenly she started receiving emails and messages that contained sexual elements and statements. Due to this, she took help from her parents. From the received messages it could be comprehended that the sender was well aware of her surrounding, close people and the university that she attended. But, from the mails and the messages that she received, the identity of the sender could not be traced. Her father became concerned for the fact that, the sender might be using personally identifiable information that are available regarding Mary on internet he did an online research. With the help of this research it is revealed to him that in number of in number of posting on erotic sites, comments that mentioned Mary by name were present. It is mentionable here that, it seemed to them that these websites were hosted overseas. In such situation her parents was of the opinion that police lacked the effectiveness or capacity to deal with the situation (Brown1, 2015). Thus in their opinion, the police were incapacity to handle the situation and so it was out of their control. On the other hand, Mary was naturally very embarrassed of the whole situation and was of the perception that the whole situation was not serious enough that required to be reported.

Concept of Cyber Crime

In order to perform any form of forensic investigation regarding online crime it is of vital importance to have a clear idea of the concept of cyber crime. There exist different notions among criminologist, police, lawyers and the professionals regarding the perception or the concept of cyber crime. On the basis of the legal instrument or organization that explains concept of cyber crime the definition varies. The contrast in the concept of cyber crime can be noticed form the explanations as provided by Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC). In the opinion of ACPO, in e-Crime, involvement of the use of internet technology can be noticed in the completion of a crime. On the contrary, AIC is of the opinion that, e-crime is a usual form of crime like any other crime in which data storage or communications device is used in order to commit a crime. Thus on a general and broader perspective, cyber crime is the performance of criminal activities in the completion of which cyber domain is associated. From the above made discussion it can be commented that, in order investigate case like that of Mary’s case it is essential to determine that aspects like committing the crime with the help of ICT, the activity was performed in such a manner so as to inflict harm against the person or organization, the inflicted harm is of such a nature that could cause a threat to the targeted person’s owned tangible or intangible properties and under the jurisdiction of the accused or victim the action is criminalized. In context of Mary’s case, it can be noticed that the mails and messages send to her involves the use of ICT, it attempted at affecting her image due to which, under her right or jurisdiction it is criminalized, consequently clearly reflecting the fact that cyber crime has been committed in this case (Gerdes, 2009).

In Mary’s case the ethical dimension lies on the fact that Mary, who is the victim in this case avoids filing a case against the criminal. Ethically she was supposed to lodge a complaint against such criminal behavior. But because of her negligence and embarrassment from the whole situation she avoids doing so, which is ethically wrong. Similarly, when she took help from her parents, it was their duty to guide her to take the right and strong step against such crimes, which they did not perform as well (Overill, 2004). It was ethically wrong in this case because posting sexually explicit elements against an individual without his or her consent as in case of Mary, causes in affecting their image adversely and are also reasons for mental trauma. Most important among all the aspects, the criminal who committed the crime did not only perform a legally wrong act but it was ethically also unjust which required taking steps against.

Legal and Ethical Dimensions in Cyber Crime

There are number of legal dimensions that are open to Mary which she could have explored in such a situation some of those options are- taking steps under The Computer Misuse Act 1990, Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, Data Protection Act, Criminal Code Act 1995 etc (Kallenbach & Sam, 2013).

Unlike any usual investigation where evidences are gathered after the occurrence of the on the part of the police, in case of cyber crime, investigators are required to trace back communications to a source and retrieve information regarding the communication. In case of investigation of such cases, identifying individuals who are using a domain name and IP address at a given point of time is the primary stage of investigation in such cases on the part of investigators. Not only that, assuming that an individual is performing the role of forensic investigator in Mary’s case, he or she may traffic data, subscriber data, content data from the service provider along with that MAC address of the computer user may also be collected by the investigator with the help of which the criminal can be easily identified. Thus, by securing data from the criminal’s used physical devises in order to certify to the subscriber, content and transitional data the forensic investigator can create a correlation between the crime and he criminal (Reyes, 2007). In Mary’s case, if the investigator could successfully collect the above mentioned data then identification of the culprit could have been simple and easy that could enable her to get the required justice.

The entire process of data and information collection regarding the criminal can be more effective and easy on the part of the forensic investigators by the incorporation of number of tools and technologies which have become available to them because of the technological enhancements. The some of the available tools and technologies are- Remote Administrator Tools (RAT), use keystroke loggers which would contribute in monitoring keyboard entries, installing cameras in order to keep a track of passwords and physically link activities with a particular user, and activate “packet sniffers” which would contribute in preventing communications and collect information regarding a specific network. Incorporation of the DNA technology while performing forensic technology can also be a helpful in revealing the facts during the investigation.

Offending with the help of technology

Technological enhancements are changing the nature of crimes that are committed across the globe. Moreover, this technology gives the crime a transnational feature. As a result of which it becomes difficult on the part of the existing legal frame work to deal with the nature of occurrence of these committed crimes. The reason being the fact that, there exist numbers of extraterritorial legal acts for these crimes, but turns out to be ineffective because during the processing of these cases, the criminal may be arrested under one jurisdiction while under the provisions of another country the  acquired digital evidences may be required to be processed that makes the entire process complicated. In Mary’s case, the presence of transnational elements can be clearly noticed. The cyber technology provides the criminals with feature of anonymity due to which it becomes difficult to trace them and provide the victims with justice in spite of the fact that legal proceeding in these cases are very inexpensive. As it can be seen in Mary’s case that her father could easily perceive the fact on the basis of the research, the crime was being committed from some other nation. This fact made it difficult on their part in indentifying the culprit and taking proper step to achieve justice. It is mentionable here that the technology acts as  a web in connecting one country with another which facilitates the occurrence of these form of crime and on the part of the performer of the crimes, as compared to the usual nature of crime, they implement a different strategies and techniques for the performance of these criminal behavior (Bryant, 2008).

Data collection in cyber crime

In order to gather evidences, reconstruct events along with it fulfill other requirements that are essential in a forensic investigation there are number of tactics that could be implemented. Among those number of tactics, Evidence flow model could be help. It can act as a contributing factor in not just preserving or examining digital evidences (Nykodym, Taylor, & Vilela, 2005). It is helpful in complete explanation of the entire process of flow of information while performing an investigation in cyber crime. It elaborates the flow of information of since the time when the investigation is alerted till the investigators successfully reaches a conclusion. With the help of this model at each step of investigation appropriate management can be implemented in terms of the handling the evidences or the interactions which occurs that are related to the investigation. Thus, the entire case can be dealt effectively, along with the effective performance of the duties on the part of each investigators and analyze the availed data appropriately which leads in reaching to the right conclusion of the case.

The first step is verification in which it is determined whether the reported case has actually taken place or not. This step acts as an edifice for the further proceeding, identifying, collecting and preserving the data. This step is followed by system description in which data are gathered related to the specific case. In order to begin gathering data in this stage it is required to begin taking notes and convey and describe the chosen system in order to analyze the evidences. The next step is evidence acquisition. In this step, the sources of data are identified; followed by acquiring volatile as well as non-volatile data; verify the authenticity of the acquired data and assure their possession. Time analysis is its following step in which investigation is started and analysis of the acquired information are done forensic lab.  This step is followed by media and artifact analysis in which relevant questions are tried to be solved and answered. Byte search is its next step which is followed by data recovery. In the data recovery stage, from the collected files, efforts will be made to recover data. This final stage is reporting results in which one is required to report the result of the result of the analysis (ROCHA, 2014). 

In the conclusion it can be stated that there are number of aspects that are required to be kept in mind while dealing with a cyber crime especially if it is a transnational case. Cyber technology acts like a web that connects every nation with one other. As a result of these developments on one side it has become easier for the researcher to analyze these cases on the other hand it facilitates these crimes as well as it helps the criminals in getting an anonymous identity which makes it difficult on the part of the investigators to identify them. Most importantly, all the incorporation of these technologies become futile if the victim do not report against such cases as it can be seen in Mary’s case. Then not only the culprit goes away unpunished but these technological developments and laws against such cases become meaningless. So, on a fundamental level it is essential to report such cases which may result in taking effective steps against such cases and in turn results in the elimination of occurrence of such cases (Katos & Bednar, 2008).

References

Brown1, S. (2015). International Journal of Cyber Criminology – Vol 8 Issue 2 June- December 2014. Cybercrimejournal.com. Retrieved 21 May 2016, from https://www.cybercrimejournal.com/

Bryant, R. (2008). Investigating digital crime. Chichester, England: J. Wiley & Sons.

Cyber Crime: Critical View. (2016). IJSR, 5(1), 85-87. https://dx.doi.org/10.21275/v5i1.nov152579

Gerdes, L. (2009). Cyber crime. Detroit: Greenhaven Press.

Hynson, C. (2012). Cyber crime. Mankato, Minn.: Smart Apple Media.

Kallenbach, P. & Sam, S. (2013). MinterEllison. Minterellison.com. Retrieved 21 May 2016, from https://www.minterellison.com/

Katos, V. & Bednar, P. (2008). A cyber-crime investigation framework. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 30(4), 223-228. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2007.10.003

Nykodym, N., Taylor, R., & Vilela, J. (2005). Criminal profiling and insider cyber crime. Digital Investigation, 2(4), 261-267. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2005.11.004

Overill, R. (2004). Reacting to cyberâ€Âintrusions: the technical, legal and ethical dilemmas. Journal Of Financial Crime, 11(2), 163-167. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13590790410809095

Reyes, A. (2007). Cyber crime investigations. Rockland, MA: Syngress Pub.

Reyes, A. (2007). Cyber crime investigations. Rockland, MA: Syngress Pub.

ROCHA, L. (2014). Count Upon Security. Count Upon Security. Retrieved 21 May 2016, from https://countuponsecurity.com