To many involved in criminal dense, cyber crime is the bane of the 21st Century. It accounts for millions in ill-gotten earnings each year. Vast criminal networks spanning the global are now actively involved in cyber crimes of one sort or another. The potential for future earnings is almost unlimited and the relatively safety that the Internet provider cyber criminals means that it is extremely hard to catch. Victims mount up. However, things were not always this way.
In the early days of cyber crime the world of cyber crime was seen as a rather harmless prank by computer geeks showing off how much they knew about the working of computer networks. It was tantamount to a dare, you say it cannot be done and we will show you how it can. Relatively little harm was intended and criminal defense lawyers did not have their work cut-out showing this. Indeed, few if any specific criminal laws were on the statutes that regulated cyber crimes in the early days and most of the criminal defenses were bog-standard.
As times changed, so did the nature of the cyber crime. More technological advances and cheaper access to hardware and software meant that the Internet became a domain anyone could access. More sinister fraud came to the attention of the authorities. Child related crimes, such as child pornography, became known widely. With the escalation of the criminal element of the cyber crime, new laws were needed and specialist criminal defense lawyers were required.
However, even only as recently as the last five years cyber crime was still controllable. Cyber crime was not a major revenue earner for criminal gangs in the late 20th Century. It has only been since the millennium that things have changed.
Nonetheless, without globally implement criminal sanctions in place against the actions of cyber criminals, the ultimate criminal defense still exists, namely jurisdiction. Unlike a crime committed in the real world, it is physically possible for a criminal to be in two places at once when it comes to cyber crimes. You can commit a crime in the US while you sit comfortably in your apartment in Russia. Consequently, universal laws will be needed if a criminal defense mechanism is going to be put in place to combat these growing problems.
Fortunately for the cyber criminal another perfect criminal defense still remains, the apathy of government to unite to combat this growing problem.
