Assignment one
Globally, governments make a variety of requests to online companies. In some cases, such as Twitter, it may be for the removal of certain content, for others such as Google (who hold significant personal data) it may be to identify a certain internet user.
Focusing on the transparency reports made public by companies, what are the trends and issues facing law enforcement in the online environment?
Your task:
1. Pick a number of transparency reports (I have put links to four of them, but you might find more) for analysis. (Writer: Summarised reading with links are mentioned under Introduction)
2. Pick one jurisdiction only (preferably not the USA as it skews figures) to analyse data trends.
3. Conduct other research to get other aspects on these figures, eg, the Electronic Frontiers Federation argues for less government requests.
4. Explain why law enforcement need to make requests of these companies.
5. Argue why, or why not, law enforcement should have access to data from social media and related companies.
Word Count: 1500Tips:
You only have a short word count, do not spend much time on the introduction or the conclusion.
Do not copy and past chunks of text from the Internet (I will be checking).
The bibliography will not count for the word limit.
Give me your opinion.
Introduction
The internet is revolutionising our society by driving economic growth and giving people new ways to connect and co-operate with one another. Falling costs mean accessing the internet will become cheaper and easier, allowing more people around the world to use it, democratising the use of technology and feeding the flow of innovation and productivity. This will drive the expansion of cyberspace further and as it grows, so will the value of using it. Chapter 1 describes the background to the growth of the networked world and the immense social and economic benefits it is unlocking.
As with most change, increasing our reliance on cyberspace brings new opportunities but also new threats. While cyberspace fosters open markets and open societies, this very openness can also make us more vulnerable to those criminals, hackers, foreign intelligence services who want to harm us by compromising or damaging our critical data and systems.[i]
A safe and secure online environment enhances trust and confidence and contributes to a stable and productive community. Information and communications technology is an integral part of our daily lives. Whether people have a computer at home, use online banking services or simply receive electricity supplies, the communitys reliance on technology is increasing.
Government and business also take advantage of opportunities for economic development through increased use of information technology and a technology aware population with internet connections locally and overseas.
The increasing use and dependence on technology as one of the major influences on the domestic and international law enforcement operating environment. Crimes such as fraud, scams, and harassment can be facilitated by using technology which brings unique challenges to old crimes.
Activities which fall under this category are often referred to as high tech crime, computer crimes or cybercrimes. Technology-enabled crime encompasses:[ii]
Crimes committed directly against computers and computer systems.
The use of technology to commit or facilitate the commission of traditional crimes.
Common cyber threats include:[iii]
Consumers
Phishing: bogus emails asking for security information and personal details
Webcam manager: where criminals takeover your webcam
File hijacker: where criminals hijack files and hold them to ransom
Keylogging: where criminals record what you type on your keyboard
Screenshot manager: allows criminals take screenshots of your computer screen
Ad clicker: allows a criminal to direct a victims computer to click a specific link
Business
Hacking
Distributed Denial of Service attacks[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/ attachment_data/file/60961/uk-cyber-security-strategy-final.pdf
[ii] https://www.afp.gov.au/policing/cybercrime.aspx
[iii] https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/crime-threats/cyber-crime