Computer and Economical Crime

Abstract

During eighties the world made a step from the era of industry into the era of information and telecommunication technology, and shortly after that globalization changes the world of economical, political, legal and spiritual life. The progress of information society, is being characterized by the development of computers and their networks , fast and timely exchange of information and development of electronic business exchange is being followed by transformation of classical models of criminal. As others segments of society, criminal is being adopted to the new age. Classical, physical thefts are in the past now. Instead of them the subject of attack or the means of attack becomes a computer. Already in 1981. the Council of Europe brings out the fact that a computer criminal on the basis of illegally achieved interest came on the first place of criminal acts, together with narcotics and arms trade.

Computer criminal means the use of computer resources for non authorised or illegal works. It could be generally shared on two groups of criminal acts: acts that break present ethical norms and offend privacy and dignity of man and acts committed with the aim of achieving material interest. Even though the article is dedicated to the computer economical criminal, recant events of terrorist attacks in the USA have surely brought into light  possibility of using computers in terrorist actions, the notion of computer criminal is being viewed in different perspective, and especially strengthening of physical protection of system and assessments of eventual targets of attacks and ways and possibilities of implementations. For the purposes of prompt action the accent now is on the intensive methods of protection from entries into information system, but in the USA we have a process of strengthening of power of state security agencies, through changes in legal procedure. Computer terrorism is being defined as a criminal act and the authority of FBI is being expanded to freely control any kind of computer system, without previous warrant or prove, which was previously necessary condition. Basic characteristic of this criminal, regardless which group of criminal acts is in question, is the difficulty to find and sanction perpetrators, because of:

• Anonymity of perpetrators - misuse takes place in virtual world and a huge part of perpetrators successfully cleanses traces; and
• Lack of registering of this kind of crime-firms avoid to report damages since that information could jeopardize firm reputation and cause more damage.

Due to expansion of computer criminal and material interest it brings, emphasis of this issue today is given to the increase of security system, protection of system and the establishment of legal-sanctioning praxis, through two basic direction of prevention from the computer crime: measures of physical protection and development of relevant legal regulations.