The Cyber Effect

by Mary Aiken

  It costs HBO about $6 million: E. Sheppard, “Here’s How Much It Costs to Make a ‘Game of Thrones’ Episode,” Mic.​com, April 8, 2014. See also M. Russon, “Game of Thrones season 5 breaks piracy record with 32 million illegal downloads so far,” April 22, 2015, ibtimes.​co.​uk.

  anonymity and online disinhibition: Online disinhibition is explored in J. Suler (2004), “The Online Disinhibition Effect,” CyberPsychology and Behavior 7(3): 321–26.

  If enough people are breaking a law: S. Altschuller and R. Benbunan-Fich (2009), “Is Music Downloading the New Prohibition? What Students Reveal Through an Ethical Dilemma,” Ethics and Information Technology 11(1): 49–56.

  like the fifteen-year-old boy in Sweden: M. Humphries (2011), “15-Year-Old Facing Jail Time for Downloading 24 Movies,” geek.​com, August 24, 2011.

  A new norm has effectively been created: S. Altschuller and R. Benbunan-Fich (2009), “Is Music Downloading the New Prohibition? What Students Reveal Through an Ethical Dilemma,” Ethics and Information Technology 11(1): 49–56. See also T. Wingrove, A. L. Korpas, and V. Weisz (2011), “Why Were Millions of People Not Obeying the Law? Motivational Influences on Non-Compliance with the Law in the Case of Music Piracy,” Psychology, Crime and Law 17(3): 261–76.

  A move to decriminalize piracy: C. Green, “New Internet Piracy Warning Letters Rules Dismissed as ‘Toothless,’ ” The Independent, July 23, 2014.

  it appears the pirates have won: S. Hamedy, “Report: Online Piracy Remains Multi-Hundred-Million-Dollar Business,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2015.

  “Another one got caught today”: Originally called “The Conscience of a Hacker,” the manifesto was written after Loyd Blankenship was arrested and was published in an online magazine under his pseudonym “The Mentor”: Phrack 1(7), January 8, 1986. For its continued relevance today, see S. Ragan, “The Hacker’s Manifesto Turns 29 Years Old,” csoonline.​com, January 8, 2015.

  criminal hackers share a set of personality traits: D. Littlejohn Shinder and M. Cross (2008), Scene of the Cybercrime (Burlington, Mass.: Elsevier); and Shinder’s blog, techre​public.​com. See also S. Atkinson (2015), “Psychology and the Hacker: Psychological Incident Handling,” SANS Institute, sans.​org, June 20, 2015.

  The black market has proven amazingly resilient: “The Amazons of the Dark Net,” The Economist, November 1, 2014.

  “The first thing that strikes you”: J. Bartlett, “Dark Net Drug Markets Kept Alive by Great Customer Service,” Wired, August 21, 2014. See also M. P. Aiken and C. McMahon (2014), “The CyberPsychology of Internet Facilitated Organised Crime,” in Europol, The Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment Report (iOCTA), The Hague, Appendix A3: 81–87, europol.​europa.​eu.

  the number of products available on Darknets: P. H. O’Neill, “Dark Net Markets Offer More Drugs Than Ever Before,” dailydot.​com, May 13, 2015.

  anonymous marketplaces have proven to be resilient: K. Perry, “Dark Net Drugs Adverts ‘Double in Less Than a Year,’ ” telegraph.​co.​uk, July 31, 2014. See also S. Nelson, “Buying Drugs Online Remains Easy, 2 Years After FBI Killed Silk Road,” usnews.​com, October 2, 2015.

  teens in particular have flocked online: S. Lewis, “Protect Your Teen from Dangerous Dark Net Drugs,” huffing​tonpost.​com, February 1, 2014.

  Remember the Triple A Engine: The Triple A Engine of Internet vulnerabilities (affordability, accessibility, and anonymity) that contribute to Internet-related intimacy difficulties was identified by A. Cooper (1997), “The Internet and Sexuality: Into the New Millennium,” Journal of Sex Education and Therapy 22: 5–6.

  There were roughly 187,100 drug-related deaths: For global estimates of drug deaths and usage, see United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2015), World Drug Report 2015 (United Nations, New York); unodc.​org.

  great white sharks and serial killers: R. A. Martin, D. K. Rossmo, and N. Hammerschlag (2009), “Hunting Patterns and Geographic Profiling of White Shark Predation,” Journal of Zoology 279(2): 111–18. See also “Great White Sharks Can Behave Like Serial Killers, Study Finds,” theguardian.​com, June 22, 2009.

  “Criminals reveal who they are”: D. Canter (2003), Mapping Murder: The Secrets of Geographical Profiling (London: Virgin Books).

  “Individuals have different routines”: A. Madero-Hernandez and B. S. Fisher (2012), “Routine Activity Theory,” in F. T. Cullen and P. Wilcox (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

  The incidence of teenagers turning to cybercrime: For the story of one teen’s journey into cybercrime, see L. Kelion, “Finnish Teen Convicted of More Than 50,000 Computer Hacks,” bbc.​com/​news, July 8, 2015.

  On teens and cybercrime generally, see “Criminals Recruiting Teens for Life of Cybercrime,” recruitment​grapevine.​com, June 10, 2015.

  Crimebook: S. Malik, “Teenagers Jailed for Running £16m Internet Crime Forum,” The Guardian, March 2, 2011.

  a quarter of organized crime in Britain: “Cybercrime Could Become More Lucrative Than Drugs, Police Chief Warns,” telegraph.​co.​uk, March 1, 2015.

  data breach of the IRS: E. Weise, “IRS Hacked, 100,000 Tax Accounts Breached,” usatoday.​com, May 26, 2015.

  more than 3 billion people worldwide online: International Telecommunication Union (2015), ICT Facts & Figures: The World in 2015 (Geneva); itu.​int.

  The exponential growth of cybercrime: On the exponential spread of malware in recent years, see M. Goodman (2015), Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It (New York: Doubleday), 14–15.

  Only 5 percent of the malware was found: M. Garnaeva, V. Chebyshev, D. Makrushin, and A. Ivanov, “IT Threat Evolution in Q1 2015,” securelist.​com, May 6, 2015.

  we could identify, support, and nurture the most tech-talented: On a positive note, in 2015 the U.K. government launched an initiative to find and train people with cyber skills to bolster the cyber-security industry. Through school programs and such avenues as national math competitions, Cyber First is intended to identify potential candidates for such things as undergraduate funding and government work placements: A. Stevenson, “UK Government Launches Cyber First Recruitment Drive for Future White Hats,” V3.​co.​uk, March 25, 2015. See also the announcement of the new UK National Cyber Security Centre, “New National Cyber Security Centre set to Bring UK Expertise Together,” gov.​uk, March 18, 2016.

  Chapter 9: The Cyber Frontier

  We desperately need some balance: J. Berland (2001), “Cultural Technologies and the ‘Evolution’ of Technological Cultures,” in Andrew Herman and Thomas Swiss (eds.), The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory (New York: Routledge), chapter 12.

  claims that it is a “near certainty”: E. Zolfagharifard, “Stephen Hawking Says It Is a ‘Near Certainty’ Technology Will Threaten Humanity Within 10,000 Years,” dailymail.​co.​uk, January 19, 2016.

  Microsoft had to quickly delete: H. Horton, “Microsoft Deletes ‘Teen Girl’ AI After It Became a Hitler-Loving Sex Robot Within 24 Hours,” telegraph.​co.​uk, March 24, 2016.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DR. MARY AIKEN is the world’s foremost forensic cyberpsychologist. She is the director of the CyberPsychology Research Network and an advisor to Europol, and has conducted research and training workshops with multiple global agencies from INTERPOL to the FBI and the White House. Her research interests include cyber-security, organized cybercrime, cyberstalking, technology-facilitated human trafficking, and the rights of the child online. She is a member of the advisory board of the Hague Justice Portal, a foundation for international peace, justice, and security. Her groundbreaking work inspired the CBS television series CSI: Cyber. She is based in Ireland.

  maryaiken.​com

  @maryCyPsy

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