SUPA English Project

On to the meat and potatoes...

Welcome to the present! The year is 2015, gas prices are averaging at around $2.10 per gallon (according to AAA), and there are approximately 118,000 cyber attacks every day. Now that we know a little bit about how the Internet began, lets talk about the Internet in today's world. Today, approximately 83% of American have access to a high-speed internet connection. Today, you can video call you aunt that lives five-thousand miles away, you can buy and sell goods, you can manage your finances from your smartphone, and you can keep an eye on the kids with that web-enabled camera your nephew bought you for Christmas. Today if you have a high-speed internet connection, there isn't much that you can't do. Elaborating on this, let's see how this power is abused.

Cyber-Crime: What is it?

"How could something so useful be so dangerous?" There is a very simple answer to that, very easily. When you live in a world that is connected by wires, you open up the possibility of many problems. Just like there are kind and responsible people in the world, there are those who wish to harm others. So let's talk about the power of those so-called "cyber-criminals." What kind of motives do these criminals have? Well, that depends on the person. Typically it's a risk vs reward scenario. The criminal knows their level of skill, the risks that their task imposes, and the possible reward when they have finished the job. In most cases, the motive is financial gain. Other times it can be on a more "personal level." And there are cases where people commit cyber crimes solely because they can, or for entertainment. Despite the motive, it all boils down to a very intriguing point. No two cyber-criminals are the same. Every individual has their own motive, specialty, and tactic. However cyber-crime typically falls into either one of two categories, or a combination of the two.

Hacking

The most commonly known cyber crime, is hacking. Now what in the world is that? Hacking is a type of crime in which a person’s computer is broken into so that his personal information can be accessed. In the United States, hacking is classified as a felony and punishable as such. In hacking, the criminal uses a variety of software to enter a person’s computer and the person may not be aware that his computer is being accessed from a remote location. Hacking is also often the starting point for other types of cyber crime. At it's very core, hacking is a way of remotely gaining access to a single machine, or network of machines, and manipulating the machine(s) to the users needs.

Theft

Now, this is a different kind of theft than most people are used to. Cyber theft is where instead of stealing a person valuables from their sock drawer, information is stolen and distributed to other criminals. What kind of information would a criminal want? The answer, anything they find useful. This could be a person's email log in credentials, banking information, credit card number, social security number, or there personal files. To cyber criminals, information is very valuable. To them it's almost like a currency. Once these criminals have that information, identity theft is a common outcome. If your identity wasn't stolen you may want to visit the bank, because you may discover that at 10 o'clock this morning your entire savings where withdrawn.

Digital Footprints...

Now, don't get the wrong idea here, the internet isn't anonymized. Everything you do on the internet is logged by several agencies and services. "If that's true then how do people get away with it?" Well, that is a fair question. To start with, cyber-criminals need to be crafty. They need to plan for every possible outcome. They usually have to start by creating a new online identity for themselves, that can be in no way traced back to their real identity. So how do they do it?

"What's an IP address?"

In all honesty, the majority of people who have a computer don't know what an IP Address is. IP is short for Internet Protocol. What the H. E. double hockey-stick does that mean?! A textbook definition would look something like this:

IP ad·dress

noun

COMPUTING

noun: IP address; plural noun: IP addresses

a unique string of numbers separated by periods that identifies each computer using the Internet Protocol to communicate over a network.

Think of like this: every computer that is connected to the internet has a serial number. When you access a site, you send the server your IP address. Below you can actually see what your IP address is, along with some additional data that can be derived from it.

Now let's take a look at how cyber criminals can dodge these little traps, and mask there real IP address.

VPN

VPN is short for, Virtual Private Network. Put simply, a VPN, is a group of computers networked together over a public network, being the internet. Businesses use VPN's to connect remote data-centers, and individuals can use VPNs to get access to network resources when they're not physically on the same network, or as a method for securing and encrypting their communications when they're using an untrusted public network. As you can see, VPN's have their benefits. You can access your work files while you're not in the office, print a documents from home to your office, and encrypt your traffic when you're on a public network. VPN's are a great thing to have! (I use one regularly) But like all good things, they can be used for the wrong purposes. Those who are doing things that they shouldn't are given the ability to mask their IP address, hiding their location, and essentially covering up their digital footprints.

Digital Sensorship and Privacy Rights

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