Well i got assigned in school a project to tell if cyber communication was progress or a problem. Now i know that cyber commmunication (A.K.A the internet) is safe and is a good thing. But i felt it would be easier to tell how it's a problem, So without further wait  here is my paper. Enjoy!

Cyber Communication Progress or Problem?

            Anna was a fourteen year old girl who lived in Virginia. Her family was the normal middle class family with 2 other children. She worked hard and school and got decent grades. She liked chatting on the popular chat rooms and got along with most people there. She always really connected with the people there and felt normal when she talked to them. One day one her chat room friend tells her that he lived in Virginia too and that they should meet up sometime; Anna was so excited to meet one of her long time chat room friends in real life. They got along so well in the chat room and liked all of the same things. So, they arranged a date to meet in a field near her school; they were going to go shopping and have so much fun together. When the day had finally come, Anna was so excited. Her parents dropped her off at the field and she waited for her friend to come. As a van pulled up she saw someone get out of the car. She saw that is was her friend from the chat room. The friend walked right up to Anna and killed her in broad daylight without saying anything.  These, are online predators.

            Online predators lurk the internet. The internet can offer them 2 horrible advantages. It can be completely anonymous and it offers them vast amounts of teenagers who are seeking to chat with someone. They lie about their age and their personality; they keep up with the latest teen trends so they can give a better illusion of being a teenager. According to NCMEC 1 in five children have been approached by an internet pedophile. One of the many tactics of online predators is to pretend to be your friend and consult you on all your problems. Online predators target kids who actively seeking attention or affection, isolated or lonely kids, and rebellious kids. Once they’ve established a sense of trust they arrange a meeting in real person. And these meetings are highly dangerous. They can kidnap you or even kill you in these meetings.

Even purchasing a product on the internet can lead to death. The Craig list killings were horrible and the killer was a seemingly normal person at first glance. His victims went to Craigslist.com to buy his products that he was selling, when his victims called him to arrange a meeting for buying the product he made sure the meeting was in a secure place. When his victims arrive at the meeting place he brutally killed them. Even the safest sites are plagued with maniacs on the internet. Let’s move on to more frequent cyber communication crimes.

Identity theft; every year more than 840,000 identities are stolen online. And only 38% of people will find that there identity is stolen after 4 months. After the criminals have stolen your identity they go on a spending spree that is one-fifth of the average American’s income. They could steal your identity from a simple purchase on a reliable website, or in the form of a “legitimate Bank” who ask for personal information. One of the common schemes for online identity theft is to send you an email confirming or denying a purchase, you click on the link which then leads you to the fake website which is an exact replica of the real website. You then enter your personal information and click the accept button to confirm or deny the purchase; after this has happened they have all your personal information and your identity. Criminals like these make the internet an unsafe and vile place for anyone. And the horrible thing is; this is only one of the many cyber communication crimes.

            One of the scariest cyber communication crimes is Hackers. Hackers break their way into any website, corporation, or computer. What they do when they have hacked into your website, corporation, or computer is up to them. They could steal your credit card, read your personal documents, or even steal your pin number. And the worst thing is, these are considered small hacks and the Hackers are close to impossible to stop. These hacks are very troublesome and frustrating but they are not life threatening hacks. In 2001, a group of hackers broke into a high security naval base and stole missile launch codes. They had the power to launch the missiles and kill thousands of innocent civilians. If they were able to steal military weapon launch codes imagine what they can do to your computer or business once they target you. One of the most recent major hacker attacks was in 2008, when a hacker attacked and disabled more than 26000 sites. The sites hacked were down for months and could not be fixed for a long time. And this hacker accomplished this in a very short time. Though these attacks are infrequent and rare, smaller attacks on your computer or a small business are very frequent and don’t take that long for an experienced hacker to hack.

            Hackers don’t only attack websites, they use their abilities to hack software and morph it to their likings. One popular software hack called “Jailbreak” lets and Itouch download apps, music, movies, and anything available on the apple store for free. Millions of Itouchs have downloaded this software hack and are illegally downloading. This hack causes companies and Artists to lose a lot of money that they need.

People like hacker “DVD Jon” hack their way into any software and then release the hack to the public which causes companies and producers to lose millions of dollars.  Since this is a form of piracy the penalties depend on the magnitude of the crime but the most basic penalty is 5000$ and six months in prison.

            These are only few of the dangers that people face when they log onto the internet. Even though new software is being made to protect people against these crimes online criminals are adapting faster to the security measures. The internet will never be a safe place.