When we hear about computer related crimes, we think about the story line of movies. It just seems to surreal. But the truth is that this type of crime is being committed everyday and these criminals are not necessarily these great computer gurus.
Computers are being misused everywhere and the number of cases where corporate computers are being hacked into, financial information access is increasing. Lets not even go as far as these more difficult crimes, we are also talking about hate mail, blackmail, maligning someone through the internet, all of these are computer related crimes.
Tom Nickels professional investigator knows first hand that government agencies just don’t have the man power to deal with all computer crime. In fact, they cant even deal with the huge number of pedophiles who use the computer to find their victims.
Although the growth of computer related crimes far outruns the ability of law enforcement to keep up. We are getting better and there are law in place that define what a computer crime is, and the legal system is working hard to enforce punishment on offenders.
Computer crime involves many different offenses probably the most common offense is that of unauthorized use of a computer. When you use a machine and don’t have authorization to do so, and that machine is protected by a password then you are committing a crime and it is considered a class A misdemeanor.
Following that, the next most popular computer related crime is Computer tampering. This offence can take place in a variety of manners. When you intentionally alter or destroy data on someone else’s computer without permission, you commit this offense.
If a person intends to commit a felony or has previously been convicted of a cyber crime, and has caused damages for more than $1000 the person may have even committed a class E felony.
Other computer programs involve destroying data and destroying a program causing thousands of dollars in damages. In this case a person is guilty of computer tampering in the first degree and it’s a class C felony.
Nickels Private Investigations has seen a tremendous increase in computer related crimes in the last ten years. They are especially hard to investigate and difficult to convict because of the technological knowledge law enforcement and investigators must have to gather they evidence.
