NEED OF CYBER SECURITY IN DEMOCRATIC WORLD

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the opportunities to law enforcement when investigating the cybercriminal by defining an emerging cybercrime execution model. The model is intended to enable the transference of conventional policing models into an often abstract and technical environment. The background context is first given, and then a description of the distinct components and characteristics of the cybercrime execution and analysis model is presented. The model is aimed at structuring and focusing the evaluation and decision making process when investigating and analysing highly technical and complex cybercrimes. This contrasting evidence exposes a large gap in our understanding of cybercrime and begs a number of important questions about the quality of the production of criminological knowledge about it. For example, how reliable and partial are the informational sources that mould our opinions about cybercrime. Do we fully understand the epistemological differences between the various legal, academic, expert and popular (lay) constructions of cybercrime? Alternatively, is the criminal justice system just woefully inefficient at bringing wrongdoers to justice? Or are there still some major questions to be answered about the conceptual basis upon which information is gathered and assumptions about cybercrime made? This article takes a critical look at the way that public perceptions of cybercrime are shaped and insecurities about it are generated. It explores the varying conceptualisations of cybercrime before identifying tensions in the production of criminological knowledge that are causing the rhetoric to be confused with reality. It then contrasts the mythology of cybercrime with what is actually going on in order to understand the reassurance gap that has opened up between public demands for Internet security and its provision.