Edit paper- with comments

Saif Al Katheeri

Dr. Gina Gemmel

English 161

July, 11th 2019

Literature review: Online crime

Cybercrime has increased rapidly over the years, and wrangling debates are surrounding

the issue. It has become part of everyday life. Different scholars have thoroughly examined the

causes, prevalence, and potential solutions to cyber-crime. One of the most challenging issues for

researchers is the increased penetration of the internet, increased use of smartphones and

computers in a society with very naive users of online platforms. This is expected to lead to

increased cybercrime cases. With the recent trends in online crime, most scholars in this field

have dedicated their research to focus on the users of online platforms, the safety of personal

information, and unauthorized privacy invasion. The review of literature from Academic sources

will examine the prevalence of cybercrimes focusing on the soft targets of cyber-attack,

unauthorized privacy invasion, characteristics of cybercrime victim, cybercrime trends globally

and network intrusion facilitated through social engineering: which basically means using

manipulation as an art figure to make a person do something or reveal confidential information.

While all the sources reviewed agree that cybercrimes are a severe problem, they as well differ

on the various ways to solve the problem.

According to Conteh and Schmick, most soft targets for cyber-attack are as a result of

various online platforms lacking the proper capacity to protect their IT infrastructure from

hackers focusing on stealing personal details of users. Conteh and Schmick also attribute the

increasing number of cyber-crime cases to social engineering (Conteh & Schmick, 32). They

Commented [GGM1]: Saif, you have a great start here! In addition to filling out the page length, your main task now is to reinforce the connections you’re making between your sources. Right now, your connective language often simply points out that the sources say similar/different things. Consult the list of templates in the handout packet and see if you can identify some more specific relationships. Another way you can reinforce those relationships is to refer back to them as you discuss the second source; the templates can be used throughout your paragraphs, not just at the point where you begin talking about a new source. Finally, you can provide some summing up statements at the end of each paragraph that also serve to reinforce the relationship you just identified.

Commented [GGM2]: It’s good to introduce the title of the source as well as the author the first time you mention them; this gives your reader some idea of the overall topic of the source.

depict that the attacks are aimed at making victims disclose private information (Conteh &

Schmick, 31). Although they address the issue of attacks on innocent and naïve users, there more

factors centered on the user that contributes to increased cyber-attacks. Van de Weijer et al.,

agrees that various qualities like extraversion, sociability, conscientiousness, emotional stability,

and openness can contribute to vulnerability to attacks (4).

Traditional cyber-crimes relate so much to attacks done, targeting naïve users who

have only fundamental skills in the use of IT infrastructure (Saridakis et al., 3). The empirical

analysis shows that there exists a connection between online abuse and user’s action and

sensitivities of private details security on social networks, which forms the basis of the naivety of

online users (Saridakis et al.,4). From the discussion on lack of experience, skills, and judgment,

the most fundamental cause for frequent cases of cyberbullying is naivety (Marwick, 3).

Marwick argues that women are the most common victims of certain gender centered violations,

which range from consumer profiling to video voyeurism and revenge porn (Marwick, 3).

According to Marwick, privacy invasion cases are on the rise. Marwick elaborates

more on unauthorized privacy invasion due to lack of solid personal security knowledge. She

discusses one massive privacy breach which occurred in August 2014 with a vast number of

celebrity nudes posted to the social site called 4Chan (Saridakis et al., 3). This illustrates privacy

breach due to lack of personal security knowledge (Marwick,1). Different methods are used to

perpetrate privacy breach crimes including; revenge porn which involves non-consensually

sharing of intimate images belonging to another person and Reddit and Geek masculinity which

includes downloads done by other users without consent (Saridakis et al., 4). This is itself

unauthorized, and the privacy of an individual is compromised. This is usually due to lack of a

limit on the online free search and the prevalence of openly sexist annotation on the internet.

Similarly, Saridakis et al., 4, explains that unauthorized privacy invasion has increased due to the

Commented [GGM3]: Your discussion of these sources in this paragraph is too brief for me to understand the relationship between their claims and the prior authors’ claims. More detail on each author’s claims plus connective language would be helpful here. In addition, you should clearly state the relationship between the sources in the paragraph in a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph; you should always prepare your reader for both the general topic of the paragraph as well as the nature of the relationship between the sources. Finally, provide a summing up statement at the end of each paragraph that reinforces the relationship you just identified. It’s helpful for readers to have a very brief recap of what they just read when there are so many complex ideas being discussed.

Commented [GGM4]: The comments I made on your prior paragraph about topic sentences and summing statements at the end of the paragraph apply here as well.

Commented [GGM5]: This paragraph also needs a topic sentence that introduces the relationship between your sources.

Commented [GGM6]: Should this citation be attributed to Marwick? Having the parenthetical citation attributed to Saridakis when your sentence only mentions Marwick is confusing unless Marwick cites Saridakis. If it’s the case that both authors talk about the same incident, you should specify that in your statements about this issue.

use of social media sites. Illegal privacy invasion is accomplished by clicking links on social

media, which further redirect users on those sites to upload photos without personal consent

(Conteh & Schmich, 33). This technical ploy deceives the user to key in a username and

password, which then make it easy for the attackers to gather information (Conteh & Schmich,

33). This, therefore, points to more sophisticated strategies which have led to increased

unauthorized privacy invasion.

Regardless of the increase in unauthorized privacy invasion, users have deployed

adequate defenses to lower their vulnerability (Conteh & Schmich, 33). They explain that

hackers are getting wittier and manipulative in carrying out social engineering attacks. They

emphasize that attackers can obtain crucial details which can cause damage to the individual’s

reputation with others employing the use of photoshop to achieve their intentions (Conteh &

Schmich, 32). They attribute an increase in these scandals to lack of successful convictions and

lack of resources to undertake the process. In a similar view, Van de weijer emphasizes that

personality also contributes to unauthorized access to privacy (Van de Weijer et al., 4). They

indicate that users with lower levels of self-discipline are at higher risk of becoming victims of

certain types of cybercrime (Van de Weijer et al., 3). A meta-analysis on the same shows that

self-discipline is the most common indicator of vulnerability to cybercrime.

On various characteristics of cybercrimes, various scholars express their take on this;

According to Conteh and Schmick, cybercrime falls into multiple types like phishing, pretexting,

tailgating and baiting as vital strategies employed by attackers exploiting vulnerabilities of IT

systems (Conteh & Schmich, 32). Some of the characteristics that they look at include; access to

restricted areas, impersonation leading to unauthorized access and attempts to gain personal

information such as names, addresses, and passwords (Conteh & Schmich, 32). Similarly,

Marwick adds on the same stating that cyber-crime is intended to bring about harassment to

Commented [GGM7]: Be more specific here – what are these takes and are they similar or different?

women and something like revenge porn, is a contemporary issue that is both profoundly

gendered and a gross violation of privacy (3). This allows a closer examination of how gender

functions in a popular privacy discourse (Marwick, 3). Women are particularly susceptible to

online harassment and sexual violence as a result of social Media’s networked properties,

particularly women of color and queer women.