Edit the essay

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Saif Al Katheeri

Dr Gina Gemmel

English 161

June 23rd, 2019

Online crime

With internet penetration successfully taking place even to the remotest parts of

the world, online presence has increased since people can gain access to affordable

internet-enabled gadgets in the market. Increased online presence has created an

opportunity for as many good things as bad ones. I believe lack of knowledge about the

dangers that users engaging in an online environment are exposed to is the most

significant cause of online crime since it creates a soft and innocent target for attack. I

want to debate that online crime is contributed to a great extent by a lack of knowledge

and awareness about the possible dangers of an online presence. My research question is

on whether lack of knowledge on hazards that lurk online on the part of individuals and

reluctance to invest in modern IT infrastructure on the part of businesses are the key

contributors of online crime. This topic has implications of the broader field of

Information technology, and I believe this is an interesting and debatable question

because of the many examples of online crime that are happening everywhere as well as

the increasing online presence of different persons without knowledge of precautions

they should take to ensure their safety.

Commented [GGM1]: Saif, you’re on the right track here! My comments on your proposal direct you areas that could be clarified, and my comments on your annotations mostly pertain to areas where there’s more you could say to make the ideas in your sources clearer. Your revisions tasks are therefore pretty straightforward, but of course, please feel free to visit me during office hours if you have questions. In addition to these notes, I don’t see any documents from you in the Google Drive folder. Your articles should be in the folder labeled with your name. Here’s a direct link to that folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xaPhvhoVAOHxopa uHDxg5CQjchMDFo4z?usp=sharing

Commented [GGM2]: This sentence is a bit long and becomes hard to follow. See if you can rephrase it to make your question clearer.

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Online crime has been defined to include broad topics covering any crimes or

illegal activities that have been committed on the internet or through the help of the

internet. In many parts of the world, people are purchasing laptops or any other gadgets

that can access the internet and going ahead to create social media accounts. Others use

even free public Wi-Fi to access their banks and additional sensitive information.

According to Lawson, celebrity nude photo hacks have been facilitated by the innocence

of the victims most of whom are not aware of the measures that they should take to

secure their files. Lawson’s view coincides with that of Martellozzo and Emma on the

need for ensuring that you understand the various ways of acquiring your data when

using online platforms. Martellozzo and Emma further clarify several ways of becoming

an informed internet user without necessarily going into an IT class. Saridakis describes

the potential dangers that lurk in online social networking sites citing user online

behavior and severity of attackers within the circles of the user as key determinants safety

from online crime. Victimization has become a significant concern for those using the

internet. However, according to Aldawood and Geoffrey, educating and raising

awareness about internet safety both for businesses and individuals is a significant way of

winning the war against cyber-crime.

My thesis is this paper is a claim of fact. At first it may seem that online crime

can be fought through putting strict laws to deal with those who are convicted but upon

closer inspection it is actually the general public including individual internet users and

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businesses that should be trained and educated on how to keep safe and stop becoming

soft targets for hackers and other online attackers.

There are several counter-arguments that I expect in my thesis statement. This is

because online crime is a multifaceted issue, and different people will have varied ways

of looking at it. Some will argue that the government should have the central role of

ensuring safe online environments while others will draw the part of companies that have

online platforms like social networking sites and applications for companies that require

users to provide login details into the discussion. Online crime cannot be tackled from

one side, and a practical solution cannot be reached through setting up blames. Some of

the most severe online crimes which have shocked the world include; identity theft,

hacking, and piracy. However, a careful look into the crimes that have taken place so far

shows either lack of knowledge in the part of users or failure to invest in modern

technology in the part of businesses and companies that have been targeted so far. Some

will argue that online crime has a dynamic nature, and it is, therefore, impossible to

appropriately prepare businesses and individuals on how to avoid becoming easy targets.

I believe it is the responsibility of the companies and individuals to understand how their

online presence risks their safety and take necessary actions.

Aldawood, Hussain, and Geoffrey Skinner. "Educating and raising awareness on

cyber security social engineering: A literature review." 2018 IEEE International

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Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE). IEEE,

2018.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8615162

This article by Aldawood and Geoffrey presents a detailed literature review into

the area of creating awareness and educating users on cybersecurity social engineering.

The authors review well-researched literature, which documents various cases of

cybercrime, which could have been avoided if the targets were armed with information

on how to prevent becoming soft targets. With so many sources examined and reviewed

in this paper, I believe it will be of great help in backing my arguments. The literature

reviewed examines social engineering as a way of exploiting a human weakness in

achieving certain goals, and I believe this article will be of great help in my paper.

Lawson, Caitlin E. "Innocent victims, creepy boys: discursive framings of

sexuality in online news coverage of the celebrity nude photo hack." Feminist Media

Studies 18.5 (2018): 825-841

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2017.1350197

In August 2014, online users were shocked with digital dissemination of hundreds

of nudes for celebrities, and this led to significant debate on the role of the celebrities and

hackers in this rare occurrence. This article presents an analysis of such cases identifying

reasons why innocent celebrities were targeted successfully. I will use this article to

Commented [GGM3]: The first line of your citations should be at the left margin, and the second and all following lines should be indented one tab.

Commented [GGM4]: Literature reviews typically don’t have positions of their own, which means they’re not argumentative and can’t be used for your own literature review. Do these authors take their own position? If not, you’ll need to replace this source when you write your WP3. You can save the source for your research paper, but you might have better luck looking up one of the pieces of literature reviewed in this article, which will be more argumentative.

Commented [GGM5]: This citation isn’t formatted correctly. See the example for an MLA citation for a journal article in the “Videos” section of Blackboard.

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support my argument on why the lack of knowledge and how cybercriminals infiltrate

data is a crucial contributor to online crime.

According to Lawson, most of the celebrities had basic knowledge in the use of

IT systems, and this exposed them as soft targets for infiltration. Hackers continued to

apply the same methods to obtain photos from the victim’s photos. This was reported to

have taken place under different circumstances but with the application of the same

tactics. Basic training and personal security are crucial issues that should be addressed

without fail to ensure that users do not fall victims.

Such crimes like leakage of photos and information to the public are said to

Martellozzo, Elena, and Emma A. Jane, eds. Cybercrime and its victims. Taylor &

Francis, 2017.

https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SCwlDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg

=PP1&dq=Martellozzo,+Elena,+and+Emma+A.+Jane,+eds.+Cybercrime+and+its+victi

ms.+Taylor+%26++Francis,+2017.&ots=vR--G_2Ovt&sig=KHAYPkJVd7-

p0SuRrAtyzd2TrMc&redir_esc=y#v=twopage&q&f=false

This book on cybercrime and its victims presents a well-organized and detailed

study of how the explosion in the development of information technology has affected

the use and dissemination of information with both benefits and risks. Cybersecurity is an

issue which sits at the center of internet use, and this book explores various threats that

face online users, whether individuals or businesses that have set up online platforms to

Commented [GGM6]: It looks like your sentence got cut off here.

Commented [GGM7]: Titles of books should be italicized, and you don’t need a link in a citation for a book.

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facilitate their activities. This book also explores the social construction of violence and

victimization in online spaces with detailed involvement of scholars and experts from

various disciplines which shape the issue of cybersecurity.

According to Martellozzo et al., cybercrime is committed by people who are well

conversant with how online platforms function, and in other cases, it's those who lead

cybercrime incidences are experts in IT. This makes it extremely difficult for victims to

realize before the crime is done. Ordinary users of online platforms must be keen to

understand the dangers that await them online so that they can take the necessary

precautions.

Saridakis, George, et al. "Individual information security, user behavior and cyber

victimization: An empirical study of social networking users." Technological Forecasting

and Social Change 102 (2016): 320-330.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162515002590

Millions of active accounts on social networking sites are operated without any

knowledge about individual information security on the part of the user. This means that

there are just too many soft targets for online attackers to fail to hit any. While the issue

of privacy has been explored in detail over the years, little research goes on the area of

information security on the individual level. This source, therefore, presents a careful

analysis of the relationship between online victimization and users activity. This issue is

centrally placed in the middle of users who have varied perceived levels of information

Commented [GGM8]: This citation isn’t formatted correctly. See the example for an MLA citation for a journal article in the “Videos” section of Blackboard.

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security. I will use this article to advance my argument on personal information security

and how education and awareness can be of crucial help and intervention. Saridakis et al.,

also emphasize that people with high propensity are prone to cyber-crimes compared to

those who have information on how to control information sharing. I will, therefore, rely

on this source to explain the dangers that social media users are exposed to and the role

that the companies that own particular social media sites should take to secure their users.

Commented [GGM9]: I don’t know what this phrase means.