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Created: July 11, 2003
Latest Update: July 11, 2003
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Russian Crime Invades US

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, July 2003.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay is based on John Schwartz' "Hackers Hijack PC's for Sex Sites" in the NY Times on July 11, 2003.

Usually we define crime socially based on our normative expectations of how we should behave towards one another with respect to persons and property. Since those who have property are usually the ones elected to the offices with the power to define crime, definitions of crime are socially constructed from the perspective of those who have something to protect. In a capitalistic democracy, where money translates into power, those with money often have more direct links to the decision-making in defining crime. So there is already some inbalance of perspective in the creating and enforcing of our laws.

Now, with the latest technology of the computer, wielded on both the personal and the corporate level, there is new opportunity to socially define crime. In John Schwartz' Russian Hackers article, we begin to see that our perspectives on the social definition of crime must expand beyond the questions of have's and have not's in our own society, for the have-not's in Russia are exploiting our citizens in search of gain.

"More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who computer security experts say are using them for pornographic Web sites.

"The hijacked computers, which are chosen by the hackers apparently because they have high-speed connections to the Internet, are secretly loaded with software that makes them send explicit Web pages advertising pornographic sites and offer to sign visitors up as customers.

" . . . The creators of the ring, whose identities are unknown, are collecting money from the pornographic sites for signing up customers, the security experts say. Many companies play this role in Internet commerce, getting referral fees for driving customers to sites with which they have no other connection.

" . . . For several years, senders of spam have relied upon a vestigial element of the Internet mail infrastructure known as "open relay" to use Internet servers as conduits for their spam.

"As network administrators have gradually shut down the open relay networks, spam senders have used viruses to plant similar capabilities on home and business computers.

"But this appears to be the first viral infection to cause target computers to display whole Web sites, Mr. Smith, the researcher, said.

"Mr. Smith said when word of the program gets out, antivirus companies are likely to offer quick updates to their products to find and disable the invasive software.

Computer owners can protect themselves by using firewall software or hardware, which prevent unauthorized entry and use of computers, Mr. Smith said."

From John Schwartz' article: Hackers Hijack PC's for Sex Sites

Discussion Questions

1. What does this article mean to those of us who use the Web?

   Consider: We seem to be playing a game of cat and mouse with unethical purveyors of smut. Since their attempts to sell can be defeated by traditional technology, they are adapting new techniques that current technology is not equipped to handle. When our techs close up the "open relays" of our Internet mail systems, the hackers invent viruses that install new software that opens the computers to their unethical use again. They aren't harming your computer in the typical virus fashion, but they are using it, which is bound to interfere with your use by slowing it down, and creating wear and tear. Does this amount to theft? the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the right to the use of his property? Interesting question, hmmm?

2. Would this use of our computers as servers for smut be an issue if we didn't have a large market for smut?

   Consider: Perhaps we need to know who buys smut and why. And I'm not just referring to the arguments suggesting that pornography harms women. That's a whole nother issue we need to address. I'm referring to the sudden explosive demand and selling techniques for VIAGRA. Everyday my computer receives several offers. Does this tell us that a frenetic fast track culture with more toxins in the air than we can healthily manage may need to face up to the fact that its men are experiencing real sexual dysfunction at increasing rates? Some say pornography or highly suggestive sexual material aids in the way that VIAGRA does. Pornography doesn't have to have the violence to have a stimulating effect on males. Are there social issues in here that could be brought to bear mor effectively that laws prosecuting the hackers for fraudulent takings?

3. How does this complicate the social definition of crime?

   Consider: As we attempt to make our legal, enforcement, and correction efforts more sensitive to the unequal representation of those who are governed by our system of law, we now find ourselves in a quandry of how to deal with citizens of another nation-state harming us, not in the name of their nation-state, but as individuals. Do we really want to bring them into our jails? What effect would they have on our prison cultures?

4. "A Justice Department official said that the computer ring, as described to him, could be a violation of at least two provisions of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act." (Ibid). But the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was designed with our culture in mind. When we apply that law to natonals of different nation-states how do we know that we the same background issues that led to our laws apply in modern Russia? Do we care?

   Consider: If we don't care, how might that add to the resentment of America expressed by many have-nots of other nations? If we do care, how will that affect our actions in these cases? Trust me, nobody knows. But we'd still like you to think about it.

5. How does this example illustrate the problem of "knowingness" in criminal justice?

   Consider: Because the law, enforcement, corrections have always been established and administered by those in power, the dominant discourse presumes that the legal system, the police system, and the corrections system know best. That's an assumption of knowingness that ignores the many other perspectives of poverty, hardship, poor education, and equality before the law. I have been in the courtroom when potential jurors have told the judge that the defendant must be guilty because he's here charged with the crime. The judge's pleas about "innocent until proven guilty" had no effect.

   The problem with "knowing" is that we close our mind to evidence, to new learning, to changing social conditions, to new perspectives. In the criminal justice system that has powerful effects on people's lives.