Online ‘Hacktavist’ group who call themselves Anonymous have declared war on terrorist group Islamic State, or ISIS. This emerged just 24 hours after a huge terrorist attack on Paris on Friday the 12^th of November, which claimed the lives of 129 people. The group began action against Isis following the Charlie Hebo attacks in January of this year.

Anonymous are a 12-year old virtual community that have been linked to hacks on everything from the government of Zimbabwe ad Bay Area Rapid Transit, to Visa, Mastercard and the Federal Reserve. They have proven to be plenty capable of following through with their threats. They have also dismantled 149 Islamic State websites so far this year.

In the video above Anonymous threatens Isis with “massive cyberattacks”, uniting humanity using hacking to weaken the terrorist group in an operation named “Operation Isis.”

" We will launch the biggest operation ever against you.

Expect massive cyberattacks"

"War is declared. Get prepared"

"The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger"

The online disruption caused by Anonymous attacks could serve to not only embarrass Isis by publishing evidence of hypocrisy amongst its leaders, but destroy their attempts at recruiting all over the world. Isis pitches its radical Islamist messages through email, web chat, Skype calls and YouTube videos, and more recently it promoted a mobile messaging app called Telegram.

The attacks began with Anonymous leaking the twitter profiles and personal information of suspected extremists, resulting in over 5,500 twitter accounts being taken down just 24 hours after the attack was launched. This number has almost doubled with a total of 10,000 twitter accounts being taken down since the launch.

However, this ‘war’ has not gone without criticisms, as some say this may actually cause Isis to become more tech savvy, increasing their understanding of the online world in order to develop their online security, making the authorities to combat this growing issue.

Griffin, A (2015)’Paris attack: Anonymous launches ‘biggest operation ever’ against Isis’. The Independent. November 16. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/paris-attacks-anonymous-launches-its-biggest-operation-ever-against-isis-promises-to-hunt-down-a6735811.html

Mann, T (2015) ‘Who are Anonymous? All you need to know about the ‘hacktavist’ group that declared war on Isis over Paris attacks.’ Metro Online. November 17. Available: http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/17/who-are-anonymous-all-you-need-to-know-about-hacktivist-group-that-declared-war-on-isis-over-paris-attacks-5507438/

Syrmopolos, J (2015) Anonymous takes down 5,500 ISIS accounts – 24 hours after ISIS called them “idiots”. The Free Thoughts Project. Available: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/opparis-anonymous-takes-5500-isis-twitter-accounts-24-hours/

Keeping Children Safe on Social Media

Parents are encouraged to be mindful that an increasingly large aspect of being online is communicating with others, especially on Facebook. They are advised to talk to their children about the dangers of being online, and maintain a relationship in which the children feel confident in telling their parents who they are talking too online.

UK Police forces were able to train officers to become Covert Internet Investigators, who were able to proactively police the Internet by portraying themselves as children. As well as this, there have been several examples of vigilante groups taking a similar approach and portraying themselves on social media sites as children in order to lure sex offenders into a conviction.

The most contemporary example of this is 33 year old, Stinson Hunter. Hunter is a self-proclaimed ‘paedophile hunter’ who along with his accomplices poses as under-age children on social networking sites to catch “online sexual predators”. Their aim is to get the offender to arrange to meet the “underage child”, where they film their confrontation with the individual, post it on Facebook, and then pass their information on to the police. Over the last six years, Hunters group have secured over 30 convictions.

Hunter uses Facebook to share videos of the people they have caught, in order to raise awareness and publicly humiliate.

The danger of their vigilante activities are as they are not trained, they create a risk for themselves, for the police service and for the people they target. The fact it is not the police conducting these operations, there may be vital evidence lost through the way in which the situation is handled, meaning it is of no use to the police. As well as this, on a personal level, the humiliation the individuals undergo from being broadcast as a 'paedophile' over social media sites such as Facebook, can be life destroying.

Matellozzo, E (2012) Online child sexual abuse: grooming, policing and child protection in a multi-media world. London: Routledge
McAlinden, A-M. (2012) ‘Grooming’ and the sexual abuse of children: institutional, Internet and familial dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press
NSPCC (2015) What is online abuse?. Available from: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/online-abuse/what-is-online-abuse/

Social Media and Child Abuse

TThe internet has opened up new means of sexually abusing children; it has increased the range, volume and accessibility of the abuse. Today is not uncommon for a single suspect to be arrested with tens of thousands of images on his computer. In 2003 one man in Lincolnshire was found with 450,000 child abuse images and a private individual in New York was found with 1,000,000.

  

Many paedophiles acknowledge that exposure to child abuse images fuel their sexual fantasies and play an important part in leading them to commit hands on sexual offences against children. 

The internet has provided an anonymous platform for paedophiles to access children in order for them to eventually meet them to abuse them. Because communications on the Internet are public and perceived as anonymous, children often feel they are safe. One of the largest dangers is that children don’t know who they are talking to, or they have been misled into believing they are talking to a child their age.

Online grooming is much easier and much quicker process than in real life, as they are already talking directly to the child in an isolated and private environment away from adult supervision, and the anonymity allows them to build the trust quicker.

Not only has the advent of the Internet provided sex offenders with easier means to access children, it has also created a platform in which they can seek out other offenders and build networks in which they are able to justify their thoughts, beliefs and fantasies.

As well as this, the internet is also facilitating the major increase in children and young people being exposed to a wide range of age-inappropriate or illegal sexual and other kinds of material. No one knows what the long term effects of this exposure are just yet, but parents, teachers and others with a responsibility for children have expressed great anxiety.

Carr, J. (2003) Child abuse, child pornography and the internet. NCH The children charity
Krone, T (2004) A typology of online child pornography offending. Australian Institute of Criminology
CEOP (2013) Threat Assessment of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Social Media and Cyber-Terrorism

In 2014, a video entitled ‘A Message to America’ which directly addressed the US President, Barack Obama, was uploaded to video-sharing social networking site, YouTube.

This video depicted 40 year old American photo journalist James Foley. He was seen dressed in an orange jumpsuit kneeling on the floor at the hands of terrorist militants, Isis as he was violently beheaded. As the views grew, the video was rapidly circulated across all social media platforms, including, but not limited to, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Trending worldwide on twitter were terms such as #ISIS #JamesFoley and #IslamicState.

These videos and images have been produced by terrorist’s organisations with the intention of creating a state of fear throughout the western world, and that by sending out this message they create an illusion of their power and of intimidation. By continuing to distribute this message, you are promoting this statement, and giving them the publicity and attention they crave.

Not only do terrorist organisations use social media to spread their message of hate, they also use it as a recruitment tool, depending on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype to contact potential extremists all over the world.

Ashford, W (2015) Social media the main cyber terror threat facing the UK, says former MI6 officer[Blog] ComputerWeekly. Available from: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500255638/Social-media-the-main-cyber-terror-threat-facing-the-UK-says-former-MI6-officer

Imran, A (2014) Debating the term Cyber-Terrorism: Issues and Problems. Internet Journal of Criminology

The Telegraph Online (2014) How terrorists are using social media. 04 November. Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11207681/How-terrorists-are-using-social-media.html

Facebook was originally launched in February of 2004, available only to the students of Harvard University. has quickly grown into the world’s largest social media site, with over 1.24 billion active accounts worldwide, 968 million of which access the site daily.

Facebook has long been used to share funny videos, music, personal photos and experiences, educational messages, political views, family videos and everything in between. And as well as individual use, Facebook is home to millions of businesses and organisations who utilise the social media platform in order to advertise and distribute their product or service.

However, as I previously discussed, the internet provides an anonymous platform for criminal behaviour, and Facebook is no exception. The large social media is the perfect platform for a variety of crimes; I will discuss the most commonly experienced crimes below.

Scams

Scams have been utilised within the criminal world for centuries. They work by luring the victim in, providing a false sense of security giving them the impression they are getting one over on the company, whilst behind the scenes the criminals are actually taking money from them, unknown to the victim.

On Facebook, scams are varied and disguised as several things. The most common scams are the ‘free giveaway’ and the interactive game. This consists of an advertisement or pop-up announcing a free giveaway of anything from iPads and iPhones to cars and holidays. To be in with a chance to win, all you have to do is complete a quick survey or click on the interactive iPad as it flies across the screen. The simplicity of the survey and the ease of the game entice many participants to cooperate and enter details in order to claim their prize. However, once you’ve entered your personal and financial details, instead of receiving your free car, you’ll get big charges instead.

Usually in these scams there is very small print hidden within the terms and conditions that we agree to without reading. Within this document it will usually explain the charges, therefore if you call on the business in an attempt to get your money back, you will struggle as you’ve clicked the box!

Cyberbullying

Cyberbulling is the most common cybercrime amongst teenagers and young people. This typically involves harassing a person with messages, threats and other persistent behaviour which has a detrimental effect on the victim’s safety and general well-being. Although this behaviour may only seem like a minor annoyance or a joke, the offenders may not realise the true damage it can have. It is a legitimate cause for concern, and is taken very seriously by authorities and can result in serious criminal charges if taken too far.

There have been many cases where cyberbullying on facebook has resulted in the suicide, or attempted suicide of the young victims. Shocking statistics reveal that over 20% of children affected by cyberbullying have contemplated suicide, and 1 in 10 have made attempts. 4,500 children commit suicide in America each year, making it the 3^rd most common killer of children and teenagers in 2012.

Research had been conducted using approximately 2,000 randomly selected children aged between 11 and 15 in the United States. It was revealed that those who had experienced cyberbullying were twice as likely to have attempted suicide compared to those who had not had this experience. In 2012 another study concluded similar finidngs, revealing that 1 in 10 of the children surveyed had suicidal thoughts as a result of prolonged cyberbullying.

Identity Theft
Identity theft is the act of stealing someone’s personal information and pretending to be that person in order to gain financial benefits using that person’s name without their consent. The personal information stolen can include: name, telephone number, home address, email address, date of birth and bank and credit card details.

With the vast number of personal information stored and shared within Facebook, it has become easier and easier for criminals to access this information and steal the identities of the users. Hackers are able to steal personal images from users’ in order to create false Facebook accounts. From there it is possible to access private and financial information, which can have a hugely detrimental effect to the users sense of security, both financially and personally.

Romance Scam

Similar to identity theft, but a slightly more contemporary and internet based aspect is ‘Catfishing’. The term first came about in 2010 on an MTV reality TV program directed by Nev Shulman. The phrase is used to describe the act of a person developing a false identity on social media in order to seduce an unsuspecting victim.

The scam is described as a ‘confidence trick’, involving a high level of grooming and deception in order to gain the affection and trust of the victim eventually convincing them either to send them money, give them their financial details, or committing further fraud themselves.

This scam has also been used for personal reasons, not resulting in financial gain but in the total humiliation of the victim, therefore it could be considered an aspect of cyberbullying.

Harris, A (2013) Who Coined the Term “Catfish”? Available: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/18/catfish_meaning_and_definition_term_for_online_hoaxes_has_a_surprisingly.html [2 November 2015]

Hinduja, S., and Patchin, J. (2010) Cyberbullying and Self-Esteem. Journal of School Health, vol. 80, 12.

Laird, S. (2012) Cyberbullying: Scourge of the Internet. Available from: http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/cyberbullying-infographic/#mhCE7psJ_Zqh [30 September 2015]

Momoun, F. Facebook Identity Theft Scam. Available: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Facebook-Identity-theft-Scam-97974634.html [30 September 2015]

Smith, C. (2015) By the Numbers: 200+ Amazing Facebook Statistics. Available from: http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/by-the-numbers-17-amazing-facebook-stats/ [30 September 2015]

Stickland, J. How to Avoid Facebook Scams. Available: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/how-to-avoid-facebook-scams2.htm [30 September 2015]

An Introduction to Cyber-crime.

Today we had our first lecture of the Globalised and Organised Crime module. Within this lecture we were introduced to our first assignment. It was explained that we were to write a continuous blog over the course of the module developing ideas on, and discussing, an area of cyber-crime of our choice.

For the purpose of this blog I have decided to explore the use of Social Media websites as a platform for Cyber-Crime. As the largest multi-platform social media site, I have chosen to focus predominantly on Facebook. I will address issues such as scams, identity theft and cyber-bullying. As well as this I will address cyber-terrorism and child abuse online, however this will only be brief and select discussion as I am limited by the word count and therefore cannot discuss with too much depth.

The development of social media networks revolutionized the way people communicate with each other. No longer is distance an issue, now at the click of a button it is possible to chat with someone thousands of miles away as if they are sat next to you.

However, the difference is in the anonymity that the internet and social media provides. This aspect is what attracts people to behave criminally, or in such a way that they would not have done in 'real life'. The mask of the internet lowers the inhibitions of many, and provides a sense of power they may otherwise not experience. 

I will be exploring the variety of cyber-crimes committed over these social media types, and attempting to answer questions such as, what type of crime exists over social media? who is affected by these crimes? and can more be done to prevent them?

Overall word count: 2,178