Internet Forensics

The Seamy Underbelly of the Internet

History shows us that any situation that involves people and money will quickly attract crime. That has certainly been the case with the Internet. Online crime is at an all-time high and shows no signs of slowing down, despite the best efforts of the computer security industry.

The Scams

Many forms of criminal activity use the Internet as a means of communication, either using email instead of phone calls or publishing offensive material on a web site instead of hard copy. But the Internet has allowed some types of crime to evolve in new ways so as to exploit the new opportunities that it provides.

Spam is the most widespread of these activities . Unsolicited email places a burden on millions of servers every day. Companies spend huge amounts of money on software and staff to help keep the problem under control. They do so to save their employees from having to deal with all of it on their desktops, which would incur even higher costs in the form of lower productivity.

People who are computer savvy tend to focus on the nuisance factor of spam because that is what directly affects us. We tend to overlook the content of those messages because we already know them to be scams . We would never dream of clicking on URLs for web sites that promise us cheap Viagra, great rates on mortgages, or the chance to meet lonely singles in our neighborhoods. But other people do! If they didn’t, then the people running the web sites would not waste their money hiring ...