Canada: Struggling with Computer‐related Crime in the Next Millennium
| Pages | 97-101 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025823 |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| Author | Michael Duncan |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Journal of Financial Crime — Vol. 5 No. 1 — International
Canada: Struggling with Computer-related Crime in
the Next Millennium
Michael Duncan
'Computer technology today is where automo-
tive technology was in 1905. Significant develop-
ments lie ahead. Equally, we have not yet seen
the full extent of computer-related crime.'1
It is one thing to investigate a simple theft. It is
another thing to investigate a computer-related
crime that transcends national borders with case
and speed, that presents new legal challenges at
every turn, that can be intrinsically linked to orga-
nised crime activity, and that may require the
special knowledge and expertise of investigators
who just happen to be very few in number.
Technological growth has progressed at such a
hurried pace in the past few years and computer-
related crimes — unauthorised computer access,
mischief to data, telecommunications fraud,
sophisticated counterfeiting and crimes on the
Internet — are threatening to outpace our ability
to deal with the technological revolution that is
changing the world in these last years of the 20th
century. Despite this reality, many law enforce-
ment agencies are not adequately equipped or pre-
pared to respond to the investigation of crimes
where computer and telecommunications technol-
ogies are involved.
Society has come a long way since the days of
the abacus (the first known computer) and recent
estimates have pegged the number of computers in
the world today to be somewhere around 1.25 bil-
lion. The Computer Crime Investigative Tech-
niques Course attended by the author at the
Canadian Police College way back in 1983 no
longer seems relevant — much of the time was
spent writing simple COBOL programs or staring
impassively at computer facilities more reminiscent
of laundromats. As a veteran commercial crime
investigator in western Canada way back in 1989,
the author can still remember the day when the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police issued him with
his first laptop computer — truly a thing of beauty
that was most certainly the talk of the town. But
that was then and this is now.
The purpose of this article is to provide the
reader with some insight into events that have
taken place since that Computer Crime Investiga-
tive Techniques Course; to relate a hypothetical
but palatably real computer crime case that any law
enforcement agency might now expect to encoun-
ter; to identify the shortcomings of a traditional
response by an ill-equipped law enforcement
agency; and to propose an investigative model that
might better address future situations as they arise.
A DARK FIGURE?
It is widely known that difficulties have arisen in
law enforcement efforts to quantify the extent of
computer-related crime. The dark figure phenom-
enon, as it is known, results in many crimes not
being reported to police for a variety of reasons
such as fear of adverse publicity, embarrassment,
loss of goodwill, lack of confidence in police skills,
and so on.
It has been reported that 88 per cent of all large
companies that have been victimised by computer
crime chose not to report their cases to law
enforcement agencies because they have been con-
cerned over adverse publicity. Citibank, which did
publicly confirm a $10m loss, discovered that its
competitors immediately contacted Citibank cus-
tomers to advise that they were more 'secure and
reliable'.2
THE REPORTED CASES
Despite a reluctance to notify authorities, some
cases have, in fact, been reported. The following
cases arc becoming typical of computer-related
crimes and will serve as a reminder that there is a
downside to recent advances in technology. The
cases also illustrate the potential for huge financial
losses, the possible impact these cases can have on
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