Computers, telecommunications, and the Internet are significant technological advances which have changed world economics and improved many facets of people's lives. Unfortunately, increasingly over the last 20 years several individuals have chosen to seriously abuse the power of the computer for illegal and unethical uses. These wrongs range from common software piracy to computer fraud and illegal computer intrusion. The United States legal system is having a very difficult time effectively dealing with this relatively "new" medium for crime. The vast majority of computer crime goes generally undetected and often unpunished. In the few cases that have been brought to court, there have been law enforcement blunders and unjustifiably short sentences for the handful of convicted computer outlaws!
This topic of Legal Cases Involving the Internet has been studied
by five freshman at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri
for a group project in a class called: Freshman Seminar: The Culture
And Ethics Of Cyberspace taught by Dr. Bruce Umbaugh. For this project,
each student chose a case and summarized it for the reading pleasure of the
entire world!
The following is the collection of summaries of legal cases involving hackers and the Internet:
Accumulative Bibliography page for the group.
Click here for some other Relevant Links
Click here for the Credit Page