Virtual Criminality: Old Wine in New Bottles?

Abstract

IT HAS become trite to suggest that the convergence of computing and communications has begun to change the way we live, and the way we commit crime. Whether this will necessitate a revision of our philosophical, historical and sociological assumptions, however, is another matter. One must beware of overgeneralization and hyperbole, which characterize a great deal of discourse on the digital age. In the pages that follow, I suggest that ‘virtual criminality’ is basically the same as the terrestrial crime with which we are familiar. To be sure, some of the manifestations are new. But a great deal of crime committed with or against computers differs only in terms of the medium. While the technology of implementation, and particularly its efficiency, may be without precedent, the crime is fundamentally familiar. It is less a question of something completely different than a recognizable crime committed in a completely different way.