Internet Crime

wenty years ago the words cybersex, cyber stings, cyberchats, cybercrime, cybertheft, cyberstalking, cyberterrorism, computer intrusion, cyberauction fraud, internet harassment, internet bomb threats, internet fraud, password trafficking, and pixilated death crimes had no meaning. Today these terms are at the forefront of internet crimes. There are about 93 million web pages dealing with cyber crime topics. These extend from how to go about reporting cyber crimes, to how to commit these cyber crimes. Interestingly, as cybercrimes and death gaming websites have increased in numbers, violent crimes and firearm crimes have declined considerably across the nation.

Wisconsin Internet Laws:
The following are a few of Wisconsin´s laws dealing with crimes on the Internet.

Transfer of Recorded Sounds for unlawful use:
Any person that moves sounds on or to the Internet that contains less than 1,000 recordings or advertises, offers up for sale or rent, sells, rents, controls or transfers less than 1,000 recordings during a 180 day period. Given the sounds are not replayed, or are replayed by others on the Internet less than 1,000 times during a 180 day period, and the value of the sounds does not exceed $2,500 is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

If the value of the recordings is greater than $2,500 then the person can be found guilty of a Class I felony.

If the sounds are replayed by others around the internet a minimum of 1,000 times during a 180 day period, then the charge H felony.

Crimes Against Children:
Child enticement; any person, whose objective is to commit sexual conduct or have sexual intercourse with the child, showing sex organs to the child or making the child expose a sex organ, recording the child doing sexually explicit actions, prostitution of the child, causing physical or emotional injury to the child, providing or selling to the child a controlled substance or controlled substance analog, making or attempting to make any child who is under the age of 18 years to enter any vehicle, room, building, or secluded place is guilty of a Class D felony.

FBI Cybersex Crackdown:
The Cyber Crime Task Force, headed by the FBI, has been cracking down on cybefraud and Internet identity theft since 2004. Some information that the task force has found out about cybercrimes is that most fraudulent business offers originate in India, and the majority of cybersex websites are run by people living in Australia, Greece, Germany and the Phillipines.

In Wisconsin, close to half of the reported Internet crime came from auction fraud (from action solicitation spam mail and websites), only about 1% was from reported yet unsubstantiated child porn websites, and less than 1% from e-mail solicitations, chat rooms, and cybersex websites put together. Recently, police in Wisconsin have been using federal Internet crime funds to set up Internet stings focused on cybersex and chat rooms.

Who Gets Stung:
Studies have shown that bulk of arrests coming after Internet stings set up like the ones in Wisconsin (with the intent to catch sexual predators) are of thirty-something year old whit home-owning males with annual incomes of over $73,000. Curiously, according to the PEW standard report, that is the same profile of the most frequent user of the Internet and the source of most of Internet commerce. Consequently, stings like these that have been carried out across the country have not hit their target of arresting sex offenders.