Cyber Culture And Cybercrime

How to deal with the cybercrimes is an important issue for each country's government. Cybercrimes pose a grave threat to the national security and individual's safety and privacy. The economic loss resulting from such crimes is huge. Furthermore, cybercrimes are on the rise. So most countries passed bills addressing the issue of cybercrimes. At the same time, criminologists do lot of research on it. Analyzing the phenomenon of rising cybercrimes by culture theory is an effective means used by some criminologists.The first chapter is about the features of cyber culture and the relationship between the cyber culture and cybercrimes. As a new kind of culture in human history, the cyber culture is totally different with the previous kinds of cultures, like agriculture culture or industry culture. The prominent features of the cyber culture are: (1) its close relation with the cyber technology; (2) virtual nature of the cyberspace; (3) no authorization and no center-control in the cyberspace (4) creative nature; (5) transnational nature. All those features make the normal people more convenient to do business, to communicate. However they also benefit to the criminals. It's easier to commit a crime in the cyberspace than in the physical space mainly because (1) there is less restriction in the cyberspace; (2) one can commit a cybercrime in a jurisdiction without being physically present in it; (3) it's hard for the police to trace and prove the crime.According to the culture conflict theory which was developed by Thorsten Sellin, there are two types of culture conflicts which directly cause the commitment of crimes, the primary and secondary conflicts. Primary conflict occurs when norm of two cultures clash. Secondary conflict arises when a single culture evolves into a variety of cultures, each has its own set of conduct norms. As discussed before, the cyber culture has its own conduct norms which are different with those in the real world. So wherever the Internet is used, the culture conflicts must exist. The individual can feel the conflict frequently even he/she doesn't migrant to another territory. One contacts with different cultures everyday through the Internet. In this circumstance, one is easily to lose his way.To reduce those culture conflicts, the rationales of cyber culture should be changed in some degree. One should realize that it's impossible to be entirely freedom in the cyberspace and it's essential for the governments to impose control in the cyberspace.The second chapter talked about the ethics in the cyberspace. Morality is the core part of culture. Controlling one's conducts by moral rules is an important means in any kind of cultures. In the Internet era, most codes in physical world cannot be applied in the cyberspace. One is mainly restricted by his/her own beliefs. When one developed good sense of morality, he/she will not infringe other's rights even if there are no laws to prohibit it. On the contrary, those who did not have good sense of morality will tend to get profits by any means even by hurting others. So cultivating individual's conscience is an effective way to prevent the crimes, especially to prevent the cybercrimes.A lot of philosophers and moralists talked about the issue of appropriate moral rules. The theories posed by them are the bases to develop the moral system in the cyberspace. Generally, an integrated moral system comprises the basic moral rules and the ideal morality. The former is the lower level of the moral system, the later is the high level. It's same for cyber ethics. There are three basic principles which should be abided by every subscriber: respect of human being, no harm and development. Ideal morality should also be encouraged, like altruism, self-denial etc. There are intense debates on several moral issues of cyber culture, especially on the social attitude to the hackers, the protection of privacy and the range of freedom. We should analyze those problems case by case. The standards which we used to ma...