Hiding Crimes in Cyberspace (PREPRINT)
Abstract
The growth of telecommunications and electronic commerce has led to a growing commercial market for digital encryption technologies. Business needs encryption to protect intellectual property and to establish secure links with their partners, suppliers, and customers. Banks need it to ensure the confidentiality and authenticity of financial transactions. Law enforcement needs it to stop those under investigation from intercepting police communications and obstructing investigations. Individuals need it to protect their private communications and confidential data. Encryption is critical to building a secure and trusted global information infrastructure for communications and electronic commerce. Encryption also gives criminals and terrorists a powerful tool for concealing their activities. It can make it impossible for law enforcement agencies to obtain the evidence needed for a conviction or the intelligence vital to criminal investigations. It can frustrate communications intercepts, which have played a significant role in averting terrorist attacks and in gathering information about specific transnational threats, including terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime. It can delay investigations and add to their cost. Section 1 describes criminal use of encryption in voice and data communications, electronic mail, stored files, and public postings. Section 2 examines encryption and the options available to law enforcement for dealing with it. Section 3 describes a variety of tools for concealing information: passwords, digital compression, steganography, remote storage, and audit disabling. Section 4 describes tools for hiding crimes through anonymity: anonymous remailers, anonymous digital cash, computer penetration and looping, cellular phone cloning, and cellular phone cards. Numerous case studies are presented for illustration.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADA485001
Entities
People
- Dorothy E. Denning
- William E. Baugh Jr.
Organizations
- Georgetown University