Why do many people feel that software piracy is not a serious crime?
In 500 words each respond to the two posts
Add input and agree or disagree
Post 1. Stephanie
Hello Everyone,
My name is Stephanie or Steph, I do not mind. I am working on my masters in psychology currently and should be done in December if all goes well. I am not in any Branch of service however, all of my family is military. My parents met in the Army, my oldest brother is in the Air Force, middle brother is in the National Guard and the youngest is in the Marines. I am so thankful for everyone who fights for our Country including my family. I live in Chicago and work at the hospital as a rehab tech. I do patient care, vitals and whatever is needed pretty much. This is one of the courses needed for my certificate and being that I work on computers daily and we just changed our computer system, I am always interested to learn more an see how it can help me. Besides over working myself, I have two children who take up most of my time. My oldest just turned five last weekend and my youngest is eight months old. I do over work myself so fitting in school has been a struggle but I am getting it done. I am also a single mom so showing my kids you can do whatever you set your mind to is my main goal. So, wish me luck!
One of the cases I found to be very interesting was the 2015 attack with Chase. JP Chase was targeted and stole over 83 million individuals personal information and used it to gain hundreds of millions of dollars. “The trio themselves allegedly described the incident as “one of the largest thefts of financial-related data in history”(Elsom, 2017). They sold this personal information to others and they could do as they pleased, either stealing money, making fake accounts or so on. I think individuals do not think this stuff will happen to them and they assume it is just hear say and they don’t want to “waste” money trying to save there items and even if they did, it cannot protect everything. The data break for this one was done through chase, not the individuals computers. Since companies have back up and all this protections you wouldn’t think this would happen but sadly it does. With software protect, I think it has to be always changing because these individuals who want to find that information are going to keep going till they get it.
– Stephanie Maness
Elsom, D. (2017, October 11). Five of the worst cases of cyber crime the world has ever seen – from stealing data from one BILLION Yahoo users to crippling the NHS. Retrieved from https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4120942/five-of-the-…
Post 2 heather
Greetings classmates and professor, there are not many nicknames for Heather, so that is fine. I completed my undergraduate degree receiving a BS in Mathematics with a minor in Philosophy. I am now halfway through my Cybersecurity Master’s program. I have no military experience, but my sister is in the Coast Guard, and that was how I learned about APUS. My current job title is Project Manager and Director of Managed Services for an AWS Partner company that focuses on Cloud solutions. My job description is that of an operations manager and a project manager, while building a managed service department, doing some business development, marketing, and internal IT work. It’s a lot, but I can’t not be busy, or I will start to get restless, so it works. I live in Massachusetts about 40 minutes out of Boston. I am taking this class because it is a requirement for my master’s program, and I am really looking forward to the content! I hope to learn a lot more about some of the nuances of cybercrime, some of my past courses have touched on this subject but I am excited for the deeper dive. My hobbies include painting, mixed media art, yoga, hiking, and working on certifications (I think that can be a hobby )
I suppose I would like to add that I really care about cybersecurity, I am the person in the group getting on the case for having poor password habits and not using MFA, I’m not ashamed! I have developed and taught cybersecurity classes for my coworkers that were well received, and I intend to relate my master’s thesis to cybersecurity education.
1) Online services are making the ability to commit cybercrimes easy.
Research an online service and case. Please explain the details of the service/case in the discussion board. When using online services, what can be done to stay secure?
Hill and Marion (2018) describe some of the reasons that lend to why it is so easy to commit cybercrime around online services. They note the increased use of in mobile devices and the internet in general, and how this increases risk of cyber-attack. When using the Internet for online services becomes mainstream, you end up with users who are not necessarily educated on its dangers. These people can easily be taken advantage of by an online criminal, sometimes it can be social engineering taken to its worst extreme. Take for example the case Hill and Marion (2018) recount involving a murderous pair who used the Craigslist service to trick their victims into thinking they were going for a job interview and instead killing them. Rosin (2015) provides further details on this case. She gives some history on the criminals and describes how they were able to lure their victims. He posted a job offering to work on a cattle ranch that painted an idealistic picture, according to Hill and Marion (2018), and he had some very specific criteria in his interview processes. One of his victims moved across country to take the job and his disappearance was one of the trails that led to the solving the case.
When using online services, there are a lot of ways to do so safely and improve your security. In the case of social engineering, when using the internet for services, be cautious in general. I tend to be overly paranoid about anything online, but maybe my level of cautiousness is what should be standard. With regards other types of cybercrime, like viruses and malware distribution, there are ways to harden the defense of devices that access the internet. Using antimalware software is a start, having good security habits is better, making yourself aware of current threats is best.
2) Is software piracy really a big problem? Research cases on software piracy.
An analysis completed by BSA The Software Alliance (2018) reports that more than a third of the software installed on PCs is pirated. The report further highlights why software piracy is a big problem. In addition to losses in revenue from intellectual property, pirated software often has malware in it, so when downloaded, the computer is infected.
There was a case in 2017 of a man who sold millions worth of pirated software, including Microsoft, through a piracy scheme (US Attorney’s Office 2017). In 2015 there was another high profile case of pirated software ending up on legitimate websites like Amazon due to the workings of a global piracy scheme (Greenburg 2015).
a) Why do many people feel that software piracy is not a serious crime?
My feeling is that people don’t feel like it is a serious crime because they don’t see an immediate negative effect, they perceive an immediate positive gain. The act of using pirated software does not affect them negatively, and it saves them money.
b) What is your opinion about software piracy? What can be done to stop this type of crime?
My opinion is that software piracy is stealing. In using pirated software, one is not only harming the owner of that software, but also others who are legitimately paying for the software, and having to deal with increased costs that stem from it
I don’t know if it’s possible to completely stop this type of crime. Some brainstorming thoughts on that front are designing the software in a way that forces a check with the manufacturer and has license information tied into the check. Another route would be to make the punishment more severe and invest more in attributing actors to these types of crime.
Thanks for reading, looking forward to learning from everyone over the next eight weeks!
-Heather
References
Hill, JB., and Marion, NE. (2016). “Chapter One: Introduction.” In Introduction to Cybercrime: Computer Crimes, Laws, and Policing in the 21st Century. Retrieved from http://psi.praeger.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/Topics/Di…
Greenburg, A. (2015, December 17). 6 Men Admit to Running a Global $100M Software Piracy Ring. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2015/12/6-men-admit-to-runni…
Rosin, H. (2015). Murder by Craigslist. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/…
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