David S Wall
I am Professor of Criminology at the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds, UK where I research and/or teach cybercrime, identity crime, organised crime, policing and intellectual property crime. I have published a wide range of 40+ articles and 10+ books on these subjects and I also have a sustained track record of interdisciplinary funded research in these areas from the EU FP6 & FP7, ESRC, EPSRC, AHRC & other funders, such as the N8, Home Office and DSTL.
I am currently conducting research into Cybercrime (EPSRC CeRes) and also Policing Cybercrime in the Cloud (EPSRC CRITiCal) in collaboration with Newcastle University Centre for Cybercrime & Computer Security (CCCS) and Durham University. I am also conducting research on CryptoCurrencies (N8 Funded) with GMP, Liverpool and Birmingham City Universities and a collaborative research project TAKEDOWN (Horizon 2020) with 18 European partners. From April 2017 my research team will commence a collaborative project on Ransomware (EPSRC EMPHASIS) with Kent, Durham, City, De Montfort Universities.
I recently concluded two EU funded research projects on the proceeds of organised crime (FP7, OCP) and the infiltration of legitimate economies by organised crime groups (EU Sec, ARIEL) with various European academic partners and policing agencies.
I am a member of various Governmental working groups, such as the Ministerial Working Group on Horizon Planning 2020-25, the Home Office Cybercrime Working Group (looking at issues of policy, costs and harms of crime and technology to society), and the HMIC Digital Crime and Policing working group. I am an Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
I re-joined the University of Leeds in August 2015 from Durham where I was Professor of Criminology (2010-2015) and Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences (2011-2014). Prior to moving to Durham I was Professor of Criminal Justice 2004+, Head of the School of Law (2005-2007) and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice (2000-2005) at the University of Leeds.
A selection of my articles (along with some updates) is available from the SSRN at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=376504
Phone: + 44 113 343 9575
Address: Professor David S. Wall,
Centre for Criminal Justice Studies,
School of Law,
Rm 2.20 Liberty Building,
University of Leeds.
Leeds.
LS2 9JT UK
+ 44 (0)113 343 9575 (Office)
+44 (0)113 343 5033 (Gen Office
I am currently conducting research into Cybercrime (EPSRC CeRes) and also Policing Cybercrime in the Cloud (EPSRC CRITiCal) in collaboration with Newcastle University Centre for Cybercrime & Computer Security (CCCS) and Durham University. I am also conducting research on CryptoCurrencies (N8 Funded) with GMP, Liverpool and Birmingham City Universities and a collaborative research project TAKEDOWN (Horizon 2020) with 18 European partners. From April 2017 my research team will commence a collaborative project on Ransomware (EPSRC EMPHASIS) with Kent, Durham, City, De Montfort Universities.
I recently concluded two EU funded research projects on the proceeds of organised crime (FP7, OCP) and the infiltration of legitimate economies by organised crime groups (EU Sec, ARIEL) with various European academic partners and policing agencies.
I am a member of various Governmental working groups, such as the Ministerial Working Group on Horizon Planning 2020-25, the Home Office Cybercrime Working Group (looking at issues of policy, costs and harms of crime and technology to society), and the HMIC Digital Crime and Policing working group. I am an Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
I re-joined the University of Leeds in August 2015 from Durham where I was Professor of Criminology (2010-2015) and Head of the School of Applied Social Sciences (2011-2014). Prior to moving to Durham I was Professor of Criminal Justice 2004+, Head of the School of Law (2005-2007) and Director of the Centre for Criminal Justice (2000-2005) at the University of Leeds.
A selection of my articles (along with some updates) is available from the SSRN at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=376504
Phone: + 44 113 343 9575
Address: Professor David S. Wall,
Centre for Criminal Justice Studies,
School of Law,
Rm 2.20 Liberty Building,
University of Leeds.
Leeds.
LS2 9JT UK
+ 44 (0)113 343 9575 (Office)
+44 (0)113 343 5033 (Gen Office
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Papers by David S Wall
Cybercrime has experienced an ascending position in national security agendas world-wide. It has become part of the National Security Strategies of a growing number of countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, the USA and many others, becoming a Tier One threat, above organised crime and fraud generally. Cybercrime is now the typical high-volume property crime in the UK, impacting upon more of the public than traditional acquisitive crimes such as burglary and car theft (Anderson et al, 2012). We have also witnessed in the UK a renewed policy focus on cybercrime and information warfare, embodied within the Cyber Security Strategy (Cabinet Office 2011) and the commitment by the coalition Government of £650 million to combat the problems. A large part of these funds have been allocated to increasing the UK’s preparedness to incoming threats (MoD & GCHQ), with the remainder to develop the UK National policing capacity with the recently formed Police Central eCrime Unit (PCeU) based within the Metropolitan police, the National CyberCrime Unit based in the National Crime Agency (APCC, 2012) and the three regional police cybercrime hubs in Yorkshire and the Humber, the Northwest and the East Midlands. The UK has clearly not been the only jurisdiction expanding its local capacity to deal with cybercrime. As mentioned above, similar expansions have taken place across the globe in both developed and developing nations. The recent establishment of the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) at Europol (BBC, 2013) and the planned Interpol Global Complex for Innovation evidence the cross-border efforts to combat the growing problem (Interpol, 2012). In addition to the above, we have also seen a modest increase in commissioned research by various stakeholders and research councils (see the RCUK Global Uncertainties programme). Combined, these developments offer a platform to re-new criminological scholarship in the area presenting an opportunity to set future research, policy and operational agendas.
This edited collection addresses the recent 'inertia' in both critical thinking and the empirical study of cybercrime and policing. Following a burgeoning of academic papers in the late 1990s and early 2000s there has been a slowdown in empirical and theoretical work from a criminological perspective. This pattern has coincided with a downward trend in the recorded incidence of cybercrimes between 2004 and 2008 (as evidenced by the most robust commercial and domestic cybercrime data sources in the UK: the Information Security Breaches Survey and the Oxford Internet Surveys). Yet, in recent years (especially 2010-2011) there has been recorded an increase in all cybercrimes for the first time since 2004 (see Williams and Levi 2012 for a more detailed overview of recent statistics). There are also indications of a dramatic increase in the fear of cybercrime (National Statistics, 2012). In tandem with increases in recorded prevalence and fears, cybercrimes are also manifesting in more harmful forms than was hitherto thought possible. We have, for example, recently witnessed the birth of the malicious ‘super-viruses’ (such as Flame, Zeus, Spy-Eye and Stuxnet), Scareware, and the rebirth of hacktivism. Both Stuxnet and Zeus are professionally constructed complex pieces of software. Stuxnet is a suspected state-sponsored virus attacks industrial computer systems offline and on, seeking out its target of top-secret computer systems that control nuclear enrichment plants (Sanger 2012). Zeus seeks financial information about its host, whilst also connecting the user’s computer to a botnet – a network of infected computers – that broadens the cybercriminal’s reach. Scareware extorts money from users and is significant in that it is the first major example of an automated crime where the machine defrauds the user and also sends money back to the criminal. Finally, Anonymous and LulZec, in support of Wikileaks, demonstrate a departure from the old 1980s ethical hacker ethos. Each of these developments represents a step change on the previous position further challenging existing policing structures.
The papers in this collection highlight existing cybercrime challenges and also those on the horizon. As a whole, the papers show that cybercrimes are changing in two significant ways that are asymmetrical. On the one hand cybercrime is becoming increasingly professionalised resulting in ’specialists’ that perform complex and sophisticated attacks on computer systems and human users. On the other, the ‘hyper-connectivity’ brought about by the exponential growth in social media users has opened up opportunities to ‘non-specialist’ citizens to organise and communicate in ways that facilitate crimes on and offline. While largely distinct, these developments pose equally contrasting challenges for policing which this collection addresses.
Contents: Introduction; Part I Developments in Thinking About Cybercrimes: The novelty of 'cybercrime': an assessment in light of routine activity theory, Majid Yar; The criminology of hybrids: rethinking crime and law in technosocial networks, Sheila Brown. Part II Changes in the Organization of Crime Online: Organized cybercrime? How cyberspace may affect the structure of criminal relationships, Susan W. Brenner; Digital realism and the governance of spam as cybercrime, David S. Wall; Can the law can spam? Legislation is a blunt instrument with which to beat junk email, Sandy Starr; Can technology can spam? IT companies do battle with bulk email, Sandy Starr; Viruses, worms and Trojan horses: serious crimes, nuisance, or both?, Lorine A. Hughes and Gregory J. DeLone; Policing diversity in the digital age: maintaining order in virtual communities, David S. Wall and Matthew Williams. Part III The Changing Nature of Cybercrime: Computer Integrity Crime: Hackers and the contested ontology of cyberspace, Helen Nissenbaum; The internet in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, Briavel Holcombe, Philip B. Bakelaar and Mark Zizzamia; Computer Assisted Crime: Cross-national investigation and prosecution of intellectual property crimes: the operation of 'Operation Buccaneer', Gregor Urbas; Identity theft, identity fraud and /or identity-related crime. Definitions matter, Bert-Jaap Koops and Ronald Leenes; Computer Content Crime: International police operations against online child pornography, Tony Krone; Fetishising images, Barbara Hewson; Now you see it, now you don’t: digital images and the meaning of 'possession', Jonathan Clough; Cyberstalking and cyberpredators: a threat to safe sexuality on the internet, Francesca Philips and Gabrielle Morrissey; The social construction of digital danger: debating, defusing and inflating the moral dangers of online humor and pornography in the Netherlands and the United States, Giselinde Kuipers; Hiding in plain sight: an exploration of the illegal(?) activities of a drugs newsgroup, Jacqueline L. Schneider; A survey of online harassment at a university campus, Jerry Finn. Part IV Regulating Cybercrime: Digital architecture as crime control, Neal Kumar Katyal; Cybersecurity: who's watching the store?, Bruce Berkowitz and Robert W. Hahn; Virtual crimes, F. Gregory Lastowka and Dan Hunter; Technology, criminology and crime science, Ronald V. Clarke; Technology-enabled crime, policing and security, Sam McQuade; Technology and social control, G.T. Marx. Part V Policing and Preventing Cybercrime: Seeing beyond the ruins: surveillance as a response to terrorist threats, Kevin D. Haggerty and Amber Gazso. Policing the filth: the problems of investigating online child pornography in England and Wales, Yvonne Jewkes and Carol Andrews; Developments in the global law enforcement of cyber-crime, Roderic Broadhurst; The future for the policing of cybercrime, Peter Sommer; Requirements of prosecution services to deal with cybercrime, Peter Grabosky; Security in the age of networks, Benoît Dupont"
Organised into three sections, this edited book engages with the various criminological debates that are emerging over cybercrime. The first section looks at the general problem of crime and the internet. It then describes what is understood by the term 'cybercrime' by identifying some of the challenges for criminology. The second section explores the different types of cybercrime and their attendant problems. The final section contemplates some of the challenges that cybercrimes give rise to for the criminal justice system."
The advent of a global information society demands a new understanding of the complexities of the architecture of that society and its implications for existing social institutions such as law and government. This authoritative and innovative book takes as its theme the Internet within the settings of law, politics and society. It relates and analyses their interactions and draws out the implications of 'cyberspace' for law and society. It therefore has a wider and more critical agenda than existing, more technical expositions of computer or Internet law. It is about the 'law in action' and not just the 'law in books'. It examines Internet activity that takes place in the shadow of law where there is a fascinating range of regulatory responses and governance strategies. The book covers, in four Parts- the Internet, law and society; governance and the Internet; legal institutions and professions and the Internet; and, legal controversies in cyberspace.
The Internet, Law and Society is an ideal scholarly text for academics and students, policy makers and practitioners. Based on original research and experience of involvement in legal and policy processes in relation to the Internet, the authors provide essential reading both as an authoritative source-book and as a critical and discursive text for anyone studying or working within the Internet's impact on law and society.