Analysis of An Online Crime
Hanshu Zhang
Instructor: Dr. Timothy King
Sept. 30th
Online Crime Case:
On Sept. 26th, a 19-year-old freshman named Jared James Abrahams was arrested on federal charges of “sextorting” women around the world, including the new Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf who he went to high school with, by hacking into some 150 computers and commandeering the web cameras to take compromising pictures. He then used these to compel victims to provide more unsightly pictures, videos or live chats, threatening to post the pictures online if they do not do so.
In one case, the victim was a 17-year-old Irish girl, who asked Abrahams to “have a heart”, to which the suspect allegedly replied “I'll tell you this right now! I do NOT have a heart. However, I do stick to my deals. Also age doesn't mean a thing to me.” (Botelho)He is currently held on a $50,000 bail, with court order to always wear a GPS tracker and a ban from using computers for anything but studying if freed.
Story Link:
Analysis:
In this cyber/internet crime case, we can clearly see the effect of the toxic disinhibition of the Internet, especially that of invisibility, disinhibition due to not being physically seen on the internet.(Suler) This effect is most prominent in text communication, where visual access is not necessary. Invisibility makes people do things and go to places online that they wouldn’t dare do or go to in real life.(Suler)
For the criminal, he was provided with invisibility in all three stages of his plot: the setting up of crime, the act of crime and the blackmailing. First of all, given the nature of cyber/internet crimes, he didn’t have to be physically present when he was commandeering the webcams. Compared with the olden way, which is having to sneak into the victims’ homes to install a spy camera, the cyber/internet procedure disinhibits the criminal in that his risk of getting caught during the commandeering process is virtually zero, as the average computer user has no idea how to determine whether their webcams are commandeered or to look for the malware if they are aware.
Invisibility also comes into effect when the extorter takes compromising pictures or videos of the victims. Again by the nature of this crime, the victims do not know when Abrahams is using their webcams, since the signal light does not turn on. This provides the criminal with invisibility in the act of the crime. His victim is not aware of being watched and recorded when Abrahams is using the commandeered webcam to obtain images. This invisibility increases the disinhibiting effect on the criminal, as there is virtually no way for him to be “caught in the act” by the victims.
Although by contacting the victim and making demands Abrahams loses a portion of his invisibility, the blackmailing process still holds an intrinsic invisible quality found in most text communications. According to John Suler, in text communication people “don’t have to worry about how others look or sound in response to what they say.” Although they are communicating through text, the extorter and the victim are not visually accessible to each other. Therefore he feels less inhibited to cruelly and coldly reject their appeals to his conscience, and make more vicious demands of them.
Although the case also involves disinhibiting elements such as dissociative anonymity on the part of Abrahams and the victims’ unawareness that with a computer and internet connection in it, their “private” spaces has become public, invisibility is the most significant disinhibiting force. Its effect on people can drive them toward trying and succeeding to do harm.
Work Cited:
Botelho, Greg. “Arrest Made in Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf ‘Sextortion’ Case.” CNN. Web. 3 Oct. 2013.
Suler, John. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 7.3 (2004): 321–326. Print.
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