Reference no: EM132164609

Question: Digital crime is a relatively new area of law and the previous concepts of law, property, presence, and even theft have been revised during these past 20 years. For the future, how can American police investigate or stop digital criminality when the actors are outside the geographical boundaries of the United States?

Is that kind of crime outside the ability of a state and local police force?

Is it realistic to stop the kinds of digital crimes that are as common as speeding tickets?

Downloading of music & movies or other intellectual property for personal use?

I don't think anyone could contest that it is stealing, but is it possible that it is so common, with an individual event cost so small, and offenders who are in all other respects, non-criminal, that criminal investigation & prosecution of this is a poor use of resources?

Perhaps there is an easier way to slow the theft?

Should we rely upon the same technology that steals, to protect the property?

Just as a side note: I have a small role in providing technical assistance to a brick and mortar university with about 3400 residential traditional aged students there. The task was to reduce the rampant use of bandwidth consumed by the students outside of class hours. The answer was a firewall to filter and throttle the access and speeds of data. After 8 pm at night, what would you guess was the #1 consumer of bandwidth? Students doing homework? Nope-pornsites.

When the filters were in place, 71% of the requests were filtered out because of porn or other sites deemed unacceptable to the university.

What does this say about the utility of the internet?