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8 - Fraud, Extortion and Identity Theft

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2024

Matthew David
Affiliation:
Durham University
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Summary

Key questions

  • 1. Does the rise of online fraud and extortion indicate increased risk or simply the migration of already existing forms of crime to online domains? Or is this rise just the consequence of economic growth, particularly in intangible goods?

  • 2. What is identity and what does the concept of identity theft tell us about the relationship between identity and identification in a digital age?

  • 3. Why is digital encryption so secure in some domains but so weak in others?

  • 4. What is the relationship between social engineering (persuading people to give up their personal details) and technical skill in online fraud?

  • 5. Is the hidden extent of fraud online greater or less than in relation to older forms of fraud?

Links to affordances

The issue of incitement is significant in relation to fraud and identity theft (insofar as people are persuaded to act on the basis of deception), while the question of access is paramount. The increased separation of person from persona, identity from identification, in and by means of digital networks, makes alienable identifiers both increasingly essential and risky; but personal safeguarding and institutional security (and compensation) methods make most people safer online than off (although this may itself incite risky/unthinking behaviours). What encryption (and the digital keys that can be used to secure/unlock encrypted data) can conceal, surveillance or poor safeguarding can reveal, but this creates symmetry between fraudsters and authorities seeking to follow the digital mouse droppings that online fraud itself creates. While evasion by means of transnational access is made increasingly possible, the social-engineering side of networked fraud limits such action at a distance.

Synopsis

The possibility of micro-fraud, where small amounts are taken from large numbers of victims, increases in scope online, not least as more people use ever greater numbers of online platforms to undertake financial transactions that they would previously have either undertaken in a face-to-face context or not at all. This has led to a huge escalation in the incidence of online fraud. In addition, more traditional forms of large-scale fraud are also made easier through digital channels to digitally held accounts. As such, fraud online has increased, but the question remains whether this manifests an increase in overall levels of fraud or a migration from one modus operandi to another. This chapter highlights a complex picture.

Type
Chapter
Information
Networked Crime
Does the Digital Make the Difference?
, pp. 143 - 158
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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