Since the introduction of computers to our society, and in the early 80's the Internet, the world has never been the same. Suddenly our physical world got smaller and the electronic world set its foundations for an endless electronic reality. As we approach the year 2000, the turn of the millenium, humanity has already well established itself into the "Information Age." So much in fact that as a nation we find our selves out of a service economy and into an information based economy. In a matter of only a few years almost all systems are run buy computers in some way, shape, or form. We depend on them for everything. Even the smallest malfunction or glitch in a system could now cause unfathomable amounts of trouble in everything from riding the bus, having access to your money, to getting your prescription at the pharmacists. Furthermore, Icove (1998) suggested that with the price of home computers that work faster and store more memory going down every year due to competition in the market, it is estimated that by the year 2011 most every American home will have a PC with instant access to the Internet. With an increase in users everyday and new businesses taking advantage of pe

For example, on September 16, 1999 in Dallas, Texas, United States Attorney Paul E. Coggins was happy to report that, due to aggressive investigations done by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and later prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Yarbrough, Corey Lindsly and Calvin Cantrell were sentenced in federal court by Chief District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer. Criminal conviction on the two was handed down for selling stolen long distance calling card numbers that were illegally obtained by hacking into computer systems of Sprint Corporation, Southwestern Bell and GTE. Calvin Cantrell, age 30, of Grand Prairie, Texas, was sentenced to two years imprisonment and ordered to pay $10,000 to the victimized corporations and Corey Lindsly, age 32, of Portland, Oregon, was sentenced to forty-one months imprisonment and ordered to pay $10,000 to the victimized corporations.

However, even in an artificial environment such as the cyberspace, it appears mankind cannot escape from its somewhat overwhelming natural attraction to wrongful behavior or criminal tendencies. In turn this alternative dimension has been infected with the same criminal behavior that plagues our physical reality. The information age has opened the doors to anti social, smart, and opportunistic people to find new and innovative ways to commit old crimes. These people are called hackers. Schamalleger (1999), stated that hackers are people who view and use computers as objects of exploration and exploitation(p. 457).

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Approximate Word count = 3523
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)