Cybercriminology: Foundations
This course’s primary goal is to introduce students to the basic vocabulary and ideas used by cybercriminologists and other social scientists. These goals will be met in four ways:
- Students will gain a basic understanding of the Internet’s architecture. Students need knowledge of how computers communicate through interconnected networks to understand how many cybercrimes are committed.
- Students will explore the most common types of cybercrimes. Cybercrimes can be roughly divided into four categories – cybertrespass, cyberpornography, cyberviolence, and cyberdeception.
- Students will critique the significant debates surrounding cybercrime. Society’s understanding of what should be prohibited, how we should investigate, and how we should prosecute cybercrime are continuously being negotiated by groups in society. Our social world is socially constructed, and cybercrime issues are no different.
- Students will connect cybercrimes to broader social impacts as they relate to individuals and families. While cybersecurity courses may focus more on corporations’ and governments’ concerns and how to protect the data within them, a cybercrime course focuses more on how everyday people are victimized.
Course Material
This course consisted of 6 lecture response papers, 3 video response papers, a geofence warrant paper, and a social science paper.
The social science paper was used to look at how social news sources looked at cybercrime. This gives insight into how it is relevant in everyday living as well as how knowledgeable the public is about cyberdeceptions. This also furthered my interest in the social side of cybersecurity.
The lecture responses showed an understanding of the course material as well as further thought on application or effects on the world.