Journal Entry 5 – Ranking Individual Motives 

Below is how I would rank each individual motive, based off which would make the most sense to the least amount of sense.

  1. Multiple Reasons – This motive makes the most sense to me as many cybercrimes happen when the cybercriminal has more than one motive, it may be a mix of reasons. Someone may commit cybercrimes because they find it entertaining as well as seeking recognition. 
  2. Money – I feel that money deserves to be ranked at number two since money drives most, if not all, of humanity. Some people are in financially straining situations, which then makes them desperate, and will do anything for money. Whereas others are just greedy and become motivated by other things. Examples are things like bad habits, luxury items, investing to gain more money, or putting more money into their criminal activates.
  3. Revenge – I believe revenge deserves to be placed at number three since a lot of people act on emotion. With the internet being so easily available, it’s easy to destroy someone’s life by uploading certain information or media. Someone’s reputation can be destroyed in seconds. As well as, completely screwing over an organization by infiltrating their systems and either shutting down their servers or stealing all their information.
  4. Recognition – I placed recognition at number four since most people want to be recognized for something in their life. Most crime is simply because people just want to be acknowledged and prove their abilities, whether it’s good or bad.
  5. Political – Politics is a very touchy subject. Although it is a common motive, it’s not as common as the other motives above which is why I am placing it at number five. I believe hackers typical take the risk due to having a strong motive on wanting to make a political statement/point, or just simply because they don’t like one of the political parties. I believe this generation has become more involved with making points when it comes to politics compared to some of the previous generations, which gives a lot of youthful hackers a political motive. I’ve seen a lot of younger people, roughly the ages eighteen to late twenties, make a lot of choices that can harm their reputation just because of their political stance.
  6. Entertainment – I ranked entertainment at number six since it doesn’t make the most sense to me. I believe that hacking for entertainment is less likely to be a common motive, cybercriminals usually have stronger motives. I don’t personally understand why someone would do it “just for fun” when there are better ways to entertain yourself. If you wanted to do something for fun regarding cyber, then why not work within that field? 
  7. Boredom – I ranked boredom at number seven since it makes the least amount of sense to me since once again, there are better things you can do to cure your boredom. I cannot fathom committing a crime solely out of boredom. I believe that again, cybercriminals usually take the risk when they have a stronger motive, like money or revenge. The article also mentioned children being at risk of being groomed and cyberbullying, since they have access to the internet without parental controls. Because of this, cybercriminals that are looking to do things out of boredom find children as an easy target, or other children that are bored may cyberbully others. This is why we should teach children about online safety, as well as putting parental controls on children’s devices and/or checking their devices on a regular basis. 

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