It can be understood very easily that humans had started efforts from the beginning to make their lives simple and easy. Man is the only creature in this world who has made the fastest efforts for his existence and facilities compared to the rest of the creatures in the world, and this fact does not require any proof. Man has made continuous inventions from fire and wheels to today’s modern world.
Living in society and connecting with each other is one of man’s innate tendencies, and it is this reason that inspired man to fulfill each other’s needs from the very beginning. This system of human civilization became the main basis of its development. According to the needs, the principles that man created on the background of demand and supply gave birth to the economic system in this world and many related systems on which the whole world today rests.
Being a social animal by nature, man has increased mutual contact since ancient times. Certainly, man must have first adopted signaling methods for mutual communication, which later became the medium of communication in various forms. This was followed by the development of languages and the establishment of basic means of contact. In this way, by resorting to knowledge, man gradually reached the modern information and communication revolution.
Meanwhile, even in the absence of direct contact and communication, humans invented many tricks to exchange messages, such as the use of fire and smoke signals, sending letters through messengers or pigeons, and then telephone, telegram, Creation of arrangements like telegram. Finally the revolutionary audiovisual communication features of the computer era appeared. The means related to information and communication technology have become so powerful, accessible and popular today that even when there is geographical distance, humans can know, see and understand everything about each other. In such a situation, it has become easier than ever to commit crimes through information and communication mediums.
Computers were not used in the crime world for almost another two decades after Marshar’s first digital computer came into existence in 1943. This was because in reality no one could even think of committing crimes through these computers. Only a few people were allowed to operate large-sized electronic computer machines and these computers were not even connected (networked). Also, only a very few people knew how to work on them, so at that time the possibilities of danger were negligible.
Reports of the use of computers by criminals first appeared in the 1960s. This was the time when most computers were mainframe systems. In 1946, several companies had started work on manufacturing commercially useful mainframe computers. In 1951 the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was created and used for census purposes.
On November 4, 1952, Columbia Broadcasting System News (CBS News) used the Remington Rand Univac computer to estimate election results, accurate estimates of which were obtained.
By 1960 there were about 5000 mainframe computers in the United States, and by 1970 the number had increased to 80,000, of which about 50,000 mainframe computers were being used outside the United States in other countries. Therefore, it would not be unreasonable to say that computer crimes started being born as early as the 1960’s.
However, the computer crimes of the decades 1960 and 1970 were undoubtedly different from the cyber crimes of today’s world. Firstly, there was no internet at that time and secondly, mainframe computers were not interconnected.
Mainframe computers established in 1960 functioned as centralized computing systems and people connected many terminals to this centralized computing system through network connections and remote dial-up connections. Users entered their text-based commands through these terminals and these terminals sent these commands to the mainframe, where the entire processing was done. After this, whatever result of processing was generated was sent back to the terminal, which was visible on the terminal screen.
In fact, mainframe computers were so large in size that an entire room was necessary to store them. Besides, an air conditioning system was also required for the proper operation of the machine, so that the vacuum tubes of this machine could not overheat and damage the circuits inside the computer.
Because mainframes were not connected to any other computer and a complex process had to be adopted in their use, it was within the power of very few people to tamper with them and commit computer crimes. In fact, only the people inside directly involved in the operation of these mainframe computers could carry out such acts. Therefore, all the computer crimes that took place during this time were committed by insiders of this system.
These employees sometimes read confidential information of other employees to spy on them, and sometimes used to damage computers or destroy the information stored in them to take revenge for scolding or disciplinary action. During this period, such crimes continued to happen, but the most common crime among them was related to causing financial loss, because the employees of the institutions also started using mainframe computers for their financial gain.
Example: In the mid-1960’s a man called Ralph Smith worked at a company. He owned a small Univac (UNIVAC) computer, through which he provided computer services to his company. Over time Smith began to feel that the company was exploiting him and keeping his own share of his hard-earned money. On this Smith decided that he would compensate for his losses by accessing the company’s accounts and computing system.
For this, he created some fake companies and started paying fake bills while providing imaginary services to his company. Smith then misused the computer to complete the billing process and began manipulating the company’s profit figures to reduce the actual profit amount. He used to keep the extra amount himself.
Smith was so successful in his racketeering that in one year he earned up to $2,50,000 — which was a huge amount of money for an accountant living in a small town at that time. Smith later said that it was very easy to hide such embezzlement from their owners because they believed that computer statistics were 100% correct.
When Smith amassed considerable wealth after six years of embezzlement in a row, he decided to quit. He deliberately committed a mistake, leading to criminal charges against him. In court Smith admitted his mistake because he believed he would receive a maximum sentence of 18 months — which was much less than the amount he earned.
But unfortunately the Court sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment. Smith later began learning computer programming in prison and also taught many prisoners. As a result he was released on the grounds of good conduct in just five and a half years. After coming out of jail, he had become a skilled and prosperous person, who no longer needed to work.
Smith’s story may have been unique, but his crime was not. During that period, many such cases of computer embezzlement came to light, many of which were not even reported.
However prior to this, incidents of phone freaking (Phone Phreaking) had also started since the late 1950’s. Their mention here is relevant because hacking, which will be explained in detail further, is as much related to telephones as it is to computers.
‘Phone Phreak’ (Phone Phreak) was one who used telephone systems incorrectly by studying, testing, and technical tampering for his personal gain. In fact, phone phreaking began in the late 1950’s and spread widely around the world during the 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Phone Phreaks used to dial numbers on the telephone network for hours to try to understand how the system worked. They would listen attentively to sounds such as clicks (clicks), clunks (clunks), beeps (beeps) and boops (boops), to let them know how telephone calls were forwarded. These people also used to read confidential books of telephone companies. Gradually they would learn how to interact like the operators and employees of a telephone company. Not only this, they also opened the switchboards (switchboards) of telephone companies and tampered with them, so that they could get hold of some confidential information.
At night, radio-fishermen (phone hackers) used to enter the buildings of telephone companies and connect their telephones to the exchange. These people had also invented some very advanced and small electronic instruments, called “blue box”, “black box” and “red box”. With their help, these people could search the network and make free telephone calls on it.
“Phone Phreaking” (Phreaking) in general was the illegal use of telephone signals to make free telephone calls. Phreaking used artificial use of long distance calls by understanding the special types of sounds (tones) used by telephone companies to connect or send them. In fact, people who made “Phreaking” by making sounds like these sounds could make free telephone calls anywhere in the world.
Overall the procedure was an organized criminal activity carried out by unlawfully tampering with equipment. This crime ended in 1983 when telephone companies began experimenting with telephone lines of the “common channel inter-office signaling” (CCIS) system, in which the signaling had no connection with the sound wires.
Actually, cyber crimes based on computers and internet are mainly considered to start with “hacking”. According to the facts mentioned in the paragraphs above, most of the cases of computer crimes seen in the 1960’s can be said to be based on hacking itself. This decade marked the first time a hacking incident had occurred at “Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)”, and this is where the hacking culture began.
Massachusetts is a state in the New England region located in the north-eastern part of the United States. In fact until the mid-1960’s most computers used to be large computers of the “mainframe” type, kept locked in air-conditioned rooms. These machines were extremely expensive, and hence only a few trained programmers could access them.
Some students at the MIT Institute were highly interested in computers and their programming, but their problem was that only their professors and authorized programmers could access the institute’s mainframe computers. So early on some students made “hacking” attempts to access these computers. At that time the objective of these efforts was neither economic gain nor any political intention. Most hacking people were simply curious and technically enthusiastic, experimenting deliberately to further improve the system.
In 1967, IBM invited some security students to experiment on computers. These students not only operated the computers as per the permission given, but they also started trying to make unauthorized entry within the system and understand its language structure. He also attempted to tamper with other parts of the computer.
This was a huge lesson for the company as IBM became more aware of the security of its computer systems after this exercise and started research on the development of defensive measures. Not only this, after this experiment, researchers and manufacturers around the world started working with a new defensive thinking.
In fact it was an early example of “ethical hacking” (Ethical Hacking), the use of which is still extremely relevant today. Subsequently as computers became smaller in size, many large companies began to focus on the development of technologies that would keep their data and systems secure.
Now it was futile to keep the computer system and the data contained in it locked in safes because more and more people started reaching them. From this period, security measures like “password” started being used, which later became the basis of cyber security.
In today’s world, excessive use of computers, internet, smartphones, mobile phones and all communication facilities is being seen in cyber crimes. In fact, the roots of these crimes today lie in the history of human civilization itself. We know that communication features were originally invented decades before computers. Indeed, telecommunications originated with the telegraph system invented by Samuel Morse in 1844. This was followed by the invention of the electric telephone in the 1870’s.
The first commercial telephone system capable of two-way communication was established in 1878–1879 between New Haven and London. Undoubtedly, telecommunications has contributed to the development of computers and the Internet in such a way that computers and Internet technology could not have been imagined without telecommunications. In this context of the historical background of cyber crimes, it is also very relevant to know when and how the misuse of technology started in the crime world.
In fact, hackers started their work even before the invention of computers. They started breaking into the telephone network, punch card machines and telegraph system. Some of these hackers did all this for their personal gain, while some others did it for the purpose of social or technological improvement. The detailed research conducted on this topic gives us a long history of technology-based crimes, indicating that in fact criminal tendencies began to misuse these resources since the invention of the telegraph.
Here are mentioned some of the major events, mainly from the invention of the telegraph system in 1834 to the year 2000, to make it easier to understand that the tendencies for technique-based crimes evolved at the same time as the development of communication facilities and computers
1. In 1834, two businessmen had hacked France’s telegraph system and stolen secret information related to the government market. This incident is considered as the world’s first cyber attack.
2. In 1870 a New York telegraph operator was fired because he was able to disconnect and reconnect telephone calls. He had begun to take advantage of this ability for his personal interests. This is considered one of the earliest incidents of hacking.
3. In 1878, only two years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, the telephone company laid off some teenagers in New York because they would deliberately add or disconnect customer calls. At that time the act of connecting telephone calls was performed by operators through “switchboard”. These teenagers were employed because they had previously worked on telegraph systems. But gradually their attention began to become more focused on how this system worked, and they began to play pranks by tampering with telephone connections. This was another early example of telephone call hacking.
4. In the year 1903 Nemris Maskelaine (Némoris Maskelyne) hacked a live telegraph demonstration, and for this reason he is called the world’s first hacker. Maskeline didn’t wait until wireless telegraph technology hit the market and disrupted public exposure before it.
Gulyelmo Marconi, the inventor of the wireless telegraph, was showing how secure a communication system his device provided in a demonstration that day. They wanted to convince the public that their messages remained completely safe and confidential. But Maskeline, who was a magician, inventor, and expert on wireless technology, hacked Marconi’s system by sending abusive Morse code messages.
When the demonstration began, the wireless telegraph began repeating the word “RATS” repeatedly after the initial message was recorded and then began transmitting some taunting lines of the English language. Marconi was deeply humiliated by this. Maskeline later wrote a letter admitting that it was all her doing. His aim was to prove that no system sending messages without wires could be completely secure.
5. In 1939 Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, stationed as code-breakers at Bletchley Park during World War II, had built an electro-mechanical machine called “BOMBE”, through which they succeeded in breaking the German Enigma code.
6. In 1940 Rene Carmille, a member of the Mrodhri institution in France occupied by Hitler’s Nazi army and computer programmer, operated punch-card machines with which French government entities processed their data. When Carmille learned that the Nazi army was using these punch-card machines to identify Jews, they deliberately hacked those machines and destroyed the data, so as to save the lives of Jewish citizens. Rene Carmille is therefore called the world’s first ethical hacker (Ethical Hacker), who destroyed computerized data to protect Jews in France during World War II.
7. In 1955 the first occurrence of phone hacking or “phone phreaking (Phone Phreaking)” appeared in the US. A young man was trying to understand the Demard Cottonton telephone system. During the experiment he blew a special type of whistle (whistle) from his telephone, the sound of which was identified by the telephone system as a secret code. The system assumed that Damard Cottonton was a legitimate employee and hooked him up to a phone operator. In this way he could call any number in the world for free. Demard did all this out of curiosity, but the incident sparked phone hacking and freaking crimes.
8. In 1962 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) first implemented password systems on computers to maintain student privacy and security. Ellen Shader, a student of the same institute, prepared a program through which the computer gave her a printed list of all the passwords. He hacked into the accounts of his friends and teachers and sent funny messages in their names. This incident was the first recorded incident of misuse of a computer password system.
9. In 1969 a computer at Washington University Computer Center had an unknown person install a small program that kept making multiple copies of itself. This program remains active until the computer’s memory and processing capacity is exhausted. This program was later called “Rabbit Virus (Rabbit Virus)” and was considered the world’s first computer virus.
10. Between 1970 and 1995, a famous hacker named Kevin Mitnick broke into the networks of several big companies such as Nokia and Motorola. He used his social engineering techniques to deceive companies’ employees and acquire passwords or confidential codes from them. He was considered the most notorious cyber criminal of that time.
(Social engineering is the technology in which hackers exploit the mindset or trust of an institution’s employees to access their building, computer, or data, rather than technical hacking.)
11. In 1973 a New York bank employee embezzled about $2 million using a computer. This was an early example of bank fraud through computers.
12. In 1981 Ian Murphy, known as “Captain Zap”, hacked the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) network and altered its timing system. This led to the network charging call charges at discounted nightly rates, even during daytime rush hours. Ian Murphy became the first person to be arrested on cybercrime charges.
13. In 1988 Cornell University student Robert Morris created the Internet’s first worm (Internet Worm). His aim was only to measure the size and capacity of the Internet, but a programming error caused the worm to infect thousands of computers. This turned into a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. When it was investigated Robert Morris was found guilty under Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
14. In 1989 a diskette (Diskette) sent to several AIDS (AIDS) researchers and readers of the journal of the United Nations. It was said to contain AIDS-related information, but it actually contained a Trojan Horse Virus, which could destroy computer files and give the hacker control of the computer.
(Trojan is software that looks useful, but it destroys the computer’s data as soon as it’s turned on and allows the hacker to control the system remotely.)
15. In 1994 a password-stealing program named “Sniffer” was found installed in the network of the Rome Air Development Center (US Air Force). The investigation revealed that two hackers named Datastream Cowboy and Kuji had carried out this attack.
16. In 1995 Vladimir Levin, a software engineer from Russia, hacked New York’s network of Citibank while sitting from his home in St. Petersburg and caused about $10 million in damages through several fraudulent transactions.
17. Between 1998 and 2007 an American hacker named Max Butler hacked the US government website in 1998. After his release from prison in 2003 he launched cyberattacks via the Wi-Fi network and stole thousands of credit card information, spreading malware. He admitted to $86 million in fraud when he was caught in 2007.
18. In 1999 15-year-old Jonathan James broke into U.S. Department of Defense computers and installed a backdoor into servers. Through this he could read thousands of government emails, including confidential passwords and data related to NASA’s computer system. NASA had to shut down its system for three weeks.
19. In 2000 Canadian high school student Michael Cals (MafiaBoy) carried out Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on several well-known websites — such as Amazon, CNN, eBay and Yahoo —. Internet services were heavily damaged by these attacks, and the incident was estimated to have caused about $1.2 billion in economic losses.
The above incidents have helped us understand the origin, evolution and general trends of cyber crimes. In the early era of communications and computer technology, these types of crimes were mostly committed by disgruntled people or fraudulent employees. Until the 1980’s, there was still a fear of computers being physically damaged. At that time, people with criminal tendencies used to take advantage of their official existences to alter the data contained in computers for their financial gain or to damage the data without permission.
We also observed that people with criminal tendencies left no stone unturned in their unauthorized use of telegraph and telephone for the purpose of psycho-entertainment or theft of communication means from the very beginning. As the communication revolution became an integral part of the information technology world, criminals also learned to break into communication systems, computer systems and networks.
In the 1980’s programmers also developed lethal software, including software that could damage nearby computers by creating their own replicas. After the advent of the Internet in January 1983, it began to have access to computers around the world. Along with the popularity and increasing use of the Internet, criminals also started spreading panic and misusing the Internet for their economic and political benefits by attacking computer systems with weak security systems.
In the 1990’s, the incidence of economic crimes committed with the help of computers and information technology started increasing rapidly around the world. Along with this, other security threats related to cyber world also started increasing day by day. As a result, cyber crimes are not only causing huge economic losses to the entire world every year, but countries around the world are also having to spend a huge amount of money on cyber-security arrangements every year.
According to a report, in the year 2020, the whole world got an estimated 9 crore 45 lakh U. from cyber crimes.S. Dollar has been lost and meanwhile 1 crore 45 lakh U. for the prevention of cyber crimes by the whole world.S. Dollar funds are also estimated to be spent.
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