Monday, 19 December 2016

Will Artificial Intelligence on Google be Regulated in UK?

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Thursday, 15 December 2016

Far Right Reach

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Thursday, 8 December 2016

Fraud and Technology Crimes - Offenders and Victim stats - first national survey

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Sunday, 4 December 2016

>>NetCrimes = Crimes with Reach. Type 18 the 21st century serial killer

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Friday, 2 December 2016

Other >>NetCrimes with reach

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Thursday, 1 December 2016

Crimes with reach 3: Obscene abuse: A personal account



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Crimes with reach 2 - Death threats and trolls

An interesting news story from Ginger Gorman - an Australian Journalist: The paedophiles, the trolls and the journalist  HERE


A UK based academic receives death threats due to her research in the field of hate crimes. 

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Crimes with reach 1: Sexploitation, extortion and suicide

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Sunday, 27 November 2016

Why is Ricky Gervais Publishing so Many Misogynistic Terms of Abuse on Twitter?




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Are Pedophiles on Yellow App? Might they be without safeguards?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Deviant behaviour online clampdown - NSPCC warns children of predator risk on Yellow app <a href="https://t.co/GoWewpzPYY">https://t.co/GoWewpzPYY</a></p>&mdash; Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) <a href="https://twitter.com/Criminotweet/status/802813885287989248">November 27, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Thursday, 24 November 2016

The Marketing and Consumption of White Supremacist Extremist Racist Literature On the Internet

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Public Domain
BBC World Service
During the trial for murder and in the judge's remarks whilst sentencing to life imprisonment Thomas Mair, for killing    British Member of Parliament Jo Cox, it was revealed    he was a loner who had been consuming far right white supremacist propaganda on the Internet for the past 16 years.
Last night, the BBC asked me to explain some general differences between Jihadist sites online and those of white supremacist hate groups. In effect, one main difference is that the latter are usually very clever to stay within the parameters of the law when it comes to inciting violent crime and racial hatred.
Clearly, more research is needed into how many people are committing violent hate crimes on the streets who have have been radicalised by White Supremacist websites.Research into causal influence in this field will be difficult, but that should be nor excuse for failure to do it.
You can hear the BBC interview HERE    - NOTE: you can move the bottom slider forward by 10 minutes to reach the relevant part of this BBC World Service Newshour programme.
The reason they asked me for an “expert” opinion is because I have published two peer reviewed articles on the topic of the activities of white supremacist hate groups online:
Sutton, M. and Wright, C. (2009) FINDING THE FAR RIGHT ONLINE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF WHITE SUPREMACIST WEBSITES . Internet Journal of Criminology
Mann, D. Sutton, M, and Tuffin, R. (2003) The Evolution of Hate Social Dynamics in White Racist Newsgroups: http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Evolution%20of%20Hate%20(updated).pdf   
Reference to the BBC programme.
Newshour, 21:05 23/11/2016, BBC World Service Radio, 55 mins. 00:10:33-01:00:20. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/clip/34192 (Accessed 24 Nov 2016)
YOU CAN FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER HERE   
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Facilitating Murder?

Loompanics and their catalogue of books has come to the attention of the authorities many times.

Today the book they burned following a lawsuit is still disseminated online: http://thehomegunsmith.com/hitman.shtml


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Recruiting for hate groups and trading in hate

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On Dangerous Quackery on the Internet

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Tuesday, 22 November 2016

David Wall on Fake Goods and the Lack of Evidence for Organised Crime & Terror Involvement

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Wall's views run counter to UK and US Government advice that fake goods fund organised crime and terrorism.


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Think about the solution to this critical disagreement.What might be an evidence-led way forward?Does the theme of the anti-crime video match customer experience? Does that matter?

 

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 It's complex: e,g:  https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=x7v7q6A21QsC&oi=fnd&pg=PA122&dq=+validity+of+message+public+attitude+change+campaigns+&ots=i-bOOL0j_P&sig=nJkKw2ctfC_E56fJ928tKmXRxPM#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Monday, 21 November 2016

Defining Cyber Terror

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Encouraging and Facilitating Harmful Deviant Activity

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Sunday, 20 November 2016

More Unreality on the Internet: The "Ape in Heels" on Facebook Disgrace















Following the election of Donald Trump to US president in November 2016,  Pamela Ramsey Taylor, celebrates with racism as she writes on her Facebook page "It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape in heels."

Not very, classy, beautiful, or dignified of her to publish that was it?

Anyway, Taylor's racist blurt was certainly a career decision. She was forced to resign for it.

Pamela Ramsey Taylor is the director of Clay County Development Corp, a nonprofit organisation that provides services to elderly and low income residents in Clay County USA.
The Mayor of the town  Beverly Whaling replied “made my day Pam”. Consequently, she is now Mayor Whaling no more.
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Saturday, 19 November 2016

Tweeting what might be interpreted as "wrong stuff" can land you in trouble at university and with the Police

Rutgers University professor, Kevin Allred was arrested after campus police tipped of NYPD that he might be a threat. He had to have his mental state assessed after criticising Donald Trump on Twitter. HERE
The content could, I think, be interpreted as indicating he might do something dangerous to others.
Here is what he tweeted. 


And after his arrest he continued to Tweet

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Thursday, 17 November 2016

The Rifkin Imperative

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Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Denial of Service by Zombies

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Tuesday, 15 November 2016

Ambivalence and Hacking a Post US Election Postscript

Poachers Turned Gamekeepers and the Issue of Hacking as a Route to a Top Establishment Career



POSTSCRIPT 13th Nov 2106: Crime and hacking played a central role in Donald Trump winning the presidential race in the USA this month. Hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager's computer were released by Wikileaks (here   ). Others found through hacking were released into the public domain by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who thinks they might effectively put Hillary Clinton in prison    - something announced by many before the election. And that serious claim led to US President Trump and his followers to constantly proclaim "she's going to Jail' and 'lock her up'.
Today, we see the highly esteemed political and anti-hate crime activist Peter Tatchell calling for a pardon for the Australian hacker Julian Assange.    . Assange is likely to come out of all this looking like a hero, a hacker role model. The telling question is: "Overall, is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Whatever the case, policymakers are in a spin over the complexity of the hacker and leaker issue. Essentially the big question hinges on of the benefit of whistleblowing v criminal career hacking and those who profit off the "swag", both financially and professionally.
Read More Here
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Monday, 14 November 2016

The Screentime Crime Drop Paradox


Police to crackdown on the hi-tech crime of driving whilst using a mobile phone: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37968722

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Another Hacker Extradition Case

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Saturday, 12 November 2016

Is the Internet Driving Down Street Crime and Burglary Rates?

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Thursday, 10 November 2016

Wikileaks, Anonymity and Hi tech Crime Played Major Role in Trump Becoming President of the USA

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In public how easy is it to drink alcohol anonymously

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Here Comes the Big Data Revolution

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Monday, 7 November 2016

Faking it

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Tesco Bank Fraud

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Sunday, 6 November 2016

What Might Possibly Get You into Serious Trouble on Twitter?


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Saturday, 5 November 2016

Chinese counterfeit scandals

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Identity Theft On the Internet

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Friday, 4 November 2016

Wikileaks and Leaked Emails about Wikileaks

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Thursday, 3 November 2016

Regulating the Internet

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Brief History of The Dark Web, TOR and the "Silk Road"



Click HERE

 And a BBC blog on the topic of the Dark Web and a video of how TOR works  HERE
The Rise and Fall of Silk Road. Part 1 - HERE  Final Part - HERE
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How to learn to offend on the "Open University of Crime"



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Wednesday, 2 November 2016

Hi Tech Crime Reduction Proposal

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The Evolution of Internet Fraud

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Tuesday, 1 November 2016

Issue of Hacking as a Route to a Top Establishment Career

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The problem just carries on growing as the US and British Governments respond    with regular tired old blustery announcements about fears and their plans to deal with the ever growing problem of cyber attacks.
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Attribution
BJC Prize 1999
One thing that amazes me is that our governments appear not to know that once proven to be successful hi-tech bank robbers, or other type of hacker, that such proven success can land the ex-hacker a lucrative prominent position in cyber security.
A hacker I studied in the last century is now a University of Cambridge don! Can you do a little detective work and figure out out who he is from reading the article David Mann and I wrote    for our award winning research on the hacking of Rupert Murdoch's Sky pay-to-view encryption service?
This "poacher turned gamekeeper" phenomenon is for the most part peculiar to high tech crime. I have several examples of some of the most notorious cyber criminals now working in prominent positions in cyber security and elsewhere as advertised experts in the field OF information technology.
Whilst I am reluctant to list their names and positions, I do think our good wishes and concerns for the continued successful rehabilitation of notorious hackers is something we need to weigh against the problem that their "success stories" may encourage hacking and hacktivism as a sensible fast-track route to top jobs in society.
We need to know more about that risk in order to assess the risk that "the establishment" that so fears hackers is unknowingly allowing others to make hacking look like a sensible career choice.
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National Cyber Security Strategy

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Vulnerability of Internet of things leads to political bluster


Latest news story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cyber-attack-government-threat-russia-spending-increase-latest-a7390291.html
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Monday, 31 October 2016

Using Mobile Phone Whilst Driving is a High Tech Crime

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Computer Virus Hits Several Hospitals - Operations cancelled!

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Fake Train Tickets

High tech printing, high tech marketing, high tech networking, high tech (Bitcoin) purchasing, high tech Dark Web


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EWUCS - Emails with United Consequeces

 Small changes in what we think, do and say can have a profound impact on future events. By way of one not so small example, had Hitler not gone down the path of politics following the defeat of Germany in the First World War, or had the blast that took away his testicle at the Battle of the Somme    done a little more substantial damage, or the surgeons that saved him not tried so hard, there would have been no Second World War and no Holocaust.
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Public Domain
Its just too easy to take the wrong path even if its only once
This 'choose the right vs wrong path' conundrum has led quite a few people into trouble as social media has become increasingly part of our working lives. We are often only as good as our last mistakes, one wrong tweet in the disembodied and seemingly 'unreal' world of internet facilitated social media and our idea of a 'joke' can lead to dismissal from the workplace and even a visit from some arresting characters from your friendly police force, accompanied by all kinds of unwanted social networking inside the criminal justice system trouble.
Several years ago when it was found that inappropriate use of email was the single largest cause of dismissal form the workplace, Mark Griffiths and I wrote about the phenomenon of 'Emails with Unintended Consequences' (EWUCS)   . Today this same problem has manifested in the Twitter With Unintended Consequences (TWUC).

We can expect stupid twucs to cross the line in acceptable humour many times in the future (did you see what I just did there?)

By way of just one among a multitude of stupid 'twucs' getting themselves into the troubled hot waters of Twitter disasters, does anyone remember what happened when the wrong kind of snow grounded aircraft at my local Robin Hood East Midlands Airport in the UK? The young twucer who complained via a Tweet had to appeal a sentence in the criminal courts to have his bad sense of humor decriminalized   . Other tweets have led to suicide   , dismissal from the police service   , Members of Parliament being fired    by the British Prime Minister, dismissal from a senior academic pos   t, Twitter has even been implicated in murder.   
The Huffington Post    has a neat slide show of similar examples. But the list of those fired for twucing appears countless. Just Google 'employee fired for tweet   ' to see what I mean.
Despite all of its problems, social media - including Twitter - is here to stay and everyone from US Presidents    to British Chief Constable's    to University academics    is at it while on the national or employer payroll.
Whilst Twitter might unhelpfully lead any one of us into deep water, it is equally useful for alighting upon opportunities to avert potential PR disasters through identifying potentially beneficial collaborative opportunities. For example, some time ago I shared just such a moment in the Global Village of 'Twittervile' with my new best friend the Chief Constable of Gloucester Police and one of her officers   .
My concern for police forces everywhere, which have taken to twittering about crime in the front line - whist on the front line - is that they will miss a crime during screen time.
To me, it seems like a safe bet to predict that sometime in 2015 a police service somewhere in the world will face a major PR disaster when an officer fails to engage with an offender right under their nose because their nose was too close to the screen upon which they were busy twittering about some other crime.
Jane Jacobs' famous rhetoric    that the widespread take-up of TV watching led to less eyes on the street and a corresponding rise in crime from the 1950s onward has its obvious analogue in the 21st century fall of crime that matches perfectly, with an inverse correlation, the increased use of social media, gaming and refinement in TV home entertainment    . So how might we similarly seek to exploit the new technology that will not be going away so that its potential for harm is counterbalanced by social benefits?
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GooglePublic Domain
Google glass
How about police services using Googleglass so that they can use social media whilst keeping their eyes on the street? Niv Calderon believes this is the future   .
To my mind, it seems that there is definitely a great opportunity here for Google to fund an evaluation of their product in just such a setting. After all, none of us would want to learn the hard way - say in 2016 - that police officers cannot multitask safely with the latest technology.
Although I am available for following on Twitter   , if you do follow then please don't be a stupid twuc! You know it's not worth it.
Stay safe in cyberspace you pioneering cybernauts. Remember: ENGAGE BRAIN BEFORE TWEET and think TWUCK!

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Sunday, 30 October 2016

Might We One Day Have a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots?


RSPCR?


 One Thing we do Know for Sure is that Our Technological, Scientific and Crimino-Social Future is Unknown

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The Pirate Bay




Find out the story of music copyright theft via the Pirate Bay

HERE
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Friday, 28 October 2016

Hyper Normalisation by Adam Curtis


In criticism of simplistic explanations for the world, Curtis provides some wonderful insights but presents a rather binay view  to seek to explain the complexities that have led us to where we are today.

His film footage on the techno hippy revolution will be familiar to those of us who are in the know:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hypernormalisation






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New technology is so often exploited before the vulnerabilities are fixed


In so many instances, new technology is exploited by deviants and criminals before  manufacturers and the criminal justice system fixes the vulnerability following an arms race between themselves and the offenders.

 (1) Latest Case: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/25/ddos-cyber-attack-dyn-internet-of-things

(2) Classic Cases: 


Ironically, we are the market that created the demand for someone to put this BBC video on YouTube. It is a pirate copy and a breach of copyright. 

 So why did the offender do it we must wonder?  In the interests of horizontalisation of knowledge? To make money from YouTube advertising if the post goes viral? 
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Thursday, 27 October 2016

Thinking of the new TV series Westworld and also Robots

Will cruelty to code one day be criminalised?


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Tuesday, 25 October 2016

PLODDING THE BLOG? COPS ONLINE

COPS AND BLOGGERS: EXPLORING THE PRESENCE OF POLICE CULTURE ON THE WEB By Susie Atherton HERE


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Friday, 21 October 2016

Cyber Terrorism

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Saturday, 15 October 2016

Trapped Like an Ant in Hi-Tech Amber

Today Trump is Trapped Forever as was this Ant 45 Million Years ago


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Thursday, 13 October 2016

Hi Tech Bank Robbery $80 Million Stolen

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Monday, 10 October 2016

New Guidelines to Prosecute those who Incite Online Harassment (stalking)


Harassment inciting Internet trolls targeted with new legal guidelines.



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Internet stalker jailed for putting explicit pictures of girlfriend online

Image result for stalking

 Shane Webber, 23, admitted harassment after sending images of his girlfriend to her family, then trying to implicate a friend.   Read the story here


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Saturday, 8 October 2016

Laser Pen Crime

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What is hi-tech crime?




I first published this post as an article on BestThinking.com

Hi-tech crime should be understood to mean much more than just crimes facilitated by computers or other communications technologies. Thinking about hi-tech crime in this broader sense allows us to assess more rigorously how to predict and so shorten crime and technology 'arms races'

Finding out who wrote about them first might be a difficult task, but the terms "high technology” and "high tech” were most certainly popularized in the late 1970s and were used at that time in reference to cutting-edge technologies in genetics, medicine, robotics, manufacturing, communication systems and computers. By the mid-1980s, however, the interchangeable terms high technology, high tech and hi-tech became primarily used in reference to electronics and increasingly computers and communications technologies such as the internet and mobile communications devices and systems (Conside and Van Nostrand 2010; Collins English Dictionary 1979).
The evolution of the meaning of hi-tech from a wider focus in the 1970’s to the narrower one upon information technologies from the mid-1980s to the present time is undoubtedly due the advent and growth of personal computer use, the internet, the World Wide Web and the mysterious newness of online communities and computer mediated offending (e.g. Sterling 1992; Rheingold 1993; Herz 1994; Slouka 1995). This is something known in the science of science as being caused by shifting baseline syndrome, which is very neatly described by Arbesman (2012 p.172) as: ‘…how we become used to whatever state of affairs is true when we are born, or when we first look at a situation. Since we are only capable of seeing change over a single generation, if slow change occurs over many lifetimes, we often fail to perceive it.’ Arbesman goes on (p.173): ‘It’s easy to remember what is normal and the “correct” state of affairs when we start to write something new, after having set our baseline, even if we only do this subconsciously.” The apparent newness and unique properties of computer mediated crime was clearly well beyond the baseline of how many criminologists (myself included – e.g. Mann and Sutton 1998) and others thought about the criminal exploitation of new technologies that a new name was required for it. Hence the label hi-tech crime – or else cybercrime   - was applied to computer crime only (e.g.NHTCU 1999   ), rather than other less impressive examples of offenders exploiting new technologies. Today, in criminology, it is for this reason that we continue to refer to high-tech, or hi-tech, crime solely as computer and communications technology oriented.
In the space of this brief article it is my intention to show that hi-tech crime (but much less so cybercrime) as it is currently understood is far wider than mere computer and other communications technology facilitated crime. I argue here that hi-tech crime should be re-imagined to apply to many more crimes than simply computer mediated offending. I will go on to argue that the term hi-tech crime can usefully be applied with reference to some crimes committed many thousands of years before the phrase hi-tech was ever coined. The reason for this proposal is that I believe that re-imagining high-tech crime to cover earlier technologies that were once but are no longer hi-tech might allow us to make accurate predictions about how currently effective crime prevention and detection technologies are likely to be overcome or simply by-passed by offenders adopting the very latest, as yet un-invented, high technology at the very real physical place where it is likely to intersect with resulting social activities and cultural change.

What offences should hi-tech crime include?

In higher education our students are taught not to reference Wikipedia and other Wiki sites because, subject as they are to revision by anyone at any time, these Websites can be unreliable sources. However, the last time I visited an IT-Law Wikia site    I found a very agreeable definition of hi-tech crime as:
“Crimes that are committed either against new technologies or with the support of new technologies, often involving (but not restricted to) computers or computer networks.”
That definition may have changed tomorrow but nonetheless it was there today and that’s good enough for my purposes in quoting here.
The above definition is certainly wider than that adopted by Britain’s former National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) in 1999, which is limited to the criminal exploitation of information technology: “Hi-tech crime encompasses a variety of criminal activities contained in two broad categories:
  1. 'New crimes, new tools', e.g. hacking and denial of service, committed against an IT system and cannot be committed in any other way or against any other type of victim.
  2. 'Old crimes, new tools'. e.g. fraud, identity theft, stalking, and harassment, committed against the person and using IT to do it. “
Using the IT-Law Wikia definition, rather than the NHTCU one, we can re-imagine Hi-Tech crime before and outside of the realm of electronics and the current communications age that began in the late 20th century. Going as far back as ancient history will allow us to see how many new technological breakthroughs were either exploited by offenders to commit crime or targeted for theft or destruction. For example, how soon after humans discovered how to control fire was the first act of arson committed? Was the fire stolen? It’s so long ago that nobody knows. But the theme of fire theft and punishment features in ancient mythologies   . A very telling question here is why? Consider, for example how closely the” theft of fire” (McGuire 2012 p. 8-12) where a stick is bought to the fire and lit and carried away resembles the act of copyright theft. Because in both cases the original “stock” is unharmed, undiminished physically and remains in place.
With such a broad definition of hi-tech crime, we can now imagine the loom smashing luddites    as high-tech criminals, which is interesting given that modern looms were the forerunners of computers   . Likewise, we may now consider, by way of just one more example, those coin clippers of yesteryear    to have been exploiting the relatively new technology of money.
Having raised the argument then that hi-tech crime should be considered to include earlier crimes and other technology crimes that are not limited to the exploitations of electronics, I would like to argue the case a stage further to include those occurrences where we find cultural or behaviour changes brought about by new technologies. The definition of hi-tech crime that I propose, therefore, is as follows:
High-tech crime comprises the exploitation of new technological inventions, either as a tool or consequential social means to facilitate offending and/or as a specific target for highly focused offending.
To provide a real life example of the potentiall usefulness of this new definition consider what happened to my daughter in London several weeks ago. She was walking along the pavement reading a text message on her Apple i-phone when a youth on a bicycle, who was riding on the pavement, snatched the phone and rode off at such speed that my daughter and passers-by were unable to give chase. I would argue that the phone thief was a hi-tech criminal, because he targeted the hi-tech equipment that was being used precisely how the manufacturers intended it to be used, which represents a relatively new and fashionable way of doing things.
Firstly, we need to begin by asking ourselves for how long have so many humans been walking around in public paying less attention to their surroundings whilst focussing heavily on a small hand held gadget to the extent that it is no longer considered rude by the majority of other pedestrians, despite the fact that they have to dodge out of the way of the oblivious straight line walking phone texter? Is it 5 years 10? Whatever the answer, it’s not been happening for long. Secondly, for how long has it been socially acceptable for teenagers and adults to ride a bicycle on the pavement? I believe it is only since our roads in Britain have become so congested and dangerous that the danger to pedestrians from pavement cyclists is considered to be outweighed by the danger of a road traffic accident happening to the cyclist on the road. I think our widespread tolerance of cycling on the pavement began no more than 10 or 12 years ago, when we were first encouraged to leave our cars at home and cycle to work. The thief who stole my daughters phone, therefore, exploited the high-technology of the mobile phone and its designed usage along with the changes that widespread frequent use of the motor car brought about in British society.
Aiming to better understand the intersection between technology, behavioral, social, and cultural changes fits well Routine Activities Theory (RAT), with its explanation of how crime shifts and changes in relation to changes in society - and according to Felson and Boba (2010) the key to such changes is the technology of everyday life. Thinking about the meaning of the term hi-tech crime in this new way does not mean however that any theft of hi-tech products is necessarily a hi-tech crime. Stealing an i-phone from a table in the course of a “traditional” house burglary, for example, should no more be considered a hi-tech crime than burglars stealing any other valuable commodity such as cash or antiques. Using an electronic lock pick to gain entry, however, might be considered a hi-tech crime.
Graffiti, which has been around since the Roman Times, has never before been described as a hi-tech crime. Before aerosol paint was introduced for public consumption in the late 1940's this crime was a messy business involving tins of paint and brushes and the time required to open tin lids and stow used brushes. That inconvenience increased the risk of paint stained hands clothes and 'red-handed' detection. The portability and convenience of spray paint and marker pens undoubtedly facilitated the rise in obnoxious graffiti,    of tags and graffiti art. Todaybusinesses advertise graffiti equipment    on the internet and my own city of Nottingham in England has banned the sale of spray paint    to children. According to my thesis the vandals who sprayed graffiti on an ambulance    are, like all spray paint vandals, hi-tech offenders.

Let’s go a stage further. Because now this newly imagined way of defining hi-tech crime allows us to consider the notion of hi-tech hate crimes.

The generally accepted notion of hate crime is that it is a crime committed against a victim because of what they are rather than who they are or what they did. Consider then what happened to Dr Stephen Mann in July 2012.
On his blog Mann alleges that in a McDonald’s “restaurant” in Paris people tried to rip a wearable computerised eye from his face    despite the fact that it is permanently attached to his skull and cannot be removed without special tools. Mann has been wearing this computerised eye for 13 years. Arguably, then, Mann was assaulted because he is cybernetic. A high-tech hate crime surely? But not if we allow ourselves to be limited by current scholarly definitions of cybercrime and hi-tech crime as including only computer mediated offending. Thinking about hate crime in this way allows us to realize that hate crimes committed againstpeople with disabilities    are likely to be a polar opposite in a possible future where hate crimes are routinely committed against those with cybernetic enhanced abilities, many of whom would be otherwise disabled. How long will it be then before offenders use this technology to commit crimes and resist arrest? How long before the police play catch-up and Robocops   walk the beat? What might be the latest hi-technology that will pose a crime threat that few people seem to have the forsight to imagine? What about 3D printing - a technology that literally builds objects in the way that bones are constructed. No need to buy or import a gun when you can simply print one. You can read more about that here (Kirby 2012).
The widening of hi-tech crime can be explored further by asking Was Sir Jimmy Saville (OBE), the institutional paedophile, a high tech criminal?
At the time of writing, the big story on the British news is that the recently deceased media celebrity Sir Jimmy Saville abused hundreds under-age children    and older victims, in plain sight, for over 40 years.
Saville was one of the first, if not the first, big DJ (disc jockey). Unable as he was to sing or play an instrument well, Saville exploited the hi-fidelity technology of new music systems in the 1960’s to play in public music made by others. As a “mere” music playing (disk jockey) personality he exploiting his hi-technology enabled new found celebrity position to begin raping and otherwise abusing underage teenagers, many of whom would have been attracted to his fame within the nightclub disco scene. According to my definition, his exploitation of the technology in this way makes Saville a Hi-Tech criminal. Moreover, in the 1960’s as a new media TV celebrity, Saville started out exploiting both the technology and the cultural changes that television bought in terms of celebrity culture and its worshipful social status. In sum, hi-technology facilitated both Saville’s relatively unquestioned predatory behavior in nightclubs and later in his dressing room at the BBC studious.

How can reimagining hi-tech crime in this way help us identify future crime problems?

The history of initial criminal exploitation of new technologies and the ensuing “arms race” between them and manufacturers, police and the wider criminal justice system teaches us that there are points at which 'straight' society finally seems gains the upper hand. The history of bank vault and safe breaking is an excellent example of this. Because in both cases, after more than 100 years of evolutionary improvements in design, the latest high quality safes and bank vaults are for all intents and purposes - currently at least - impregnable. Something similar to this arms race happened with the “getaway” car   . For decades, the armed robbers car of choice was chosen because it could outrun the fastest police car. The car of choice was constantly changing, however, because the police constantly played catch-up by buying identical vehicles for future pursuit. Today we are, at least at the time of writing, at the stage where police helicopters with their armoury of technology including night sights and infra-red systems can track any offender on foot or in car travelling at day or night along the highway in order to direct officers to intercept them. So far, the arms race between offenders' vehicles and those used by the police to catch them has, it seems, been won by the police.
What we need to ask now then is what hi-tech breakthrough might lead to thieves once again gaining the upper hand with regard to (for example) bank vault and safe breaking? What new technology might enable offenders to conceal themselves or even out run a police helicopter? Such high technology may not arrive tomorrow or next year or even in the next 100 years. But I have no doubt it will emerge and when it does we will once again be playing catch-up with the hi-tech crooks. Are we to be forever doomed to play catch up with crooks in this way? Perhaps not if we can better understand how hi-tech inventions intersect with cultural and behaviour change and how such intersections create niches that can be exploited by the likes of pre-historic fire stealers, coin clippers, armed robbers, petty street-level criminals, credit card and other fraudsters, scammers, copyright thieves and institutional paedophiles such as Sir Jimmy Saville (OBE).
As to when high technology becomes just technology and even lo-tech I have no idea at the time of writing. As always, more research and better best thinking is needed.

References

Arbesman, S. (2012) The Half-Life of Facts: Why everything we know has an expiration date. New York. Current: Penguin Books.
Collins English Dictionary (1979) London and Glasgow. William Collins and Sons
Considine, Glenn D. Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia, (2010) 10th ed
Felson, M and Boba, R. (2010) Crime and Everyday Life. Fourth Edition. Los Angeles. Sage.
Herz, J. C. (1994) Surfing on the Internet: A Net-Head’s Adventures On-Line. London. Abacus.
Kirby, C (2012) 3d Printing: A Fun Way to Disrupt Intellectual Property, Gun Control and Capitalism. Best Thinking. Trending Topic. http://www.bestthinking.com/trendingtopics/computers_and_technology/hardware_technology/computer_printers/3d-printing-a-fun-way-to-disrupt-intellectual-property-gun-control-and-capitalism
Mann, D. and Sutton, M. (1998) >>NetCrime: More Change in the Organisation of Thieving.British Journal of Criminology, Volume 38, No.2, Spring.
McGuire, M.R (2012) Technology, Crime and Justice: The question concerning technomia. London. Routledge.
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