Cyber Crime

-​ Computer or Cyber Crime is a crime like any other crime, except that in this case the
illegal act must involve a computer system either as an object of a crime, an
instrument used to commit a crime, or a repository of evidence related to a crime.

The Computer Crime Law in the Philippines

●​ In the Philippines, it is known as Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime
Prevention Act of 2012.
●​ It was signed into law by President Aquino on Sept. 12, 2012.
●​ Its original goal was to penalize acts like cybersex, child pornography, identity theft
and unsolicited electronic communication in the country.
●​ RA 10175 punishes content related offenses such as cybersex, child pornography,
and libel which may be committed through a computer system.
●​ It also penalizes unsolicited commercial communication or content that advertises or
sells products or services.
●​ Individuals found guilty of cybersec face a jail term of prision mayor (6 years and one
day to 12 years) or a fine of at least P200, 000 but not exceeding P1 Million.
●​ Child pornography via computer carries a penalty one degree higher than that
provided by RA 9775, or the Anti Child Pornogrpahy Act of 2009. Under RA 9775,
those who produce, disseminate or publish child pornography will be fined from P50,
000 to P5 million, and slapped a maximum jail term of reclusion perpetua, or 20 to 40
years.
●​ Persons found guilty of unsolicited communication face arresto mayor (imprisonment
for 1 month and 1 day to 6 months) or a fine of at least P50, 000 but not more than
P250, 000, or both.

The law also penalizes offenses against the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of
computer data and system, such as:
●​ Illegal Access - the access to the whole or any part of a computer system without
right.
●​ Illegal Interception - the interception made by technical means without right of any
non - public transmission of computer data to, from or within a computer system
including electromagnetic emissions from a computer system carrying such computer
data.
●​ Data Interference - the intentional or reckless alteration, damaging, deletion or
deterioration of computer data, electronic document, or electronic data message,
without right, including the introduction or transmission of viruses.
●​ System Interference - the intentional alteration or reckless hindering or interference
with the functioning of a computer or computer network by inputting, transmitting,
damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data or program,
electronic document, or electronic data message, without right or authority, including
the introduction or transmission of viruses.
●​ Misuse of Devices - the use, production, sale, procurement, importation, distribution,
or otherwise making available, without right.
●​ Cybersquatting - the acquisition of a domain name on the internet in bad faith or with
the intent to profit, mislead, destroy one’s reputation or deprive others from
registering the same domain name.
Three Categories of Cyber Crime:​
1. Cyberpiracy - using cyber technology in unauthorized ways to:
a.​ Reproduce copies of proprietary information, or
b.​ Distribute proprietary information (in digital form) across a computer network.
2. Cybertrespass - using cyber technology to gain unauthorized access to:
a.​ An individual’s or an organization’s computer system, or
b.​ A password - protected Website.
3. Cybervandalism
a.​ Disrupt the transmission of electronic information across one or more computer
networks, including the internet.
b.​ Destroy data resident in a computer or damage a computer system’s resources, or
both.
Computer System Attacks:
Major computer attacks fall into two categories:

1.​ Penetration
-​ A penetration attack involves breaking into a computer system using known
security vulnerabilities to gain access to a cyberspace resource.
-​ Penetration can be done in both local (using a computer on a LAN) or global
(by means of the internet).
-​ Penetration attacks originate from many sources including:
a.​ Insider Threat
-​ Insiders are a major source of computer crimes because they
do not need a great deal of knowledge about the victim's
computer system.
-​ Insiders are not necessarily employees; they can also be
consultants and contractors.
●​ Malicious Insiders - companies are exposed to a wide
range of fraud risks, including diversion of company
funds, theft of assets, fraud connected with bidding
process, invoice and payment fraud, computer fraud,
and credit card fraud. Often, frauds involve some form
of collusion, or cooperation, between an employee and
an outsider.
●​ Industrial Spies - these individuals use illegal means to
obtain trade secrets from competitors of their sponsor.
It can involve the theft of new product designs,
production data, marketing information, or new
software source code.
b.​ Hackers
-​ Hackers penetrate a computer system for a number of reasons
and use a variety of techniques.
-​ Using the skills they have, they download attack scripts and
protocols from the internet and launch them against victim
sites.
●​ Hackers - they test the limitations of information
systems out of intellectual curiosity. The term hacker
has evolved over the years, leading to its negative
connotation today rather than the positive one it used to
have.
●​ Cracking - is a form of hacking that is clearly criminal
activity. Crackers break into other people’s networks
and systems to cause harm.
c.​ Criminal Groups
-​ While a number of penetration attacks come from insiders and
hackers with youthful intentions, there are a number of attacks
that originate from criminal groups.
●​ Cybercriminals - are motivated by the potential for
monetary gain and hack into corporate computers to
 steal, often by transferring money from one account to
another.
d.​ Hacktivists and Cyberterrorists
●​ Hacktivism - a combination of the words hacking and activism,
is hacking to achieve a political or social goal.
●​ Cyberterrorist - launches computer-based attacks against
other computers or networks in an attempt to intimidate or
coerce a government in order to advance certain political or
social objectives.
2.​ Denial of Service
-​ Commonly known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, are a new
form of computer attacks.
-​ They are directed at computers connected to the internet. They are not
penetration attacks, and therefore, they do not change, alter, destroy, or
modify system resources.
-​ However, they affect the system by diminishing the system’s ability to
function; hence, they are capable of bringing a system down without
destroying its resources.
-​ Unlike penetration attacks, DDoS attacks typically aim to exhaust the network
bandwidth, its router processing capacity, or network stack resources, thus
eventually breaking the network connectivity to the victims.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
-​ Field of computer science focused on creating systems capable of performing tasks
that normally require human intelligence.
-​ These tasks include things like learning, reasoning, problem - solving, perception,
language understanding, and decision - making.

Key Categories of AI:

●​ Narrow AI (Weak AI)
-​ Specialized in one task or a narrow range of tasks
-​ Examples: Siri, Google Translate, facial recognition, spam filters
●​ General AI (Strong AI)
-​ Has human - like cognitive abilities and can perform any intellectual task a
human can do.
-​ This is still theoretical and not yet achieved.
●​ Superintelligent AI
-​ A hypothetical AI that surpasses human intelligence in all aspects.
-​ This is a topic of ongoing debate in ethics and future forecasting.

Subfields of AI
●​ Machine Learning (ML)
-​ Teaches machines to learn patterns from data without being explicitly
programmed.
-​ Example: Predicting housing prices or identifying spam emails.
●​ Natural Language Processing (NLP)
-​ Enables machines to understand, interpret, and generate human language.
-​ Example: ChatGPT, language translation, sentiment analysis.
●​ Computer VIsion
-​ Helps machines “see” and interpret images or videos.
-​ Example: facial recognition, self - driving car object detection.
●​ Robotics
-​ Combines AI with mechanical systems to perform physical tasks.
-​ Example: warehouse robots, surgical robots
●​ Expert Systems
-​ Mimic human decision - making by using rule - based systems.
-​ Example: Medical diagnosis tools
●​ Reinforcement Learning
-​ AI learns by trial and error using rewards and punishments.
-​ Example: AlphaGo, robotic navigation

Applications of AI
●​ Healthcare - diagnosing diseases, personalized medicine, drug discovery
●​ Finance - fraud detection, algorithmic trading, credit scoring
●​ Education - adaptive learning systems, automated grading
●​ Transportation - self - driving cars, route optimization
●​ Customer Service - chatbots, virtual assistants
●​ Entertainment - recommendation engines (e.g., Netflix, Spotify)
●​ Manufacturing - predictive maintenance, quality control
Challenges and Ethical Concerns
●​ Bias in algorithm due to skewed data
●​ Privacy concerns with surveillance and data usage
●​ Job displacement from automation
●​ Explainability: some AI systems (like deep learning) act as “black boxes”
●​ AI Safety: ensuring AI systems don’t cause unintended harm