Cyber Crime:

The Administration Police department has not been left behind in identifying emerging crimes in the modern world. Cyber crimes have emerged as one of the challenges facing law enforcers in the modern world. To this end the Administration Police department has taken measures in training its officers in information communication technology.

There are two main aspects to cyber crime. One involves the employment of the computers and their networks for unlawful purposes. Hacking is one such activity. This involves unauthorised electronic intrusion into a computer or a computer network for acquisition of important and confidential information. This information is then subjected to various forms of abuse, which may include theft of proprietary material. Business secrets are also abused and sensitive records manipulated while usernames, passwords and credit card numbers are acquired to facilitate fraud.

A second example of this form of cyber crime entails denial of service (or DOS) attacks. These occur when a saboteur deploys a computer - or a battery of them - to bombard a server hosting an important website with rapid streams of nonsense information. This causes the server in question to stall. The targeted website becomes unresponsive thus denying legitimate users of the service access to useful information or services.

Often DOS attacks are directed against important service providers, such as search engines, news sites and e-mail hosts, common perpetrators being extortionists who hold the service provider at ransom or malicious triflers hungry for fifteen minutes of fame.

The second aspect of the cyber crime relates to utilisation of information technology as incidental aid to the actualisation of more conventional forms of crime. An example is the Nigerian 419 scam, which involves a 'confidential' e-mail, purportedly from a prominent Nigerian who wants assistance to transfer ill-gotten funds offshore. Despite the patent disingenuity of the pitch, the trick continues to net hundreds of victims every year.

In the Kenyan context, perhaps the most evident variance between the law and Internet use centres on publication and consumption of prohibited material - pornography, to be specific. Despite the prohibition of trafficking, publishing and exhibition of obscene publications under section 181 of the Penal Code, the ready availability of sexually explicit material prevailed to the extent of causing public outcry on more than one occasion.

Of even greater concern is the use of the Internet as a conduit for illegal exploitation of intellectual property. A cursory study of any public cyber facility in Nairobi will reveal widespread popularity of what are commonly known as peer-to-peer networks - internet sites via which vast communities of net users freely swap pirated data, software, music and audio-visual material.

Pundits will recall the landmark case of the A&M Records Inc. Vs Napster Inc. AUS Court of Appeal for the Ninth circuit outlawed the operation of such networks, noting the adverse effects of Napster.com, then a premier peer-to-peer utility, on the fortunes of the motion picture and recording industry in the US.