Mitigating circumstances in cybercrime: a position paper.

Ali, Raian; McAlaney, John; Faily, Shamal; Phalp, Keith; Katos, Vasilios

Abstract

This paper argues the need for considering mitigating circumstances in cybercrime. Mitigating circumstances are conditions which moderate the culpability of an offender of a committed offence. Our argument is based on several observations. The cyberspace introduces a new family of communication and interaction styles and designs which could facilitate, make available, deceive, and in some cases persuade, a user to commit an offence. User's lack of awareness could be a valid mitigation when using software features introduced without a proper management of change and enough precautionary mechanisms, e.g. warning messages. The cyber behaviour of users may not be necessarily a reflection of their real character and intention. Their irrational and unconscious actions may result from their immersed and prolonged presence in a particular cyber context. Hence, the consideration of the cyberspace design, the "cyber psychological" status of an offender and their inter-relation could form a new family of mitigating circumstances inherent and unique to cybercrime. This paper elaborates on this initial argument from different perspectives including software engineering, cyber psychology, digital forensics, social responsibility and law.

Citation

ALI, R., MCALANEY, J., FAILY, S., PHALP, K. and KATOS, V. 2015. Mitigating circumstances in cybercrime: a position paper. In Wu, Y., Min, G., Georgalas, N., Hu, J., Atzori, L., Jin, X., Jarvis, S., Liu, L. and Agüero Calvo, R. (eds.) CIT/IUCC/DASC/PICom 2015: proceedings of the 3rd International workshop on cybercrimes and emerging web environments (CEWE 2015), part of the 13th IEEE international conference on dependable, autonomic and secure computing (DASC 2015), co-located with the 15th IEEE international conference on computer and information technology (CIT 2015), the 14th IEEE international conference on ubiquitous computing and communications (IUCC 2015), and the 13th IEEE international conference on pervasive intelligence and computing (PICom 2015), 26-28 October 2015, Liverpool, UK. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society [online], pages 1972-1976. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/CIT/IUCC/DASC/PICOM.2015.292

• Conference Name: 3rd International workshop on cybercrimes and emerging web environments (CEWE 2015), part of the 13th IEEE international conference on dependable, autonomic and secure computing (DASC 2015), co-located with the 15th IEEE international conference on comput
• Conference Location: Liverpool, UK
• Start Date: Oct 26, 2015
• End Date: Oct 28, 2015
• Acceptance Date: Aug 18, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Dec 28, 2015
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2015
• Deposit Date: Dec 8, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 8, 2021
• Publisher: IEEE Computer Society
• Pages: 1972-1976
• Book Title: CIT/IUCC/DASC/PICom 2015
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CIT/IUCC/DASC/PICOM.2015.292
• Keywords: Cybercrime; Cybercriminals; Hacking; Computing law; User behaviour; Access and authorisation
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1446655