Cons, Constructions Misconceptions of Computer Related Crime: From a Digital Syntax to a Social Semantics

Abstract

Has the framing of computer crime been a process which has, in effect, left us all framed? What is it that we think that we understand when we use terms like “internet crime,” “cybercrime,” or “technocrime,” and in what sense does this understanding constitute knowledge? In particular, the kind of knowledge which can be defined as “social scientific?” In this paper, I apply one of the key distinctions used to define computational processes—that made between a syntax and a semantics—to illustrate some of the problems that have affected our thinking about cybercrime and undermined our responses to it. I argue that the construction of cybercrime in terms of syntactic rather than semantic considerations has fostered the myth that it is a technical crime requiring technical solutions. Worse, by emphasizing cybercrime’s machinic over its human origins, syntactic interpretations have inflated its risks and directly contributed to the ‘culture of fear’ surrounding cybercrime. Drawing upon qualitative analytic techniques such as thematic visualization, I outline the need for a more sociocultural account of the origins of cybercriminality, one that might not only help stem the increasingly counterproductive influences of the cybersecurity industry, but can also contribute to more effective ways of containing it.