Anonymity In Cyberspace Research Articles

Motivational Analysis Behind Cyber Criminal Behaviour in Nigeria

The invention of the cyberspace showcased in the use of internet, a necessary tool that has come to stay, defining how people interact and communicate on daily basis, defiling the phenomenon of time and space, thereby making the world a global community. The internet can be said to be a two edged sword that is advantageous and can be destructive depending on the application and user motivations. It’s on this note that the work analyzes the motivations behind cybercriminal behaviour in Nigeria, Identifying ‘anonymity in cyberspace, thrill-seeking, financial gain, revenge seeking, addiction, law enforcement and weak cyber security’ as the key motivations behinds cybercriminal behaviours. ‘Routine Activity Theory’ was used to analyze the work, anchoring it on the premise of ‘motivated offender’. The study concluded with recommendations that government and stakeholders in the cyberspace industries, need to prioritize investment in ‘law enforcement and weak cyber security’ overhauling the security architecture in charge of prosecutions and investigation of cybercrime activities/offenses, which guarantee protection of confidential data and reduce the risk of cybercrimes.

Traits, Trends, and Trajectory of Tween and Teen Cyberbullies.

Digital communication has revolutionized the way children interact and maintain social relations. However, not every tween (8-12 years) or teen (13-18 years) is able to take full advantage of digital media and may cross personal and social boundaries causing distress, mostly to their own friends at school and beyond. This results in adverse health effects for both the cyberbullying perpetrator and the victim. Articles reviewed on elementary school children and adolescents, collected from two different databases, showed that the number of elementary school kids using smartphones has more than doubled in the past few years. Given this rise, the risk of cyberbullying has also increased. Not all elementary school kids have the required media literacy to understand that their friends have equal rights in the virtual world as they do in the schoolyard. Regardless, they still carry a smartphone with data, use computers, and other electronic media to bully, embarrass, exclude, or humiliate others, often through social networking sites. Moving from tweens to teens seems to worsen the cyberbully behavior and choices, with middle school kids facing the highest cyberbullying incidents followed by high school kids and then the elementary school kids. The anonymity of cyberspace and the perceived lack of consequences seems to embolden the cyberbully. Identifying the mindset of a cyberbully and those at high risk of becoming a cyberbully can help target intervention efforts where they are needed the most and prevent cyberbullying.

Why Do They Help People with AIDS/HIV Online? Altruistic Motivation and Moral Identity

With the help of information and communication technologies, people can enjoy online social services, especially some stigmatized groups. In China, it is popular for AIDS patients to seek help online since the anonymity of cyberspace can protect people from stigmas and mocking evaluations. This article conducts a content analysis on 216 volunteers’ applications in an AIDS forum and measures their online helping behavior after application to explore what motivates volunteers to help AIDS patients online, how it affects them, and why the moral implication attached to AIDS fails to prevent them. The author indicates that helping behavior may be inspired by varied motivation from altruism to egoism, including kindness, values, sympathy, reward, atonement and benefit. Among them, the closer to altruism the motivation is, the more likely it is to be mentioned, while the “reward” motivation has the most significant effect. This article then examines volunteers’ moral identity of AIDS, arguing that the moral identity of humanitarianism can counteract the moral criticism of high-risk behavior related to AIDS. Future research in this area should examine the relationship between motivation and moral identity, the change in different phases, and compare different helping situations to encourage more forms of social services and supportive behavior.

‘It's an ordinary matter’: perceptions of cyberbullying in Thai youth culture

ABSTRACTThis qualitative study focuses on youth perceptions of cyberbullying (definition, causes, consequences, and management). We also articulate how perceptions of cyberbullying among Thai youth are influenced by Thai culture, including Thai youth culture. Data were collected from 15 to 24 year-olds in Central Thailand through 22 focus group discussions (FGDs) with 4–6 participants each, as well as 26 in-depth interviews (IDIs), totaling 136 participants. These youth defined cyberbullying as harming others through mobile phones and the Internet. To count as cyberbullying, actions had to cause real harm or annoyance and be committed with malicious intent. The relationship between the parties involved also mattered: close friends were unlikely to be considered cyberbullies. Participants thought that the anonymity of cyberspace is a key cause of cyberbullying but also that cyberbullying often results from previous offline incidents of violence. In their view, cyberbullying impacts individuals and their social interactions. Participants tended to manage the problem by themselves and not consult their parents. Alarmingly, participants viewed cyberbullying as ‘an ordinary matter’. To raise awareness that cyberbullying is a societal problem with serious consequences, state agencies and educational institutions need to play active roles in preventing it and responding to it constructively when it occurs.

Disinhibition of negative true self for identity reconstructions in cyberspace: Advancing self-discrepancy theory for virtual setting.

In face-to-face communications, to avoid sanctions and disapproval from others, people are more likely to hide negative aspects of their true self (such as socially undesirable personalities, minds, beliefs and consciousness) to avoid conflict with social norms and laws. The anonymity of cyberspace provides people a unique environment to behave more freely and openly with less restraint from the real word. Existing research related to online true self expression has mainly explored true self as an independent aspect of self. Regarding true self as a two-dimensional concept, this study investigates true self from the perspective of individuals’ self-guide and identity reconstruction in both online and offline world. Using qualitative research methods, the current study investigates 57 participants through interviews and questionnaires. Content analysis reveals four factors that motivate people to express more true self (especially negative true self) when reconstructing their online identity and involve true self as a part of their self-guide in anonymous environment. By incorporating true self as an important part of individuals' self-guide and identity online, the current study advances self-discrepancy theory, making it more comprehensive for cyberspace. The results are also interpreted based on self-determination theory. The theoretical contributions of this study are discussed and practical implications are also presented.

Emotion regulation in bereavement: searching for and finding emotional support in social network sites

In an age of rising impact of online communication in social network sites (SNS), emotional interaction is neither limited nor restricted by time or space. Bereavement extends to the anonymity of cyberspace. What role does virtual interaction play in SNS in dealing with the basic human emotion of grief caused by the loss of a beloved person? The analysis laid out in this article provides answers in light of an interdisciplinary perspective on online bereavement. Relevant lines of research are scrutinized. After laying out the theoretical spectrum for the study, hypotheses based on a prior in-depth qualitative content analysis of 179 postings in three different German online bereavement platforms are proposed and scrutinized in a quantitative content analysis (2127 postings from 318 users). Emotion regulation patterns in SNS and similarities as well as differences in online bereavement of children, adolescents and adults are revealed. Large-scale quantitative findings into central motives, patterns, and restorative effects of online shared bereavement in regulating distress, fostering personal empowerment, and engendering meaning are presented. The article closes with implications for further analysis in memorialization practices.

Does the offline bully-victimization influence cyberbullying behavior among youths? Application of General Strain Theory

The current study attempts to examine the relationship between traditional bullyvictimization and cyberbullying behavior based on General Strain Theory perspectives. Offline bullyvictimization can create negative emotional strains. This negative strain combined with the anonymity in cyber space may lead youths to be engaged in cyberbullying behavior as the externalized response to the strain. Using longitudinal Korean National Youth Survey data, this study empirically tested the above theoretical explanation. First, this study found the declining trend of cyberbullying engagement among Korean youths. Secondly, consistent with GST, offline bully-victimization was significantly related to the cyberbullying engagement. Youths who were victims of traditional bullying showed a higher tendency of becoming cyberbullying assaulters with externalizing their strain in cyberspace.

Applying Stylometric Analysis Techniques to Counter Anonymity in Cyberspace

Due to the ubiquitous nature and anonymity abuses in cyberspace, it’s difficult to make criminal identity tracing in cybercrime investigation. Writeprint identification offers a valuable tool to counter anonymity by applying stylometric analysis technique to help identify individuals based on textual traces. In this study, a framework for online writeprint identification is proposed. Variable length character n-gram is used to represent the author’s writing style. The technique of IG seeded GA based feature selection for Ensemble (IGAE) is also developed to build an identification model based on individual author level features. Several specific components for dealing with the individual feature set are integrated to improve the performance. The proposed feature and technique are evaluated on a real world data set encompassing reviews posted by 50 Amazon customers. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed framework, with accuracy over 94% for 20 authors and over 80% for 50 ones. Compared with the baseline technique (Support Vector Machine), a higher performance is achieved by using IGAE, resulting in a 2% and 8% improvement over SVM for 20 and 50 authors respectively. Moreover, it has been shown that IGAE is more scalable in terms of the number of authors, than author group level based methods.

청소년 인터넷 중독에서의 내현적 자기애에 관한 연구 : 익명성, 실재감, 상호작용성, 성취 동기와의 연관

Objectives:This study compared covert narcissistic propensity in adolescents with internet addiction tendency to normal adolescents. Further, we investigated the correlation between such propensities and anonymity in cyberspace, presence feeling and interactivity in internet gaming, and achievement motivation in adolescents with internet addiction tendencies. Methods:Male middle school students with internet addiction tendencies (Addiction Tendency Group, N=27) and normal stu- dents (Control Group, N=29) were recruited. The scale of internet use, Covert Narcissism Scale, scale of achievement motiva- tion, scale of anonymity in cyberspace, scale of presence feeling in internet games, and the scale of interactivity in internet games were administered. A comparison of the average scores and correlation analyses were performed. Results:1) Compared with Control Group, the Addiction Tendency Group showed significantly higher scores on all subscales of the Covert Narcissism Scale, and both the scale of presence feeling and that of interactivity in internet games. Further, the score on the scale of achievement motivation for the Addiction Tendency Group was significantly lower than that of the Control Group. 2) In the Addiction Tendency Group, the scores on several subscales of the Covert Narcissism Scale were significantly positively correlated with the scores on the scale of presence feeling in internet games, anonymity in cyberspace, and interac- tivity in internet games. However, in the Control Group, the scores of several subscales on the Covert Narcissism Scale were sig- nificantly negatively correlated with the score on the scale of achievement motivation, and was significantly positively correlat - ed with the score on the scale of interactivity in internet games. There were no other significant correlations between the scores on the subscales of the Covert Narcissism Scale and the scores of either presence feeling in internet games or anonymity in cy- berspace.

Anonymity in cyberspace: finding the balance between privacy and security

This paper seeks to explore and analyse anonymity in cyberspace. It shows that the balance between privacy of internet users and security of nations can be achieved. It starts by presenting the concept and several types of anonymity. It focuses on the internet and how anonymity can be achieved, and why it is an essential tool for free speech. The paper will also describe proposals to outlaw anonymity over the internet, since it has often been tied to criminal activity by law enforcement bodies. Finally, the paper concludes that total anonymity may be possible through the use of privacy-enhancing technologies, such as those offered by Anonymizer.com and Freenet. Moreover, educated legislators can criminalise most true anonymity in cyberspace and still pass security.

Reading Fanaa: Confrontational views, comforting identifications and undeniable pleasures

This investigation draws upon my earlier analysis of the Bombay blockbuster Fanaa (Khan ‘Nationalism’), transnational responses to Fanaa posted on an internet blog and on interviews with South Asian and Somali Muslims in Windsor and Mississauga, Ontario, two areas with substantial multiracial populations. I argue that although Fanaa's narrative strategies risk reinforcing stereotypes, they also initiate conversations about escalating tensions regarding citizenship and belonging among South Asians. The film emerges as a popular cultural text which allows transnational bloggers to use the anonymity of cyberspace and articulate hugely confrontational views, something they may do not in person. Moreover, as Canadian respondents view the film, it complicates the trauma of separation and dislocation which South Asian minorities, like other racialized peoples, face in Canada. Further, the respondents rework the limited repertoire of Fanaa in ways that involve ways of seeing which both confirm and challenge the Orientalist gaze as they re-imagine community in everyday practices and resistances.

E‐BUYER BEWARE: WHY ONLINE AUCTION FRAUD SHOULD BE REGULATED

Well-settled principles of law, such as those encompassing fraud in its various forms, have long maintained their vitality, adapting to changes in the legal and business environments through judicial and legislative interpretation and intervention. Many of these changes have manifested themselves in the world of commerce. The creation and development of the Internet has resulted in significant changes in the way people engage in commerce. The increasing popularity of the Internet as a medium of commerce has generated an increase in Internet fraud, raising new and challenging legal issues in areas including online auctions. Under current law, a defrauded participant in an online auction transaction has no recourse against the online auction site that facilitated and controlled the auction transaction and claimed a percentage of the transaction price as its fee. Online auction sites can and do legally disclaim any responsibility for fraud occurring on their sites. Because of the lack of meaningful consumer protection with respect to online auctions in the form of consumer education efforts and appropriate regulation and effective enforcement thereof, the rising numbers of online auction fraud victims are left with no meaningful avenues of relief.The increased popularity of the Internet and the huge volume of e-commerce transactions have generated opportunities for cyber crimes and torts, including various forms of Internet fraud. The Internet offers low-cost communication, the capacity to reach a global audience, and a presumptive veneer of credibility stemming from the anonymity of cyberspace. Thus, Internet users may find it hard to distinguish genuine sources of information from fraudulent sources, creating a fertile environment for all kinds of Internet fraud. This article examines the most commonly reported form of Internet fraud, online auction fraud. Part I discusses fraud in the context of online auctions, highlighting the increasing numbers of reported cases and the most common forms of online auction fraud. Part II examines two prominent online auction fraud cases, and illustrates the critical need both to protect consumers from being victimized by online auction fraud and to provide opportunities for meaningful relief in the event that consumers are so victimized. Part III offers suggested areas for regulation to protect consumers from online auction fraud, and further provides an examination and evaluation of the responses to online auction fraud by various consumer and law enforcement groups. Part IV examines the response of online auction sites to online auction fraud. Part V is an examination of some forms of online alternative dispute resolution. Because of the lack of meaningful consumer protection stemming from the lack of appropriate regulation and effective enforcement thereof, and the dearth of consumer education with respect to online auction fraud, online alternative dispute resolution remains one of the only available avenues of relief for victims of online auction fraud.