Evaluating the Application of Cyber Solutions to Physical Problems

• In Event: New Directions in Transnational and Organized Crime Research

Abstract

Technological advancements have caused traditional crimes, such as extortion, to shift into cyberspace causing challenges for law enforcement. Cyber-extortion of online businesses, where cybercriminals disrupt online services demanding payment to cease attacks, is a lucrative business, generating $8.6 million in the United States alone. Prior research indicates that similar policing and legal complications arise for extortion in both cyber and physical space. However, whether strategies of global harmonization and international policing (recommendations for managing cyber extortion) are applicable to physical space has yet to be determined.
This paper seeks to apply the aforementioned recommendations for managing cyber extortion to extortion in Karachi, Pakistan because prior research has identified similarities in the enforcement challenges between these spaces. Using approximately 50 documents from 1995-2013 consisting of academic and legal texts, this paper explores the possible translation of solutions to address cyber extortion successfully to Karachi. Overall, this study finds that (i) the concept of ‘international policing’ cannot be translated to Karachi due to differences in the manner by which the crimes are carried out. (ii) Although ‘global harmonization’ is translatable, it would not be effective in the case of Karachi due to resource constraints; curbing extortion is more manageable within Karachi jurisdictions.

Authors

• Wilfred Beaye, Temple University

• Aunshul Rege, Temple University