"Crew Collar" Crime: Hacking for the Heck of It

• In Event: The Social Context of Decision Making

Abstract

Much attention has been given to cybercrime of late, some of which is committed for political advantage and espionage or for economic gain. A third class of cybercriminals include what I will term here as “crew collar” criminals, individuals who hack computer systems for no other reason than they can do it. This type of crime can be viewed as the intersection of white-collar crime and conventional crime, though the motives are decisively different. This paper argues that the activity is motivated by thrill seeking behavior, as well as by friendly, but serious competition between individuals who participate in this type of crime. Qualitative data includes face-to-face interviews with IT faculty in higher education as well as with IT students. Discussions of social harm include breaches of trust, privacy, and the financial loss to institutions that have to contend with these types of nuisance crimes.

Author

• Laura L Hansen, Western New England University