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Cybercrime, Security and Digital Law Enforcement - LAWS8030
UNSW Library

 
Faculty: Faculty of Law
 
 
School:  School of Law
 
 
Course Outline: See below
 
 
Campus: Kensington Campus
 
 
Career: Postgraduate
 
 
Units of Credit: 6
 
 
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
 
 
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2
 
 
Enrolment Requirements:
 
 
Prerequisite: Academic Program must be either 9200, 9210, 5740 or 9230
 
 
Fee Band: 1 (more info)
 
 
Further Information: See Class Timetable
 
 

Description

‘Cybercrime’ examines how the online world has borne new crimes and law enforcement responses, as well as investigates how the computer has become both a target of attack and a tool for criminal activity. ‘Cybercrime’ explores a number of emerging cybercrimes (cyber-stalking, hacking, and attacks to critical infrastructure), and also explores how old crimes are affected in new mediums (organised crime, electronic theft, pornography, child abuse materials, and peer-to-peer filesharing systems). How do nation-states regulate criminal activity of those persons and organizations located abroad? How is law enforcement shifting from traditional mechanisms to new regulatory regimes and technological solutions? Additional topics include cyber-terrorism, hactivism, information warfare, and digital forensics. A technical background is not essential.


LLM Specialisations

Media and Technology Law;
Criminal Justice and Criminology

Recommended Prior Knowledge

None

Course Objectives

A candidate who has successfully completed this course should be able to:
  • Articulate the main elements of various cybercrime offences
  • Understand the unique challenges posed to law enforcement agents, policy makers and prosecutors
  • Appreciate the level of technical complexity and evolving issues in high tech crime
  • To be able to engage in debate on policy reform in the area
  • Explain and provide better instruction to a digital forensic specialist
  • Completion of an independent research essay of peer-review quality

Main Topics

  • Introduction: The nature of cybercrime
  • National and international legal and policy frameworks
  • The technologies behind cybercrime (domain name system, web-poisoning, web hi-jacking, fast-flux, rock phish, dynamic ip addresses, spam, botnets, irc, p2p, encrypted channels)
  • Electronic theft and corporate espionage
  • Malware, viruses, hacking
  • Cyber-stalking
  • Child pornography and child abuse materials
  • Criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights (Copyright and illicit p2p fileswapping)
  • Security, cyber-terrorism, and attacks to critical infrastructure
  • Digital forensics issues
  • Hands-on forensics examination (In computer lab)

Assessment

Notes and Queries (2 X 10% - one page critical analysis of course readings)

Peer Review of Another Student’s Essay (20%)

Independent Research Essay ( 60%) 6000 words

Course Texts

Required

Peter Grabosky, Electronic Crime. Upper Saddle River, NF, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.

A set of journal articles, commentaries and case law for specific topics will be provided via hyperlinks available from the course website. A few journal articles which are otherwise not available on line will be provided in a set of brief reading materials.

Recommended
None

Resources

Refer to Course Outline provided by lecturer at the beginning of the relevant semester.

URL for this page:

© The University of New South Wales (CRICOS Provider No.: 00098G), 2004-2011. The information contained in this Handbook is indicative only. While every effort is made to keep this information up-to-date, the University reserves the right to discontinue or vary arrangements, programs and courses at any time without notice and at its discretion. While the University will try to avoid or minimise any inconvenience, changes may also be made to programs, courses and staff after enrolment. The University may also set limits on the number of students in a course.