ISSN 1062-7421
Vol. 12 No. 5 (May 2002) pp. 243-245.

ELECTRONIC THEFT: UNLAWFUL ACQUISITION IN CYBERSPACE by Peter Grabosky, Russell G. Smith and Gillian Dempsey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 235 pp. Cloth $50.00. ISBN: 0-521-80597 X.

Reviewed by Debora Halbert, Department of History and Political Science, Otterbein College.

In ELECTRONIC THEFT, Australian sociologists Peter Grabosky, Russell Smith, and Gillian Dempsey define and describe the assortment of crimes possible in cyberspace. They approach the idea of "theft" as broadly as possible and include everything from electronic fraud to employee use of computers for personal reasons in the possible "crimes" of cyberspace. The expansive definition of theft necessitates an expansive system of solvency. Thus, the author's suggest that solving the growing problem of crime in cyberspace will require a model of legal pluralism, defined by the authors to mean that there should be many responses to crime that range from education to criminal liability. Although it is important to have laws to protect citizens from cybercrime and to enforce those laws, the authors argue that
other mechanisms for solving the problem of cybercrime are also necessary. These other mechanisms include new social norms, technological innovations, and increased surveillance.

The initial framework established by Grabosky, Smith, and Dempsey implies that Foucault's understanding of power will be crucial for the pluralistic legal model they have developed. However, despite references to Foucault throughout the book, the authors tend to be descriptive instead of theoretical. To the extent that Foucault's ideas about power and surveillance are used at all, they have been marginalized in a text that has the primary focus of describing types of crime.

The majority of the chapters deal with crimes that, although not unique to cyberspace, have become more commonplace there. These crimes include the theft of funds (Chapter One), digital extortion (Chapter Two), defrauding the government electronically (Chapter Three), telephone and Internet service theft (Chapter Four), and online securities fraud (Chapter Five). Each chapter provides an overview of the type of crime under discussion and the ways in which the Internet can be utilized to facilitate this crime. Each chapter then goes on to support the argument that legal pluralism is the best approach for "solving," or at the very least, limiting the expansion of electronic theft. The suggestions on how to deter and solve for cybercrime tend to be pragmatic, focusing on education and surveillance. For example, in Chapter One, the author's suggest that the best way to eliminate the cybertheft of funds is to ensure greater on-line security by educating users. Although stricter punishment for offenders may be helpful, it is only one piece of the larger puzzle (pp. 29-33). The author's wish to extend the model of legal pluralism by suggesting a mix of technological solutions, such as better encryption technologies and password protection (pp. 23-29).

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The authors do not limit themselves to existing crimes; they also include potential crimes and behaviors that, although they may have ethical implications, are not technically illegal. The later chapters in the book tend to deal with issues that can involve the legal system, but could also be interpreted as ethical challenges. For example, although a copyright infringement is technically illegal, it is a different kind of "crime" than computer fraud. Thus, a gray area surrounds the topics in the second part of the book. Crimes like deceptive business practices (Chapter Seven), intellectual property theft (Chapter Eight), industrial espionage (Chapter Nine), and misappropriation and dissemination of personal information (Chapter Ten) are much broader examples of "unlawful acquisition" where the line between illegal and unethical behavior is much less clearly drawn. These chapters could benefit from a closer examination of how criminal behavior comes to be defined as such and why.

For example, in Chapter Eight on intellectual property, the authors correctly (I think) point to how cyberspace challenges and transforms copyright law. The Internet makes it much easier to share information that may be subject to copyright regulations. The legal system in the United States has reacted by passing increasingly strong protective measures primarily designed to protect the interests of powerful industries. Instead of examining how the power to construct the law is used to define new types of crime, the authors simply describe the new laws (p. 138-42) and miss the opportunity to apply their Foucaultian examination of power to the ever- expanding notion of deviance under intellectual property law.

Grabosky, Smith, and Dempsey go beyond actual crime to also describe suspect behavior that is made possible because of cyberspace. For example, in Chapter Four on defrauding governments electronically, the author's examine the ability of using computers to exclude wholesalers and retailers from the distribution of goods (p. 56). Although the problem they target with this example is the government's inability to accurately assess taxes, one is left to wonder why disintermediation is inherently problematic. The author's return to the idea of disintermediation later in the book when they argue that it causes increased litigation by those who find themselves bypassed (p. 138). Although disintermediation is certainly problematic from the standpoint of institutionalized businesses, it is unclear how it fits the
larger definition of unlawful acquisition. The challenges of disintermediation offer an opportunity to more closely examine the ways in which the law is used by the status quo to influence future uses of technology. The authors miss an opportunity to highlight some of the most interesting problems facing the legal world in cyberspace when they do not examine the way in which cyberspace changes and threatens the existing structure.

They use "Theft of time" to illustrate how employees can defraud their employers by using their computers for personal reasons on company time (p. 63). Although this example of "unlawful acquisition" creates an opportunity to more closely examine the power relationships between employees and employers, the authors instead accept this behavior as 'theft' and suggest that companies increase their surveillance of employees to ensure that work time is used productively (pp. 65-68). Instead of reflecting upon how power and surveillance are expanded through technology to diminish the private lives of employees through mandatory 24-hour on-call cell phones, longer hours, and

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productivity surveillance, the author's suggest that even more computer surveillance is necessary to avoid the unlawful theft of company time. If the audience for this book includes business and government elites, this type of advice makes sense. However, if the authors wish to employ the Foucaultian framework outlined in the introduction, it is unclear how their approach to surveillance meets that goal.

Although the book is a comprehensive description of the many types of possible crimes in cyberspace, the authors tend to define "unlawful acquisition" broadly without critically assessing why some behaviors (like copyright violations) might be considered crimes in the first place. In their conclusion, the author's admit that the book goes beyond conventionally defined crimes to include "those where there is considerable debate over whether they should constitute a public or a private matter (p. 180)." Foucault is used to imply that power extends beyond the state into a "carceral archipelago" (p. 184) and our solutions to crime will need to
extend beyond the state as well. Although I think the author's miss an opportunity to use Foucault to examine the ways in which power and surveillance construct our notion of deviance, their overview of old crimes as they interact with new technology provides important examples for further discussion.

This book is filled with examples from three continents describing crimes that can exist in cyberspace and actions that can be taken to limit unlawful acquisition. The book is a starting point for further discussion on the issue of unlawful acquisition, but is not a theoretical examination of cybercrime. The descriptive focus suggests that it may be helpful in introductory criminology courses or courses where law and cyberspace are examined. However, despite Foucault's appearance in the theoretical framework of legal pluralism, it should not be read as a critical examination of how power influences our definition of crime.

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Copyright 2002 by the author, Debora Halbert.