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Silk Road is an underground online drug market created by Ross Ulbricht aka dread pirate Robert. created in 2011, Silk Road was intended to be a reliable network for selling and distributing drugs. Individuals using the website could only access it through a browser called ‘tor’, a network designed to protect and conceal an individual's location. Silk Road's home page consisted of thousands of listings for substances, ranging from cannabis to opioids and intoxicants. it was known to be used by multiple different countries including the United States and the United Kingdom.

Between 2011- and 2013 on 60 separate occasions, law enforcement officers made undercover purchases of substances by different sellers from the market. Purchases such as ecstasy, cocaine and many others were made.

Before being shut down in October 2013, Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers and distributed hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs generating millions in sales and more than 13 million in bitcoin revenue. Concerning this case, in late 2020 American law enforcement seized over 1 billion dollars (about $3 per person in the US) worth of digital currency.

Unfortunately, Silk Road has been associated with over 6 overdoes worldwide. one being 27-year-old Jordan, a Microsoft worker found at his computer unconscious after overdosing on heroin. At the time of his death, it was found that he was logged into the Silk Road network.

Law enforcement was first made aware of the underground network in 2011 when an online post was made clear, many months later there was another post made by the same user. Under court warrants, Ulbricht was eventually identified as the kingpin. It wasn't until 2013 that his computer was seized.

After a 4 weeklong trial, a unanimous jury found Ross Ulbricht guilty of all seven counts he was being charged with. He was later sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking, computer hacking and money laundering in 2015.

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Modern cybercrime has massively grown over the past years. Due to the vulnerability of security departments no matter how it is connected, it has become easier for potential attackers to intrude and take down the operation of an entire system.

Ransomware is a type of malware that is an intricate attempt to compromise modern computer systems. This poses a greater issue as the more these attacks happen, the harder for them to be stopped. The amount of tech that can be hit including, computers, phones, and internet gadgets, makes this a larger issue worldwide.

The infamous WannaCry Ransome attack took place between May 12th and 15th 2017 where a group of cybercriminals used encrypted data that targeted computers using Microsoft They then demanded a ransom and if not paid they were going to leak personal information that they had obtained. Microsoft warned their customers 12 months in advance that this attack was likely to happen and released a security patch to try and protect and organizations that did not download the security measure, unfortunately, fell victim to the WannaCry ransom attack.

This affected over 300,000 systems to this attack spanning over 150 countries, including healthcare facilities, government, and telecommunications.

The WannaCry malware is a worm-like ransomware that spreads through the use of internet networks, targeting the vulnerability of Microsoft. There are two main components; one that provides functionality and two, the component that is used for propagation which helps with the performance to enable server message block (SMB) exploitation.

The WannaCry used the eternal blue exploits that were supposedly leaked by a group of shadow brokers in April of 2017. The malware attaches to the encrypted data with a data file called.WCRY extension uses a decryptor tool and demands the Ransome, in this case between $300-$600 USD to decrypt the data. This all happens without the host/ victim even knowing their computer is compromised by entering the system through various sources. Once entered, the task in hand is to search the target data then encryption can proceed.

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online scamming: increase in romance scams

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online scamming: increase in romance scams

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Online scamming has been around for many years, dating back to the early 1970’s. These cyber crimes have everlasting consequences and leave victims with tremendous loss while their scammers walk away with money and no remorse for their actions.

In 2020, Australians reported a total of $37 million in losses from dating and romance scams. It is thought that online scams especially romance scams are targeted at older Australians, but statistics show that more than half are people under the age of 35.

ACCC Deputy Chair Delia Rickard says that cyber criminals use a technique called 'Love bombing' consisting of regular contact to prove to their victim that they are interested in the person to leave the victim in a vulnerable state. Ms Rickard later says not to take financial advice from someone online and know that there is control in this situation, if there is a feeling of uncomforted, cut contact with the scammer.

An example from the Victoria police was a case study of a romance online scam. Amara a retired widow became friends with Ferenc after he sent her a friend request online. Ferenc informed Arama that he had lost his wife to cancer which was similar to Amara her own experience as her late husband died of cancer as well.

After a while of talking Ferenc told Amara that he was coming to visit but needed $15,000 to cover the tax bill as he was having trouble with his bank card. Amara relented and sent him the money after taking out a loan to cover the bill. Later on, he told her that he had been detained by Malaysian police and needed another $20,000. Amara was not convinced to contact Malaysian police about Ferenc where they did not know of him. In response Ferenc was not happy, leaving angry messages.

Ultimately Ferenc ceased contact altogether, leaving Amara $15,000 in debt and with a loan to pay off, Amara was forced to re-enter the workforce. Due to the personal information, she shared with Ferenc, she is still at risk of having her identity stolen.

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Social networking is one of the most remarkable technologies of the 21st century, making it very popular, especially with the younger generation. Every child online wants to be the most popular and have the most followers which leaves them vulnerable to online harassment. The tricky part about online harassment is, that it can happen on any device, app or game. From posts on Instagram to comments on TikTok from messages on video games. This makes it such a broad issue, harder to control and identify when happening.

It is human nature to want to connect with people, the advances in social networking technologies have made that easier to connect with people around the world making users less discriminating in accepting ‘friend requests’ but where is the line drawn on the safety of connecting with people?

For example, Victoria police showed how is easy for predators to target young teenagers. A father of 3, David didn’t know what was happening under his watch, his daughter Angie 14 was targeted by an older male online. He was reluctant to give his daughter a phone due to this very issue but as she started her second year of high school, he relented and gave her a phone.

Due to his work commitments, David struggles to monitor the phone which leads to behavior changes. Wasn’t until the principal of Angie's school informed him of the inappropriate messages, she was receiving from a man she had met on a messaging app.

The above shows just how easy it is for a predator to target young children, who are unaware of the dangers they are facing. A study done in Europe found that 77 per cent of 13–16-year-olds have a profile on a social networking site. A similar study was conducted in the United States where it was found that 80% of 12–17-year-olds are active on some type of social networking, even though worldwide most social media apps have an age limit of at least 13 years old

In another case, two girls aged 11 and 12 were charged with first-degree computer trespassing and cyberstalking after they were found guilty of sending out a solicitation for sex with their 12-year classmate's photos that they obtained from the young girl's Facebook.

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What even are deep fakes? with the ability to hide within the social network makes it hard to tell fake from reality. Coming in different forms makes it hard to distinguish real and fake. Take Barack Obama calling Donald Trump a dipshit or in a music video done by Kendrick Lamar, he was morphed into the late Kobe Bryant making it convincing that he was singing even though he passed away 2 years prior. These are just some of the examples that show how easy it is for cybercriminals to trick the social network into thinking they are seeing something that has happened when it is something far from it.

This poses the question what are deep fakes? and how can they be distinguished between reality and fake? has become more present in the modern online world, Advances in computerized video tools and machine learning algorithms have allowed for the influx of cybercriminals using deep fakes to manipulate the online world, which has posed a greater threat. While they have negative connotations concerning the ethical and societal impact they are having, deep fakes have seen a rise in popularity in the entertainment industry, allowing characters to still be present in the movie or show even if they have passed or suffered from a medical condition

There are two popular manipulation methods.

1. Facial expression manipulation involves face 2 face which allows anyone to transfer the facial expression of one person to another using standard tools or applications.

2.  facial identity manipulation, this involves Face Swap the person's face is replaced by another instead of changing the expression

Though now, there is an increase in deep fakes being made for disrespectful purposes, the major one being those used with pornographic content, face-swapping celebrities on porn star bodies to appear they were in the film which leads to the status of said celebrates being tainted even though they have done nothing wrong. Statistics show that 15,000 videos were found in September with 96% being pornographic

Even though artificial intelligence is used in the creation of deep fakes, it may be a solution in the detection of deep fakes in the future. Many tech firms of working on fixing the weaknesses involved with AI