NESTA Crime Online - University of Brighton Repository

dispersed activities. 120 Digital technologies connected by the Internet have accelerated
the rate at which this integration is taking place 121 and have also changed how economic
activities are organised. As a result, they have transformed the relationships between
production, consumption and power.
Falling communication costs and wide access to the Internet have led to what has been
called the “death of distance”, 122 enabling new international organisations as well as
easily linking existing ones in remote sites. The Internet portrayal as the “network of
networks”, 123 acquires particular relevance in the context of cyberspace, as the
environment where cybercriminal activities mainly take place. Cybercriminals can now
operate across continents and may communicate only in cyberspace, as an encounter
with Brazilian cybercriminals illustrates.
“For a month or so, KG disappeared. Max and SuperGeek attempted to contact him over
Microsoft Messenger or IRC but in vain. This is common in a culture that prizes
anonymity above all else. Like most such online relationships, the friendship between
the three cyber pals was fragmented and based upon a minimal, yet intense, intimacy.
They did not know where each other lived; what their socio-economic backgrounds
were; or what they looked like.” 124
The concept of value chain is simple but very effective in further helping to explain the
innovation approach to studying cybercrime. 125 Value chains describe the sequence of
activities that are required to make a product or service, from conception to delivery and
disposal. This sequence of activities involves the combination of inputs from various
120 Dicken P., (1998), Global Shift: Transforming the World Economy, Paul Chapman, London.; Gereffi (2002),
“The evolution of value chains in the Internet era”, in Goldstein, A. and O’Connor, D., (2002), “Electronic
Commerce for Development”, OECD.
121 This phenomena has been referred to as the new “information economy”, a society characterised by its
capacity to generate knowledge through global networks of individuals and organisations. Wall, D., (2007),
Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age, Polity Press, UK.
122 Cairncross, F. (1997), The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives,
Harvard Business School Press.
123 Licklider, J. and Taylor, R. (1990), quoted in Wall, (2007), Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the
Information Age, Polity Press, UK.
124 Glenny, M., (2008) McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers, Random House, p.305.
125 Kaplinsky R., and Morris M., (2001), A Handbook for Value Chain Research. International Development
Research Centre: Ottawa.
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