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Before closing up this subject there’s a topic at the last chapter that I want to discuss about. The topic is about ‘Crime in Virtual Worlds’. This is a very seriouse crime issue going on in online virtual worlds. An Online Virtual World is a shared multimedia, computer generated environment in which users, represented by avatars, can act, communicate, create, retain ownership of what they create, and exchange assets, including currency, with each other. An avatar is a character in the form or a human, animal, or mythical creature.

Now, back to the topic on Crime in virtual worlds. It seems the freedom and anonymity afforded avatars in a virtual world encourages some individuals to unleash their darker side. Thus, virtual worlds raise many interesting questions regarding what is a criminal act and whether law enforcement—real or virtual— should get involved in acts that occur in virtual worlds. 

Some virtual activities are clear violations of real world law and need to be reported to law enforcement authorities—for example, avatars trafficking in actual drugs or stolen credit cards. Other virtual activities, such as online muggings and sex crimes, can cause real life anguish for the human owners of the avatars involved but generally do not rise to the level of a real life crime. Although most virtual worlds have rules against offensive behavior in public, such as using racial slurs or performing overtly sexual actions, consenting adults can travel to private areas and engage in all sorts of socially unacceptable behavior. Bad deeds done online are often mediated by the game administrators, who can take action according to the rules of the game and with consequences internal to the game.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone’s ideas or words and passing them off as one’s own. The explosion of electronic content and the growth of the Web have made it easy to cut and paste paragraphs into term papers and other documents without proper citation or quotation marks. To compound the problem, hundreds of online “paper mills” enable users to download entire term papers. Although some sites post warnings that their services should be used for research purposes only, many users pay scant heed. As a result, plagiarism has become an issue from elementary schools to the highest levels of academia.

A recent survey reported that 55 percent of university presidents felt that plagiarism has increased over the past decade in spite of increased efforts to combat the practice.56 Plagiarism by students taking free online courses from Coursea has become so widespread that one professor felt compelled to post a request for his 39,000 students to stop the practice after many of the students complained about their fellow students.(ethics in information technology2c 5th ed.0.pdf)

The Common Types of Plagiarism

Direct Plagiarism

Direct plagiarism is the word-for-word transcription of a section of someone else’s work, without attribution and without quotation marks. The deliberate plagiarism of someone else's work is unethical, academically dishonest, and grounds for disciplinary actions, including expulsion. [See examples.]

Self Plagiarism

Self-plagiarism occurs when a student submits his or her own previous work, or mixes parts of previous works, without permission from all professors involved. For example, it would be unacceptable to incorporate part of a term paper you wrote in high school into a paper assigned in a college course. Self-plagiarism also applies to submitting the same piece of work for assignments in different classes without previous permission from both professors.

Mosaic Plagiarism

Mosaic Plagiarism occurs when a student borrows phrases from a source without using quotation marks, or finds synonyms for the author’s language while keeping to the same general structure and meaning of the original. Sometimes called “patch writing,” this kind of paraphrasing, whether intentional or not, is academically dishonest and punishable – even if you footnote your source! [See example.]

Accidental Plagiarism

China

As netizens in democratic countries focus on the dangers lurking in the online sphere, Beijing authorities have tightened their ropes and used digital media to enhance their power.

 Also, Chinese companies supply telecom hardware, data analysis tools, and facial recognition technology to some governments with not-so-impressive human rights records.

 This benefits not just the repressive local authorities that purchase these tools but also Chinese intelligence services who mine the data collected by their technologies.

 China is also providing assistance to Iran to create a “Halal internet”. This would be a countrywide internet that will not be connected to the World Wide Web and will be under the full control of the government.

On one hand, China wants to create a Halal internet, on the other hand, China has held a million Muslims in internment camps, mainly due to non-violent online activities.

Iran

In December 2017, a protest took place in Mashhad, Iran to show people’s discontent with the soaring prices and a failing economy.

 The street protest soon gained momentum and spread out to other cities, becoming a large demonstration of dissatisfaction with the government.

 The Iranian authorities responded by throttling and even shutting down the internet networks. Several apps, including Telegram and Instagram, were blocked for over a week.

 In April 2018, secure messaging app Telegram was completely blocked, citing government security as the reason. It was argued that the app supported dangerous terrorist groups.

Turkey

The year 2018 saw several restrictions in the online sphere. There were instances of self-censorship, a number of blocked news websites, and arrests of people who voiced their opinion against the president’s military operations.

 In January 2018, some Turkish internet users disapproved the Operation Olive Branch, a cross-border operation in Afrin, Syria. Voicing opinions against this operation counted as terrorism and resulted in several arrests.

 The government also prosecuted those who “insulted” President Erdoğan on social media, leading to prison terms of up to four years.

 According to the numbers released by their ministry, almost 50,000 social media accounts were investigated for terrorist content, and more than 20,000 legal actions were taken.

South Korea

While South Korea cyberspace is vibrant and creative, there are several restrictive laws that mar the online freedom of its netizens.

 The National Security Act of 1948 states that expressing sympathy with or praising the North Korea regime can land you in prison for up to seven years.

 Defamation (spoken slander or written libel) is also a criminal offense in South Korea and can put you behind bars for up to five years. Any content that challenges the social values of the country or “benefits” the other Korea is deleted or blocked. 

Other culprits

While these countries are considered the obvious enemies of the internet, there might be more culprits.

For example, Australia has brought some extreme internet laws that allow the government to collect metadata, and it’s among the most intrusive data collection schemes in the Western world.

The Australian government also requires companies to have a “backdoor” to their encrypted technologies so the government can access whatever data they want.