Noncryptographic Security Issues - Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times - page 381

Social Insurance Number, and if American, do not give out your Social Security
Number, unless it is to a reputable source known to you. For those documents
not under your control, such as those at your physician's oHce or your work-
place, ask about procedures for disposal. Ensure the methods are secure, and
ensure that your information is kept confidential. Use passwords on all finan-
cial accounts available to you. Moreover, do not use information such as your
mother's maiden name when opening new accounts. Use a password and use
one that works (see page 330 for password-selection criteria).
When online, always be suspicious of urgent e-mail requests for your personal
financial data. If such is requested, do not click on a link provided. Instead go
to the financial institution's WWW page of your own volition and navigate from
that site. If you receive an e-mail request for financial or other personal data,
do not respond. Instead, enter it at the firm's WWW page. Always call the
company directly if in doubt. You are safer to check by phone than by mouse.

Larceny Cyberlarceny (also written as cyber-larceny , and also called cy-
bertheft ), is the computer-facilitated theft of property. The principal factor
differentiating theft of property in the “real world” from cybertheft is that the
latter relies upon the electronic maneuvering of data to effect the transfer of
property from the legitimate owner to the thief. In other words, cyberlarceny
involves the stealing of property via the use of a computer. This may involve
electronic siphoning of money (cyberembezzlement); threats employed to force
a victim to surrender property (cyberextortion); or electronic communications
of falsified data to deceive the victim into parting with property (cyberfraud).
Cyberlarceny must be considered to be a part of what one would consider to be
cyberburglary since real-world break and enter (burglary) is replaced by breaking
into a computer system where the property is stored.

Money Laundering : This crime refers to the practice of processing
illegally gotten gains through electronic channels to make the funds appear to be
legitimately obtained. The offenders conceal their true identities and locations,
often using cryptographic techniques to do so.

Sabotage : Computer sabotage means the use of the Internet to interrupt
the normal functioning of a computer system by using “malicious code”. 10.8
This could involve the use of computer viruses, logic bombs, Trojan horses,
worms, and so forth, about which we will learn in Section 10.3.

There are no guarantees, but the more cautious you are, and the better
informed you happen to be will give you, at a bare minimum, a sense of greater

10.8 The term malicious code has nothing to do with cryptography in this context. Here we
are (and will be throughout this chapter) using the term from a programming point of view
where an attacker writes a program (“writes code”), with malicious intent. The term “to
code” in this context means the act of programming. In particular, source code refers to the
program written before it is compiled by a computer. The computer accomplishes this task
via a compiler , which is a specific program whose function it is to process statements written
in a given programming language and transform them into machine language (“code”). This
code is then used by the computer's processor (see Footnote 9.25 on page 354). The compiled
code used by the processor is called the object code .