Assignment 2: Aliza Levin

Aliza Levin

Sociology 167 Assignment 1

In May of 2013, eight individuals teamed together and ultimately stole nearly $45 million from financial institutions over the span of just two days. The cybercrime organization was in no way violent or threatening, and instead did everything using just the Internet and their computers. These eight men used incredibly strategic and sophisticated intrusion techniques to make their way into online global financial institutions and organizations. Through doing this, they obtained all the information and data they needed from prepaid debit cards and also eliminated withdrawal limitations. Once they had all the card information they needed, the eight individuals used the stolen card information at ATMs worldwide, and managed to withdraw $2.8 million in just a few hours. Today, these individuals face charges of money laundering conspiracy, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and seven out of eight of them are in jail.

According to John Suler’s “The Online Disinhibition Effect,” I would most likely attribute the 8 criminals’ cause of disinhibition to Suler’s notion of dissociative anonymity, in which “people can hide some or all of their identity” (322). Every illegal action that the hackers did through the Internet was entirely anonymous, and no one would have been able to identify the names had it not been for their presence at the various the ATM machines around the country. These eight men were able to log onto their laptops, use their technologically savvy skills to get into the systems of various global financial institutions, and steal all the debit card information that they needed without ever once disclosing their names or identity, aside from their IP addresses, which are out of their control. As Suler explains, “The online self becomes a compartmentalized self” (322).  The eight men were able to entirely separate everything they did on their computers from their day-to-day lives, and dissociative anonymity allowed for them to never have to reveal their identities while obtaining any of the information from the Internet. Although this act of cybercrime seems simply crazy, there are clearly people in the world that are desperate and/or crazy enough to go to extreme measures to get the money that they need or want. It is unrealistic to think that they would do such a crime if they had to disclose their identity, which is why the dissociative anonymity most likely would be Suler’s cause behind this absolutely ridiculous act on the Internet.

In this particular act of cybercrime, the victims (either those in the financial institutions or the owners of the debit cards) were not even aware of the crime that was occurring until they checked their accounts. Because of these circumstances, a disinhibition effect cannot be associated with them, because the cybercrime was entirely one-sided and did not directly involve the victims when it was in the process of being done.

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