Advance fee fraud: trends and issues in the Caribbean
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the trends and issues involved in advance fee fraud in the Caribbean.Design/methodology/approach – The paper offers a definition of advance fee fraud, describing its practice in the context of the Caribbean. The paper outlines the current state of the law in the region, the need for action and the legislative and enforcement strategies required.Findings – International and regional efforts have been geared towards drug trafficking and money laundering and, in more recent times, terrorism. The time is now ripe for these international and regional efforts to add to their focus advance fee fraud in all its versions and variations. The need to take proactive and decisive measures against advance fee fraud is even more evident in the context of the growth in the use of technology in commerce due to the obvious economic advantage. Advance fee fraud is not just a trick or reward for greed, it is an economic crime and there must be a drastic response from the regi...
Explaining two forms of Internet crime from two perspectives : toward stage theories for phishing and Internet scamming
Tambe Ebot, Alain Claude Explaining two forms of Internet crime from two perspectives: toward stage theories for phishing and Internet scamming Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2017, 116 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Computing ISSN 1456-5390; 259) ISBN 978-951-39-6953-0 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-6954-7 (PDF) The two studies in this dissertation examine two pervasive and common forms of Internet crimes from two different perspectives: (1) phishing from the victims’ perspective and (2) Internet scamming from the offenders’ perspective. For the former, previous phishing research is based on models that assume that fixed or static factors explain or predict people’s reasons for complying with phishing emails. These models assume that the reasons for complying with phishing emails are the same across individuals and across time. However, we argue that, whereas the act of clicking on a phishing email is the same across time for phishing victims, the reasons for complying are not the same. We address this problem with interview data from actual victims of phishing emails. The overall findings show how differences in process attributes lead individuals to comply for different reasons. We further theorize why phishing victims reside in one of two stages and propose a tailored approach to reducing phishing. For the second issue, despite making headline news and the estimated cost in the billions annually, scamming research is at an exploratory stage. Focusing on why individuals become scammers, the academic research on scamming has suggested (1) monetary rewards, (2) structural problems, and (3) affordable Internet access. We argue, however, that individuals in need of money, experiencing poverty and unemployment, and having affordable Internet access, do not become criminals. To address these problems, we interviewed actual Internet scammers. Regarding why individuals become scammers, we suggest that money is because it is needed to socialize, to enjoy an extravagant lifestyle, and to remain or become financially independent. Further, we contribute to finding how individuals become scammers by identifying three stages that respectively explain the initial progression into scamming, the specific choice of scamming and the role of the Internet, and the reasons scammers persist in scamming. We theorize these findings using criminology literature and show that neither the dispositional nor situational criminological theories can adequately explain the proclivity toward scamming and the act of practicing Internet scams. We make suggestions for practice.
Design of a low power viterbi decoder for wireless communication applications
In this paper, a novel low-power Viterbi decoder with soft decision is proposed. For the branch metric of the Viterbi decoder, our design employs a soft-decision method to improve its correction capability. In order to find the survivor path efficiently, we modify the classical Viterbi decoding algorithm into a new one. This new algorithm is similar to the register-exchange method with lower latency, but using RAM instead of register banks for recording the output bit-stream of the survivor path. Hence, our design can provide a low-power design. Finally, the chip of this design consumes about 28.6K gates using TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The power consumption of our chip is about 19.5mW at 100MHz.