Week 10 Reflection

This week for the main discussion we were asked to develop questions about a previous topic from class that we wanted to discuss further.  I brought up the current state of United State law concerning IT and the topics surrounding IT such as privacy and personal security.  I found this area interesting as it is still in its infancy and is struggling to keep up with the development of technology.  Considering the rate at which technology grows and how slowly our government can move sometimes when developing new laws, it is not surprising that there are many holes in the law concerning these areas.  A personal example is when a friend started receiving numerous phone calls regarding a craigslist ad posted in the personals sections that they did not place.  The friend contacted craigslist who removed the ad and provided the IP address of the people who posted the ad.  But when the friend contacted the police they said tehy could not do anything because the IP was located in another state and they had no ability to conduct a cross state investigation concerning the incident.  So since this was harassment done through a new technology the Police had no idea on how to deal with the issue and this was still within the United States.  The same could occur from different countries which leaves the victim at even more of a disadvantage when they try and deal with the problem.  Bringing the topic back to what we dealt with in class, it is interesting to contemplate these issues and how governments will deal with such issues in the future.  Taking the example of intercountry crime, how will a government deal with a hacker in one country who steal identities and money from another country?