CRIME AND THE INTERNET\nThe Internet has become part of our daily life over the past ten years, but its history goes about 50 years back. In the late 1950s, the United States government decided that, in order to protect secret and private information, it was necessary to create a network of computers that were connected to each other. By the 1970s, some of the nation's most prestigious universities were connected in a net and the early version of the Internet was used by the academic and scientific communities.\nToday many crimes are related to the Internet activity. It is very difficult to tell how many computer crimes actually take place. Often, a person will never know that he or she has been a victim of a computer crime. The Internet is the instrument of committing traditional crimes.\nThe problem for law enforcement is to apply traditional laws. On the one hand, these laws were designed to protect persons from physical harm or to safeguard their physical property. On the other hand, these laws are to be applied to crimes committed in cyberspace. Examples of such criminal activity are online fraud and cyber theft.