Cybercrime Law and Investigations: Discussion Questions Analysis

This assignment addresses key aspects of cybercrime law through a series of discussion questions. It begins by defining wiretapping and its relationship to the Fourth Amendment, clarifying when a wiretap constitutes a search. The assignment then delves into the case of Steve Jackson Games v. Secret Service, examining the complexities of interception versus access to stored communications. It also explores the unlawful use of spyware and its potential to violate wiretap laws, referencing the O'Brien v. O'Brien case. Furthermore, the assignment analyzes Lazette v. Kulmatycki, focusing on issues related to employee access to personal email accounts. Finally, it examines Sherman & Company v. Salton Maxim Housewares, Inc., concerning the Stored Communications Act and trade secrets. The solutions provided offer a comprehensive understanding of these cybercrime law topics and relevant legal precedents.

Running head: CYBERCRIME LAW AND INVESTIGATIONS
Cybercrime Law and Investigations
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Response to question 1:...................................................................................................................2
Response to question 2:...................................................................................................................3
Response to question 3:...................................................................................................................4
Response to question 4:...................................................................................................................4
Response to question 5:...................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Response to question 1:
It is already known that wiretapping becomes accountable for invading the
communication privacy, the Fourth Amendment towards the constitution of the United States
directly becomes applicable to the conduct of the officials of the government which comprises of
wiretapping (Bellovin et al., 2014). In simple words, wiretapping is basically referred to the
secret monitoring electronic monitoring of telegraph, telephone, fax, cellular or several kinds of
communication which are based on internet.
At a certain point of time, wiretap becomes a search as this particular procedure is
utilized by the police for the aim of listening to several kinds of telephonic conversations with
respect to the occurrence of any kind of cybercrime (Shirvanian & Saxena, 2014). Additionally,
wiretap becomes a search where the police or the cybercrime investigators in tracking several
kinds of suspicious conversations which would turn become helpful in detecting the occurrences
of several kinds of cybercrimes as well as detecting them.
The most interesting factor forms is that the police needs to receive the consent of either
of the parties for the aim of utilizing wiretap or listening to certain telephonic conversations
(Ulrich 2014). Additionally, without the order of the court, the police or the investigators could
never listen to those particular conversations taking place among people with respect to which
any cybercrime could take place.
In the context of the Fourth Amendment, it does not become applicable with respect to all the
wiretaps as wiretap is a kind of search and it has initially been ruled that electronic wiretapping
is not any form of search or any kind of seizure (Ulrich, 2015). The reason behind this is that the
conversations which are intercepted by the government are never tangible things which could be

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searched for or seized without the being able to enter in the home as well as the conversation of
the defendant.
Additionally, the fourth amendment gets applied towards the conduct of the officials of
the government which focuses of wiretapping and at the eavesdropping. The Fourth Amendment
does not get implicated by the pen registers which are utilized for the aim of recording the
numbers.
Response to question 2:
This was basically a lawsuit which took place from a raid in the year 1990 which was
performed by the United States Secret Service within the headquarters of SJG or Steve Jackson
Games in Texas. The case indicates towards Bell South becoming aware of the existence of the
proprietary document with respect to the 9-1-1 system which in turn was posted on the BBS or
bulletin board system in Illinois (Horton 2014). This in turn got reported to the Secret Service in
the month of July in the year 1989 and additionally that particular document was also posted on
the “Phoenix” BBS in Texas.
The most interesting factor was that it got operated by Loyd Blankenship who was also
employed by only and only SJG. Further, the moderator of the own BBS of the company formed
Illuminati. It was always believed by the Secret Service that might be some probable cause for
searching those particular computers which particularly belonged to Loyd Blankenship and his
employer as well. Hence, a search warrant got issued on 28th of February.
Several issues related with this particular issue got resolved as it was stated by the judge that
there was a little involvement of Steve Jackson within SJG at the time of the occurrence of that
particular raid and the company neared towards bankruptcy (Utter & Rea, 2015). The fortunes of

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the company turned around in the wake of this particular raid with respect to the renewed
involvement of Steve Jackson. Better amount of education was suggested by the judge in the
context of statutes along with identifying that they had no base of suspecting SJG of any kind of
wrong steps. Hence, the issues got solved in this particular manner.
Response to question 3:
Recording of the conversations would directly violate the laws of wiretapping. Spyware
could be utilized for violating several kinds of laws of wiretapping and at the same time in an
unlawful manner as well. The reason behind this forms the illegal procedure of tracking the
conversations of several people without the order of the court or without the consent of either of
the parties (Lee, 2015). The most essential factor is that wiretapping involves seeking the order
of the court. If is dies not get the order of the court and at the same time consent of anyone of the
parties. But, in the context of O’Brien and O’Brien, after the messages were retrieved by the
husband, the spyware was also discovered by the husband.
The spyware was immediately uninstalled by the husband. In contradiction, numerous
courts were accountable for ruling that the e-mail messages of all the employees which are
accessed by several other employees through several facilities of electronic storage never
violates the laws of wiretapping which could be utilized in the form of evidence in accordance
with litigation.
Response to question 4:
In the context of Lazette v Kulmatycki, a Blackberry phone was issued to a Verizon
Wireless employee and she was told to utilize that particular phone for the aim of accessing her
personal email account (Park et al., 2015). The facts described in this particular case is that

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several liabilities are imposed by SCA from where all the electronic files could be accessed
without the authorization of whether plaintiff might have been accountable for the wrongful
conduct.
It gets related with the proving of unauthorized access to the private data. A former
employee’s phone was utilized by a supervisor for accessing the personal email account of the
employee after the termination of that particular employee. These kind of issues got resolved by
holding certain investigations of the workplace along with preserving the electronic
communications (Marczak et al., 2014). The law gets violated with the risks associated with the
accessibility of the private email accounts of the employees irrespective of whether or not the
employees were allowed by those particular computers were issued by the organization or not.
Response to question 5:
A multi-year contract was won by Salton Maxim Housewares for the aim of selling
kitchen as well as small appliances of the household under the condition of the “White
Westinghouse” mark to Kmart. Additionally, Sherman also entered within the contract along
with Salton. Sherman became accountable for playing the role of the manufacturing
representative to Kmart. Sherman also played the role of a product representative to Kmart for
several other companies that of Salton.
The ECPA claim of Salton which lead towards its viability of claiming against Sherman
under the conditions of ECPA (Bates et al., 2015). It alleged Count II of its respective amended
complaint regarding Sherman in obtaining the entire sales information along with its disclosure
of all the important information to its respective competitor which is Windmere. Additionally, it
was also claimed by Salton with respect to the wrong appropriation of the secrets of the trade

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against Sherman also got alleged but Salton in the context that sales data were took by Sherman
for the aim of constitution of all the important as well as important secrets which are associated
with the trade along with the proprietary information.
Further, this particular issue of whether or not the data comprising of the essential
information of the trade gets protected by the Michigan statute which could better be determined
in the judgment. Finally, it was stated by James Sherman at the time of his deposition that he
thought he had the authorization of accessing important data of Salton.

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References
Bates, A., Butler, K. R., Sherr, M., Shields, C., Traynor, P., & Wallach, D. (2015). Accountable
wiretapping–or–i know they can hear you now. Journal of Computer Security, 23(2), 167-195.
Bellovin, S. M., Blaze, M., Clark, S., & Landau, S. (2014). Lawful hacking: Using existing
vulnerabilities for wiretapping on the Internet. Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop., 12, i.
Chapman, E. T. (2015, February). PATRIOT Act: Implications for Colleges and Universities. In
Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science (Vol. 85, pp. 65-71).
Horton, D. (2014). The stored communications act and digital assets. Vand. L. Rev., 67, 1729.
Lee, O. (2015). The ultimate solution for smartphone spyware. Review of Business Research,
15(3).
Marczak, B., Guarnieri, C., Marquis-Boire, M., & Scott-Railton, J. (2014). Mapping Hacking
Team’s “Untraceable” Spyware. The Citizen Lab Research Brief, 33.
Park, B. J., Lee, O., Cho, S. P., & Choi, J. W. (2015). Spyware detection system related to
wiretapping based on android power consumption and network traffics. Journal of the Korea
Institute of Information Security and Cryptology, 25(4), 829-838.
Shirvanian, M., & Saxena, N. (2014, November). Wiretapping via mimicry: Short voice
imitation man-in-the-middle attacks on crypto phones. In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC
Conference on Computer and Communications Security (pp. 868-879).
Ulrich, N. R. (2014). The Code-Based Interpretation of Authoritzation: An Incomplete Picture.
Wash. JL Tech. & Arts, 10, 221.

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Ulrich, N. R. (2015). [10WashJLTech&Arts221] The Code-Based Interpretation of
Authorization: An Incomplete Picture.
Utter, C. J., & Rea, A. (2015). The" Bring your own device" conundrum for organizations and
investigators: An examination of the policy and legal concerns in light of investigatory
challenges. Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, 10(2), 4.