An
Analysis of the online life style on juvenile cybercrime behavior in Sri Lanka
Abstract
This paper
examines the relevant patterns of cybercrime and the way it impacts on youth
and the future planning of the youth to go against cybercrime. Realizing the importance
of these two cybercrime and its effects is made to objective data,
information and taking appropriate measures to improve the current situation.
Cybercrime define as a crime involving a computer as the object of the crime,
or the tool used for a material component of the offense. And in the 21st
century where the importance of information security is at the zenith,
continuous cybercrimes recorded though out the world has created additional
risks in the world.
But in the
Srilankan context these organizational wide cyber-attacks are not very popular.
Yet juvenile nature crimes recorded though out the country continuously. And
some of them have led to suicide incidents as well.
The study
empirical research on the current function of cybercrime , the nature , types ,
causes and consequences and the relationship between cybercrime and Internet
and measuring the victims of cybercrime. It is done by a questioner survey
included close -ended question, 52 respondents were taken in to participation
Then through the
SPSS software, the result obtained from questionnaire were analyzed and they
were further interpreted to identify patterns and relationships
Finally, we agreed
that a general corrective measure effective in re - orientation and empowerment
of young people to positive use of their internet skills. Thus, the reduction
of cybercrime would require a process of using the Internet.
1.1 Background of the
study
Internet has been very
instrumental in the development phrase of any country during the 21st
century. However it also bears some negative elements which has been
scrutinized for years. Especially as far as the younger generation is concerned
this criticality of the excessive and over usage for internet which causes
externalities to the society at large.
At the introduction of
the computer and the internet it was confined to corporate, professional and
academic use as the initial investment and the maintenance cost was excessive.
However by course of time there were numerous innovations and inventions
happened I the field of information and technology and it became accessible to
almost anyone. The most beneficial people of this were the teens and youths of
the new millennium.
It is evident that the
easy access to internet benefited many sectors as well as theeducation sector
where the younger generation is included. At the same time it was reported that
the younger generation’s involvement in cybercrimes has an increasing trend
over the past 10 years as per International Police organization’s data sources .
In the today’s context it has become very familiar to any of usto read in the
newspaper about a teen committing a crime using technology, computer or
internet.
As per International
police organization cybercrime is one of the rapidly growing areas of
criminality. As per the International police organization as well as other
research sources (Carter: 1995; Davis and Hutchison: 1997 ; Islam : 2013),
there are two major types of cyber crimes
The first category is
where the computer becomes the instrument in the commitment of the crime. child
pornography, criminal harassment, fraud, intellectual property violations and
the sale of illegal substances and goods can be sited as examples for such
crimes
The second category is
the crimes where computer becomes the object of the crime hacking or
unauthorized use of computer systems, defacing websites, creation and malicious
dissemination of computer viruses are some examples for crimes under this
category
For the purpose of this
dissertation, Both the category one and two crimes will be coming under the
scope where the youth is involved
1.2 Problem Statement
What are tha factors
affecting in creating juvenile cybercrime and their level of impact?
1.3 Objective of the
study
There are two main
objectives of this study
1.
The primary objective is to analyse the
influence of internet usage effect on juvenile cybercrime behavior
2.
Based on these findings, this study
proposes preventive strategies to combat against juvenile cybercrime and
effectively avoid the continuous increase that we experienced during the past
years
1.4 Scope of the Study
The research involved 150
youths who are aged between 18- 30 who are srilankan citizens and living in the
Colombo district. And Through questionnaire of 35 questions the juvenile, crime
behavior will be tested. Also the cybercrimes committed by adults as well as
professional criminals were not considered to be within the scope of the study
as the study predominantly aimed at youths. Also “computer-supported crimes”,
which covers the use of computers by criminals for communication and document
or data storage,were not treated as cybercrimes as the technical nature of this
is significantly different to the cybercrimes.
2.1 Main Article
Li-Hsing, H
& Lin, Y & Huang, C (2012) ‘Influences
of Online Lifestyle on Juvenile Cybercrime Behaviors in Taiwan ’29 (2012)
2545-2550.
In this
research paper authors identify variables they identify in the thesis serve as
good indicators when predicting juvenile crime behavior in Taiwan. Those
variables are gratification and dependence. /they have collected data using 2
scattered samples. They are;
1. Normal Teens ;which includes 1367 individuals who have been selected randomly
from junior high schools, Senior high schools and vocational schools
2. Juveniles in correctional
institutions; this includes 255 juveniles in correctional institutions
Furthermore
this research concludes that dependence is a powerful predictor of cybercrimes.
A person who is more dependent on the Internet ismore likely to commit
cybercrimes. This study confirms that higher dependence on the Internet leads
to
more criminal behaviors, which is a relatively new finding.
more criminal behaviors, which is a relatively new finding.
2.2 Other Articles
Goonatilake,
M K 2012 ‘Efficacy of Sri Lanka’s legal provisions to combat Cyber crimes’ an
unpublished PhD thesis, Faculty of graduate studies, University of Colombo.
Retrieved on November 15, 2015
The current Sri Lankan legislation not specifically related to Cyber Crimes international standards, where the Indian legislation is meeting especially the issue Cyber Crimes. The purpose of the study is to investigate Sri Lankan legislative enactment in terms of Computer Crimes Act and the Act includes provisions to combat computer crime and therefore the target was reached in this study. The importance of the computer crimes legislation and the effectiveness of the law of Sri Lanka Computer Crimes are the main highlights of this paper. The conclusion highlights the fact that existing legislation and lawsuits is not only sufficient to overcome this growing crimes, but also ignore new safety measures in addition to the existing to the hackers and find strengthen the computer systems of possible cyber-attacks.
Life style theory
It was
identified in previous studies that a person has the opportunity to become a
criminal if that person has a frequent contact and association with criminals
[2]. It was identified that the environment that a person is living in could
influence the attitude and the behavior. So in association with criminals could
make a person motivated to commit crimes
Furthermore
Ige (2008) studied the perception high school students' of incidences of
internet crimes among school-age children in Oyo and Ondo States, Nigeria. The
study showed that students who initiated into cybercrime by their friends in
the universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. Furthermore, male
students more involved than their female counterparts, a reflection of what is
happening in the world. The involvement of senior high school students '
Internet crime is not a function of the socioeconomic status of the parents ,
as students from both rich and poor homes involved in the crime. In addition to
this, the involvement of students in cybercrime has no effect on their academic
performance, as students are higher levels of cognitive thinking used to scam
people is being exploited on the Internet to improve their academic standard .
Further it
was identified in previous studies that risks of victimization is connected
with one’s personal traits and styles [3]. Through his research Wysocki
asserted that online life style could lead very unethical and harmful
behaviors. This is proven when considering people/youths who are used to watch
pornography over the internet and log in to sex chat rooms[4]
Gratification theory
This
emphasize how a person becomes satisfied when using internet or by using
internet and having a online life style. This theory further explains, though
that a person tries to maintain mental balance. Further this satisfaction and
pleasure could arise due to several reasons [5].Mcquail notes social
circumstances and mental preferences affects people’s use of media and expected
benefits provided by media[6]. Zhong and Zhang [7] indicated that the
satisfaction derived from playing online games formulate the drives and
expectations for people to choose the games. Lu [8] illustrated the connection
between gratification, motives, and usage behaviors driven from Internet use.
Flow theory
Csikszentmihalyi introduced current theory also describes about the Internet addiction. The idea behind this theory is that as a whole the process itself
or herself in a scenario and devotes 100 % attention and mental concentration some human activities , it eliminates unnecessary sensations. As a result, the person falls into a state of "flow".
This study examines the nature of the instruments that lead to indulgence juvenile in the Internet with the intention of exploring the link between personality traits and their online lifestyle . This study labels that use the Internet to the degree of influence on their mental / physical conditions and daily life as " Internetdependent , " instead of "Internet addiction " or " netaholic " , that can make a preferably in the direction of deviation , and conflictingconcepts. This research focuses on the relationship between internet dependence and cybercrime behavior and the influence of Internet on deviant and criminal behavior.
Cybercrime covers a broad horizon of criminal activity by a computer. Some common examples of cybercrime contain financial scams, identity theft, cyber bullying and destruction site. At the organizational level cybercrime is used for hacking databases and intellectual property theft of the customer. According to the Council of Europe "Every criminal offense is identified with the help of a computer asCybercrime "(Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime in 2001: 8). Cybercrime is a criminal action involving the use of computer equipment or other forms of ICT (Pati, 2003) .There is no exact definition of cybercrime as several researchers and organizations have different definitions based from their place and state. It has severalnames such as computer crime, internet crime and high-tech crime (Brenner and Goodman, 2002: 6, Kowalski 2002: 7). There are many forms of cybercrime exists in the world today. Surveys and studies show that the whole world to explore the types of crime is; which generally occur in any place in the world. "Identity fraud" is a type (Blindell 2006). It is defined as identity fraud refers to the acquisition of money, services, goods or other welfares by means of a false identity (ACPR 2006: 14). The term "identity theft in the United States is commonly used to cover a range of identity crime in the UK is known as identity fraud in Australia, it involves the use of identity crime as a generic descriptionclosing a website with transaction processing capability, consumers can easily victims online fraud.Attitudes be formed on the basis of personality, knowledge or perception [ 9 ] . If people are not the activity they may witness, or in which they can participate, be recognized as ' corrupt ‘, they are not
Likely to respond as such if they recognize the behavior as “corrupt " it , they are also likely to try to change behavior ( Independent Commission Against Corruption , 1994).
In Nigeria, young people, especially students and unemployed ICT inventions embraced, so that the Internet medium is now taking more of their timecompared to their other daily activities. The varieties of use offered by the Net, such as electronic mail, 'chat' systems andInternet messaging (IM), often serve as the true reason for executing nefarious 'webonomics' and other fraudulent activities of young people [11] This has considerably gave birth to the emergence of 'yahoo - boys’ sub - Nigerian culture among young people, especially in urban centers. The focus of this research is the perception of Yahoo - boys over to investigate their activities, understand the informal network supporting Internet fraud; and determine how it is organized in different areas of specialization among students in tertiary institutions. The informal network has become important for the planning, implementation and execution of organized criminal activity in Nigeria.
Juvenile crimes are the crimes that are not intentionally
attacking a certain person or property. But that could be either harmless or
harm full
Internet privacy abuse took place in two forms, commonly classified as dangerous abuse and malicious abuse [12 ] . Harmless abuse can be classified as attacks are not directed at a person usually a marketing stunt or e- marketing. There are also attracting people false promotions attention to a particular website for commercial sand publicity. A classic example of abuse innocent ismild spam typically used for distributing advertising andevangelism or information, the recipient is usually not cost a lot of damage control with the exception of a few seconds wasted and removes. Either innocent abuseor not, it is a violation and infringement on people'sprivacy.
Illegal downloading of games and software’s also can be considered
as another type of juvenile cyber crime
In this technology - development, onlinemultiplayer gaming has
become a very successful industry and become a leader in entertainment in the
world. This new application combines multimedia, 3D , artificialintelligence ,
broadband networks , sound , computer interaction and so on , andhas become a
very popular form of entertainment , hitting many householdssuch as computer
-based online games , Microsoft Xbox , Sony's PS2, etc. It is not onlyrapidly
accumulates trailers, but also involves diverse and interactive appeal
Unfortunately, with the growth of online gaming, there is an amazinggrowth in the online gaming-related crimes (offenders are mostly in the age groupof 15-20), particularly MMORPG games. Such as cyber-criminal activitiesOnline gaming is growing at an alarming rate. In 2002, the number of thefts,fraudulent activities, robberies, forged documents, assault and battery,
threats and illegal gambling cases from online games rose to 55 from 1300Only two years earlier; Additionally, become online-gaming-related crimemost serious problem within all cyber-criminal cases in Taiwan (Chen et al., 2004).In our previous research, we have illustrated the online gaming crime and safetyproblems (Chen et al., 2004), analyzed the impact of online gaming crime (Chen et al.,2003), and gave a layout for various criminal behavior (Chen et al., 2005).
As per Ibrahim Sirkecionine music down loading can be identified as another crime of infringement where youths are involved in most of the time.
According to some studies, only 20 percent of the UK population has boughtonline music. However, illegal file sharing is widespread, with an estimated 95 percent ofmusic downloads illegally done online and admit seven million Britons tounauthorized downloading having tried (Hunt et al, 2009;.Mintel, 2008 A, B; Eagleshamand Fenton, 2008). According to a study in 2009, "about one in five peopleEurope's top markets (21 percent) are engaged in frequent unauthorized music-sharing “(IFPI, 2010, p. 19). "Illegal downloading of music" was claimed to hit a record in 2007, whenhalf of the people on social networking sites reported illegally downloading tracks(Bland, 2007). This is clearly not limited to the downloading of music. Often downloading throughpeer-to-peer platforms, such as the sharing of copyrighted material is illegal in the fileUK. However, legal frameworks and attitudes vary unauthorized downloading. For example, in Canada and Sweden, copyright more flexible than in the UK (Bown, 2009; Jackson, 2009; Bradshaw, 2009).
Chapter 03 Research Methods
3.1 Data collection Methods
A Sample of 52 students was involved in the study based on the
convenient sampling method. Participants were aged between 21 and 25. And the
average age of the participants was 23 and the mode was 24. 40.4% of the total
participants were male while 59.6 were males. And the majority of the participants
(46.2%) were from Colombo. while others represented suburbs. And the general
education of the sample was at a quite satisfactory level. Entire sample has
completed the high school and 71.2% was either degree holders or
undergraduates. So the aim could be focused at white collar crimes rather than
blue collar crimes
3.2 Types of Variables
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Demography
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3.3 Population and Sample
Population
Entire youth population
in Srilanka becomes the population for the purpose of the study
Sample
Based on the convenient
sampling method 52 youths have been selected from different areas of Srilanka.
3.4. Statistical analysis
For the purpose of the
report data will be analyzed using SPSS statistical software. In order to
perform the demographic analysis the data will be analyzed using descriptive
analysis. And tto test hypothesis correlation analysis will be used; finally to
identify the predictability of the data pattern regression analysis will be
used. Also it is vital identify the reliability of the data set. It is measured
form cronbach alpha and for the partcuar study it gave a reliability level of
.72
3.5 List of Hypothesis
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Null Hypothesis
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Alternative Hypothesis
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H1
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There is no relationship between gratification derives
from using internet and Juvenile crime behavior
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There is a relationship between gratification derives
from using internet and Juvenile crime behavior
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H2
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There is No relationship between internet dependence
and the juvenile crime behavior
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There is a relationship between internet dependence and
the juvenile crime behavior
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H3
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There is NO relationship between IT knowledge a person
proses and the juvenile crime behavior
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There is a relationship between IT knowledge a person
proses and the juvenile crime behavior
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H4
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There is No relationship between the availability of
facilities and juvenile crime behavior
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There is a relationship between the availability of
facilities and juvenile crime behavior
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H5
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There is NO relationship between friends influence and
juvenile crime behavior
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There is a relationship between friends influence and
juvenile crime behavior
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Identifying
the juvenile crime behavior in Srilankan Youths
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Ref No
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Questionaire
1.)
State your age
2.)
Sex
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Male
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Female
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3.)
Are you employed
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Yes
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|
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No
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4.)
Educational Background
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High School
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|
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Diploma
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|
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Degree
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|
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Post Graduate
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5.)
District of your permanent
residence……………………………………………….
Please
indicate the number that represents the strength of your feeling with regard to
the satisfaction you get from internet
6.)
Internet satisfy my needs for shopping
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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7.)
Internet makes it easy to build up
relationships/ Have conversation with new friends
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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8.)
Internet provides the information I need
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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9.)
I can say and do whatever I want
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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10.)
Internet provides me ways of earnings
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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11.)
People have told me more than once that I
spend too much time online
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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12.)
I spend more time online than I planned
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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13.)
I need to spend time online to feel
satisfied
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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14.)
I cannot control my impulse of going
online
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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15.)
When I want to cut down on my internet
usage, I feel down and grumpy
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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16.)
I see internet as an expensive service to
consume
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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17.)
My internet connection at home is very
convenient in terms of download speed, usage capacity and uninterrupted in
nature
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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18.)
At any given point in time I have the
access to internet either through mobile phone, Laptop, Tablet, etc:
|
1
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2
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3
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4
|
5
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19.)
Do you have following memberships
Facebook
account Yes No
E
mail account Yes No
Instagram Yes No
Twitter Yes No
20.)
Is internet restricted to use
by your parent
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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21.)
I have a sound IT knowledge
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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22.)
I have undergone a course/degree/diploma
that is IT related
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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23.)
I involve in a job where the level of IT
knowledge id highly required
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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24.)
My friends/Neighbors seek my assistance
when they come across an IT issue
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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25.)
To fulfill my IT necessities I need to
seek for others who has better IT knowledge
|
1
|
2
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3
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4
|
5
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26.)
I have friends who are addicted to
internet
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1
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2
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3
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4
|
5
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27.)
I follow recommendations of my friends for
websites, new IT devices, Movies, etc.
|
1
|
2
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3
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4
|
5
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28.)
I work as a team when watching online
movies, downloading and sharing computer games
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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29.)
I have friends whoare addicted to internet
phonography
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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30.)
I have contact with unknown friends from
different areas countries when working online
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1
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2
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3
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4
|
5
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31.)
Have you ever hacked(accessed in an
unauthorized way)facebookaccounts,email accounts of others
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1
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2
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3
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4
|
5
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32.)
Have you ever downloaded software, movies,
songs, illegally.(without making payments)
|
1
|
2
|
3
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4
|
5
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33.)
Are you using software with appropriate
license
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
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34.)
Do
you have facebook, instagram or any other social media account which you have
created ina name to hide your identity
|
1
|
2
|
3
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4
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5
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35.)
Have you tried and succeeded in
breaking in to secured network of others
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1
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2
|
3
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4
|
5
|
Thank
you for your co-operation
