Information Technology Acts Paper

Information Technology Acts
Name:
Institution
Information Technology Acts
Advances in technology have contributed a lot to information technology. However, these advances come with their own disadvantages. With access to such advances, criminals also find new and better ways of terrorizing law abiding citizens. In this article, a critical emphasis is based on the advances that necessitated the creation of the 1986 Fraud and Abuse Act, the 2000 Children's Internet protection Act.
In the 1980's, the number of computer users were less than a million worldwide. However, by 1983, video conference machines were being produced and by the late 1985; CD-ROMs were being released with the capability of holding more than 250,000 papers worth of information in a single disk. It was possible to store company data on CD-ROMs. However, instances of sabotage and information theft started being reported. Mostly, it entailed a person accessing a computer without authority and acquiring or destroying the information. By early 1986, software fraud was born and viruses were being used to corrupt data. To reduce the high rate of fraud, the United States Government passed the 1986 Fraud and Abuse Act. It stated, “whoever accesses a computer without authority or exceeds the access authority given to them with the intention of obtaining, altering, damaging or destroying protected information was guilty of the offense (Baggili, 2011)”..
In 1990, the information technology sector saw another breakthrough. The World Wide Web was invented, and by late 1993, there were more than 100 websites running. It offered unimaginable opportunities to companies and most of them started offering online services. The adult industry and other illegal ventures were among the industries that went online. They included gambling agents, pornographic contents, human trafficking and drug dealers. Since more than 60% of USA homes had a personal computer, such sites were not only accessible to adults, but children as well (Schell, 2007). The situation was not any better in schools as most institutions had computers and children could access the Internet from there. This necessitated the introduction of the Children Internet protection Act of year 2000. The Ac...