Cybercrime, censorship, perception and bypassing controls: An exploratory study

Abstract

Countries have employed the Internet proxy as a censorship mechanism for various reasons. Concurrently, cyber criminal activities continue to rise. This research explores peoples' engagement in bypassing the Internet proxy and if it is related to cyber criminal engagement. Through an experimental design, participants were randomly assigned to three groups. Using manipulation paragraphs, in the first group (Group 1), a positive view on the Internet proxy was presented. In the second group (Group 2), a negative view on the Internet proxy was presented. The third group (Group 3) was used as the control group, where the participants’ view of the Internet proxy was not manipulated. All three groups were asked to self-report their rate of proxy bypass (SRPBE) and cybercrime engagement (CCI). The results indicated a significant positive correlation between self-reported cyber criminal engagement and self-reported proxy bypass engagement. The results also showed that individuals with more knowledge in computers are more likely to bypass the Internet proxy. However, individuals with better knowledge in computers are not necessarily the ones that are more likely to commit cyber criminal activities. The results were inconclusive on whether or not the manipulation paragraphs used had an effect on the participants’ view of the Internet Proxy.