About

This website is about curating reports of cyberbadness, that is: all the bad things that are done with, to, or by computers. 

The world needs the word cyberdbadness because other words fall short, like cybercrime and hacking. For example, a lot of cyberbadness is cybercrime, but not all the of the ways in which digital technology is misused and abused are crimes at all times or in all places. 

And although we talk about criminals illegally hacking their way into computer systems, as an activity hacking can be a positive thing as well as a negative thing. Hacking to make something work better can be a good thing. Hacking with intent too steal or do damage is a bad thing, an example of cyberbadness. 

The term "cyberbadness" was coined by the network security expert Cameron Camp.

Used narrowly, cyberbadness can be defined as: "the misuse and abuse of digital technology for selfish and/or malicious ends." This ranges from malicious code that damages systems or steals information from them, all the way through email scams and online fraud to disinformation campaigns on social media. A broader use of cyberbadness encompasses the negative impact of computer systems on the environment, economics, and social justice.

The need for words to describe dirty deeds done with computers is documented with considerable humour by the pioneering researcher: Don Parker. During the first half of the 1970s he tracked reports of such deeds, but because his employer at the time would not let him use the term computer crime, he settled on computer abuse. See footnote 64 of the law journal article Advancing Accurate and Objective Cybercrime Metrics by Stephen Cobb which references a book worth borrowing: Crime by Computer by Don B. Parker (1976).