Computer crimes and crimes committed through the use of modern technology: a comparative legal aspect

Introduction: the article analyzes the legal norms that establish responsibility for committing crimes in the area of computer information and crimes committed with the use of information and telecommunication technologies (hereinafter - ITT), as well as the provisions of secondary legislation governing the publication of information about the state of crime in the Russian Federation. The study is subject to conceptual apparatus, peculiarities of certain features of the object of crimes in the area of computer information, their objective side, law enforcement practice of bringing the perpetrators of crimes using ITT, to criminal responsibility. Materials and Methods: the methodological basis for the study is a combination of general scientific and particular scientific methods of cognition: dialectical, dogmatic, semantic, logical, methods of analysis and synthesis. The materials of the study were the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation, the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 N 149-FZ “On information, information technologies and information protection”, international treaties and agreements of the Russian Federation, by-laws, statistical data of public entities, law enforcement practice, scientific literature. Results: it is stated that the boundaries between the two legal categories are often unreasonably blurred. The author developed elective criminal-law, criminological and criminological characteristics that should be used to distinguish between crimes in the area of computer information and crimes committed with the use of ITT. Proposals to enshrine in the wording of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (CC RF) the definition of the legal category of "information and telecommunication network" (hereinafter - ITS) as a note to Art. 110 of the Criminal Code, outlined the author's scientific approach to the differentiation of crimes with the above qualifying signs of crime and computer crimes; formulated and scientifically justified recommendations for amendments to the list of official statistical information placed in the ITS "Internet", approved by Order of the General Prosecutor. Discussion and Conclusions: unreasonable mixing of two legal categories was revealed: crimes in the area of computer information and crimes committed with the use of ICT. In fact, these categories are strikingly different from each other based on their criminal law, criminological, forensic features. Significantly differentiated and their share in the structure of crime.