Cyber crime is a serious phenomenon threatening the security of societies and the international community as a whole.

International cooperation has been particularly active to face this dangerous plague, to determine preemptive measures and punish the perpetrators. Since information and communication technologies, currently representing the basic infrastructure for all computer-based facilities, have become global media of communication used by states and companies alike, ignoring these technologies is tantamount to excluding oneself from the international community.

Tackling cyber crimes is then crucial, since individuals, institutions and even governments are further exposed to these crimes; cyber crime is, in fact, committed on a larger scale than conventional crime. At a time of technological progress, society is increasingly aware of its potentially negative repercussions. As information and communication technologies provide major platforms for transactions, government and company infrastructure become potential victims of cyber crime. This crime is also drawing near individuals, threatening their personal data in banks or government institutions. While technology has largely contributed to progress and development, it also led, one way or another, to the development of new ways to commit crime through electronic means. Hence, criminals took advantage of technology and exploited cyberspace and the computer to commit crimes.

Cyber crimes are defined as criminal actions resulting from or committed through information technology, the computer or any other electronic means. Experts from the OECD define cyber crime as any illegal, unethical, or unauthorized behavior involving the transmission or automatic processing of data1 . Based on these definitions, the computer can be a tool for crime such as theft and fraud, a channel or a location of crime such as data destruction, and an object of crime such as the theft of computer chips. The computer can then be used to commit a conventional crime such as individual or mechanical fraud, phishing, stealing patterns of invention, counterfeiting or facilitating prostitution. It can also be used to commit unconventional crimes such as website hacking, content destruction, data theft, and credit card theft2. The computer might also be used to commit complex criminal activities, such as money laundering. This crime is of major importance for law enforcement authorities in technologically-advanced states namely, which fear that financial

transactions are often impossible to trace, while ebanking systems allow clients to access bank accounts from anywhere in the world and execute a number of transactions in several directions in just a few seconds. Finally, the computer might be used to commit highly serious crimes, such as cyber-terrorism. Terrorist organizations are using the internet and other electronic media to spread and market their terrorist ideas, recruit the young to execute terrorist activities, share messages and instructions between terrorists, access information networks to collect data and updates, use the internet to train the executors, broadcast terrorist activities and advertise for them. While our existing legal systems are unable to deal with this new series of cyber crimes, it becomes urgent to adapt national penal legislation to these crimes, and facilitate the work of law enforcement authorities, including public prosecution offices in Arab countries.

As cyber crimes pose complicated legal, economic, social and security dilemmas, the international community sought, in recent years, to take a set of international and regional measures, namely the creation of a communication network for sharing information on these crimes.

Under international efforts, a number of conventions on computer-related crimes were signed, including the 2001 Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime3, which is the sole multilateral convention on fighting cybercrime. Since it entered into force on the 1st of July 2004, it is seen as a cornerstone for member States in the European Union. Several non-member States in the Council of Europe such as Canada, Japan and South Africa signed the convention, which was also ratified by the United States, where it entered into force on the 1st of January 2007. This convention aims at inviting member states to align national laws and complete legal tools in procedural matters to strengthen the capacities of public prosecution offices to conduct inquiries and collect evidence. The Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime4, was also adopted, by which signatory states are bound to criminalize racist or xenophobic material published online. In addition, the United Nations General Assembly issued Guidelines for the Regulation of Computerized Personal Data Files5. Also in 1994, the 15th United Nations Conference for Penal Law on Computer-related Crimes, was held in Brazil, and issued important decisions.

In the Arab countries, regional cooperation is critical to fight these crimes, as they originate from different locations with modern techniques. The Arab region desperately needs to consolidate regional cooperation mechanisms to fight these types of crime already spreading in the region, under the absence of any special laws to counter them. The Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime establishes a list of states with effective and developed legislation, which does not, however, include any Arab state. Nonetheless, serious efforts are deployed to adopt a special convention on Arab regional cooperation to fight computer-related crimes or cybercrimes, which so far is still a mere attempt; furthermore, an Arab Guiding Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes6 was also adopted.

Nationally, the United Arab Emirates has issued Federation Law no. 2/2006 on Fighting Information Technology Crimes. Tunisia also issued Electronic Exchange and Electronic Commerce Law no. 83, dated 9 August 2000, with few provisions regarding information technology and cybercrimes7.

Raising awareness and spreading knowledge in the Arab region becomes necessary, consisting of effective cooperation between different national judiciary and security institutions to fight these crimes and training public prosecution officers and related bodies in this field, as they are in charge of inquiries and collecting evidence. Under UNDP-POGARs project on the modernization of public prosecution offices in the Arab countries, launched since 2002, a series of activities have been organized with educational seminars and training sessions to provide a deeper knowledge of modern crimes to members of public prosecution offices and promote their role in enforcing the rule of law and build their capacities in using modern investigation techniques.

The Project, with an aim towards fighting cybercrimes, organized a regional conference entitled Cybercrimes, in Morocco on 19 and 20 June 2007, at the request of public prosecution offices in a number of Arab pilot countries. The conference aimed at building and promoting the knowledge of public prosecution members on cybercrimes, and modern techniques used to counter these crimes. During this conference, one of the most pressing issues in diagnosing computer-

related crimes was carefully studied: defining, classifying and studying these crimes and the challenges they pose; it also tackled several types of these crimes such as copyright infringements, pornographic crimes and child pornography, electronic spying, data counterfeiting, money laundering and economic crimes. Computer-related legislations were also reviewed, with special emphasis on fighting these crimes through national and international legislation, building the capacities of human resources in investigation, prosecution, and trial of computerrelated crimes, taking preemptive measures, and strengthening international cooperation in this regard.\

Given the importance of this conference, the valuable presentations and important recommendations adopted at the final session were compiled into this booklet to serve as a reference on Cyber crimes, not only in the Arab region but also worldwide.