of consent,55 cases of “revenge porn” (where material containing nudity or of sex activities is posted in revenge by erstwhile lovers in order to embarrass, punish or interfere with other relationships of the victim), are increasingly frequent and have received particular legal attention.56 Moreover, although the electronic and physical worlds are distinct from each other, the two are very much interconnected. For instance, regarding property, “cyber goods” have value and their loss can cause just as much harm as the loss of tangible property.57 Moreover, stealing a person’s virtual identity can have very serious repercussions in the physical world, and such identity theft is often a precursor to defrauding the victim in concrete, commercial transactions involving tangible goods.58 For example, a perpetrator may illegally acquire the victim’s access data, gain access to his bank account or, more simply, order and acquire goods, leaving the bill to the victim.59 Still more troubling, the usurpation of a person’s virtual identity can have serious and even irreparable consequences in both professional and personal circles; loss of reputation can be much more damaging than financial loss of online purchases.60 Given the potentially great value of both reputation and integrity of cyber personalities and avatars, the usurpation or falsification of a person’s virtual identity has been criminalized,61 often regardless of whether there is intent to cause material harm.62 E. Technological Innovations Recent technological developments have drawn increased attention on the importance of addressing how the physical and electronic worlds are to interrelate, and how to define the overall landscape of cyberspace. Although discussed in greater depth further on (see sections 1 C and 2 A, below).The most notable of these matters merit mentioning here: These technological advances include developments in FinTech, horizontal data partitioning (“sharding”), blockchain, quantum computing and artificial intelligence: ƒƒReliance on FinTech or financial technology, will continue to grow as the technology-enabled financial solutions facilitated “smart” transactions and help removing transaction costs.63 However, as FinTech continues to permeate everyday activities, it necessarily results in the collecting and agglomerating of sensitive information —notably unique metadata—, inevitably becoming a target for cybercriminals.64 ƒƒVarious techniques are being developed to improve data and systems security. Key among them is the use of the horizontal data partitioning, a technique known as “sharding”, whereby electronic data is stored and spread across multiple databases. Doing so means that unauthorized users will only be able to access a small portion of the data, which may not even be readable on its own, or will have to independently infiltrate several or all of the systems in order to have the full data set. For instance, this technique might separate out credit card numbers, or parts of those numbers, from the corresponding verification numbers.65 ƒƒBlockchain technology is anticipated to change how transactions are done. Blockchain is a distributed, open-source, peer-to-peer, public ledger that records ownership and value. It Page 21 | Chapter 1 | § B. Phenomenon & Dimensions of Cybercrime Table of Contents