By Kotie Geldenhuys; Photos courtesy of Pixabay
In 1992, a visionary author named Neal Stephenson introduced the world to a ground-breaking concept in his science fiction novel Snow Crash. Within its pages, he coined the term “metaverse” – a digital universe where characters could escape their bleak realities by diving into a vast, immersive online world. In this virtual realm, users navigated as digital avatars, exploring a boundless Internet landscape that offered both refuge and adventure. The metaverse, as imagined by Stephenson, was a fusion of virtual reality and a digital second life, where people could reinvent themselves and explore new identities (Diaz, 2022). More than 30 years later, we are confronted with the metaverse and as it grows, so does its darker side. Criminals have again recognised the potential for exploitation within this digital domain. Even though the crimes are being committed in a virtual reality, their repercussions ripple into the real world.
In the world of conventional cybercrime, many terms have been created to describe the different illegal activities that happen online. Words such as “cybercrime”, “computer crime”, “Internet crime”, “online crime”, “digital crime”, “electronic crime”, “virtual crime” and “e-crime” are all used in reference to crime in the virtual world. Cybercrime has become the most popular term used since 1995 and is widely accepted around the world (Phillips, Davidson, Farr, Burkhardt, Caneppele and Aiken, 2022).
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[This is only an extract of an article that is published in Servamus: November 2024. This article is available for purchase.]