Institute of Graduate Studies

Master Thesis Abstract

Research Methodology & Tools:  the method used in this study is social surveys. The whole community targeted in the study is all of the internet users in the Saudi society who reach about 150.000 users according to KACST's (King AbdulAziz City for Science and Technology) census issued at the time of determining the study community.
The questionnaire was distributed in a manner that assures that all of the study community members get the chance to answer it. A total of 10.138 questionnaires were answered, 274 questionnaires were discarded for being incompletely answered. Any questionnaire that contains at least 40 unanswered questions out of the total 62 questions is always ignored. Thus the total number of questionnaires used in the study is 9.891, a ratio of 6.59% of the total study community, which is methodically accepted.
The questionnaire is utilized to get the necessary data from the study field. It was designed specially for this study after having it methodically standardized. The questionnaire contains 62 questions allotted to seven main axes.

. Important findings:

1.     The recurrences of sexual and immoral practices done by internet users in the Saudi society is as follows:
- visiting websites of sexual contents: 5341 users (54.3% of the total users).
- 1675 users (19.2%) searched for pornographic contents in these websites.
- 1791 users (18.3%) subscribed to mailing lists of sexual nature.
- 235 users (2.4%) constructed website(s) of sexual contents.
- 410 users (4.2%) established mailing lists of sexual contents.
- 283 users (2.9%) defamed others.
- 278 users (2.8%) were subjected to defamation.
- 428 users (4.4%) had their relatives subjected to defamation.
- 4055 users (41.2%) used a proxy to visit blocked websites.
- 1660 users (16.9%) used special software to surf anonymously.
- 1156 users (11.8%) used special software to send email messages anonymously.
- 1153 users (11.7%) disguised in other users' identities in surfing or using email.

2.     The recurrences of hacking crimes committed by internet users in the Saudi society is as follows:
- 1348 users (13.7%) destroyed websites.
- 381 users (3.9%) had their websites destroyed.
- 548 users (5.6%) hacked websites of governmental nature.
- 529 users (5.3%) hacked commercial websites.
- 869 users (8.9%) hacked personal websites.
- 376 users (13.2%) hacked local websites.
- 140 users (5.0%) hacked GCC (Gulf states) websites.
- 83 users (2.9%) hacked other Arab (non-GCC) websites.
- 88 users (3.1%) hacked Asian (non-Arab) websites.
- 9 users (0.3%) hacked African (non-Arab) websites.
- 51 users (1.8%) hacked European websites.
- 14 users (0.5%) hacked South American websites.
- 221 users (7.8%) hacked USA and Canadian websites.
- 1860 users (65.4%) do not recall the websites they hacked.
- 456 users (4.7%) had their websites hacked.
- 1688 users (17.3%) hacked PCs.
- 3278 users (33.3%) had their PCs hacked.
- 1479 users (15.1%) hacked email accounts.
- 1531 users (15.6%) had their email account(s) hacked.
- 1570 users (16.0%) occupied email accounts.
- 1084 users (11.0%) had their email account(s) occupied.
- 1017 users (10.3%) flooded (bombed) email accounts.
- 1832 users (18.6%) had their email account(s) flooded (bombed).
- 1697 users (17.3%) stole others' ISP accounts.
- 1531 users (15.6%) had their ISP accounts stolen.
- 1211 users (12.3%) sent viruses and trojans.
- 5138 users (52.2%) had their PCs infected by viruses.

3.     The recurrences of financial crimes committed by internet users in the Saudi society is as follows:
- 435 users (4.4%) stole Credit Cards accounts.
- 126 users (1.3%) had their Credit Cards accounts stolen.
- 500 users (5.1%) gambled.
- 444 users (4.5%) committed forgery through the internet.
- 414 users (4.2%) visited websites of organized crimes.
- 290 users (3.0%) visited drugs' websites.
- 177 users (1.8%) visited money laundering websites.
- 791 users of those who visited websites of organized crime, drugs, and money laundering (42.2%) surfed them for scientific reasons.
- 839 users of those who visited websites of organized crime, drugs, and money laundering (44.7%) surfed them out of curiosity or by chance.
- 106 users of those who visited websites of organized crime, drugs, and money laundering (5.7%) surfed them to use their contents in committing crimes.
- 139 users of those who visited websites of organized crime, drugs, and money laundering (7.4%) surfed them to become members in those criminal organizations.

4.     The recurrences of establishing or cooperating with opponent websites by internet users in the Saudi society is as follows:
- 261 users (2.6%) established politically opponent websites.
- 1336 users (13.6%) subscribed voluntarily in politically opponent websites.
- 736 users (7.5%) were subject to compulsory subscription in politically opponent websites.
- 561 users (5.75%) established religious websites, out of whom 500 users (5.11%) established Sunni websites, 43 users (0.43%) established Shiite websites, 5 users (0.05%) established Christian websites, 3 users (0.03%) established Jewish websites, 2 users (0.02%) established Buddhist websites, 3 users (0.03%) established Hindu websites, and 5 users (0.05%) established Atheistic websites.
- 3728 users (38.06%) subscribed in religious mailing lists, out of whom 3455 users (35.30%) subscribed in Sunni lists, 190 users (1.93%) subscribed in Shiite lists, 29 users (0.29%) subscribed in Christian lists, 10 users (0.10%) subscribed in Jewish lists, 6 users (0.06%) subscribed in Buddhist lists,12 users (0.12%) subscribed in Hindu lists, and 26 users (0.26%) subscribed in Atheistic lists.
- 292 users (3.0%) established hostile websites against organizations or persons.

5.     The recurrences of piracy crimes by internet users in the Saudi society is as follows:
- 395 users (4.0%) established pirated software websites.
- 3091 users (31.5%) downloaded pirated software.
- 3182 users (32.4%) used downloading software to download pirated software.
- 577 users (5.9%) established pirated websites.

It is clear from the study that the most frequent of internet crimes in the Saudi society are (in order) hacking, then financial crimes, and lastly, the least frequent are crimes and practices of sexual and immoral nature.