Albert Gonzalez was the greatest and most skilled hacker that the United States had ever seen. He gained access to millions of payment-card accounts from a myriad of corporations. He turned spy for the United States government and betrayed not only them, but also his own hackers. What would make a man who was not concerned about the money, commit such infamous crimes? According to a sociological perspective, there are a myriad of things. However, the top three regarding this case are social learning theory, classical theory and anomie theory.
Social learning theory is the idea that people learn how to engage in criminal behavior from others. This can take place through differential reinforcement, beliefs or modeling. In the case of Albert Gonzalez, modeling is what shaped his criminal behavior. Gonzalez bought his first computer at the age of 12 and he “took an interest in computer security after it was infected with a downloaded virus” (46). He asked the technician who fixed his computer many questions and learned, through example, how to hack into computers. Also, a few years later, after he dropped out of college, “Gonzalez had taught himself, by reading software manuals, how to hack into Internet service providers for free broadband (47). This modeling was the first step in Gonzalez’s criminal behavior.
After learning how to effectively hack into computers, Gonzalez took that information and used it for his personal gain. Stemming from the theorists Beccaria and Bentham, classical theory assumes that criminals are rational actors who weigh the pleasure and pain of an activity. This theory is used most often when dealing with crime such as white-collar crime. Albert had no history (presented in this article) that would lead one to believe that he was mentally impaired or suffered a disturbing childhood. He was, quite contrary, remarkably intelligent. The consequences to his actions were blatant, yet he continued to hack. He decided that the pleasure of hacking overpowered the pain of prison. Nevertheless, he was a rational human being who knowingly and deliberately committed serious crimes.
After Gonzalez and his hackers began to steal millions of payment-card accounts, corporations’ security did not even seem to exist. Gonzalez describes his hackings as pretty easy. No corporation was off limits and it is fair to say that he created his own world where there were no more rules. This idea is congruent with Durkheim’s theory of anomie. Anomie theory is a moral confusion or breakdown in mores or a gap between goals and means in society. Simply put, it is a normless society. Gonzalez has created this normless society because there were no more rules. He easily gained access to any store and did not worry about getting caught. It was as if the FBI did not matter because his hacking was easily undetected. Gonzalez, for a little while anyways, was living in this rare, anomie society, where crime and punishment was irrelevant.
This article was truly fascinating about the ins and outs of Albert Gonzalez’s hacking. However, to pick apart this article, looking for motives of crime, was equally fascinating. Applying even three of the many sociological perspectives gave even more insight to these crimes. There are many theories that can be applied to this article, but the three best are social learning theory, classical theory and anomie theory.
