This research note reports an investigation of university students' assessment of the social consequences of computer crime. It finds that students from machinebased discriplines are less able to predict the social consequences of computer crime than those from peoplebased disciplines. We conclude from this that the concepts of machine-people and people-people are valid but that it would be inappropriate to conceive of these as a dichotomy regarding occupational types: forming either end of a continuum might be more acceptable. The likely source of these individual social leanings is linked back to early childhood socialisation and suggests that, by subjecting students of machinebased disciplines to socially-oriented modules at the university, would be occurring fifteen years too late.
/lp/association-for-computing-machinery/university-students-attitudes-towards-computer-crime-a-research-note-br4Bc0Tub9