(A version of this paper was presented at the ACFE European Conference in Brussels on 21st March 2016)
Electronic devices may well be the defining characteristic of our age. Actually, that assertion is not entirely accurate. The devices are not the defining characteristic in themselves. Our age is really defined by the uses to which such devices are put and our extreme level of reliance placed on them.
People from all walks of life are experiencing an unprecedented human interconnectivity that is impossible to either ignore or avoid: in study, at work, at home, at play, many, many communities are now integrated into multiple digital networks. At the time of writing[2] the latest statistics on Internet usage show that 3,345,832,772 people (i.e. 46.1% of the world’s population) have access to the Internet.[3] (more…)