Individual characteristics and hacking, piracy, online gambling and pornography use among students: a study in Malaysia

Abstract

In this study, 441 Universiti Teknologi Malaysia students participated as respondents. Through a questionnaire respondents were asked how frequently they engage in specific behaviors, including hacking, using pirated software, music and movies in addition to use of gambling and pornography sites. The aim was to investigate which individual characteristics including age, gender, religion, citizenship, level of education, ego strength and locus of control are among determinants of these behaviors. The results of these questions were used to report the ratio of frequent users of these materials based on different categories. Logistic regression was used to see what the influential factors in the investigated behaviors are. The results suggest that males are more engaged with almost all of the investigated behaviors. In addition, citizenship, ego strength, age and religion reflected a statistically significant difference among people in certain activities. Level of education and locus of control did not reflect any significance in engaging in aforementioned behaviors.