The Internet as an object of study of criminalistics science

Relevance. The Internet acts as an object accumulating a large array of results of user actions in the form of electronic and digital traces, as well as a significant amount of other information that can be used in the investigation of crimes. Given the ongoing growth of attacks in which the global network has become a means of committing them, it is necessary to offer investigative authorities recommendations on using the Internet as a source of necessary information and as a means of solving the tasks of criminal proceedings. The purpose of the research is to determine from which sides and to what extent the Internet manifests itself in those patterns that are the subject of criminalistics science, in order to propose a systematic approach to the use of information resources of the network in solving the tasks of the investigation process. Objectives: to characterize the Internet as a source of electronic digital traces and other criminally significant information; to show that techniques, tools and methods of working with evidence implemented through the Internet are criminalistics; to highlight the features of the Internet as a manifestation of the mechanism of criminal activity and the source of the criminalistic characteristics. Methodology. The methodological basis of the research was the dialectical method of cognition, and a set of general scientific and private scientific research methods (system-structural, formal-logical, predictive, etc.) were also used. Results . Separate theoretical provisions of the methodology of using the Internet in the investigation of crimes have been developed. Conclusion. The Internet, reflecting virtual life, can be represented as one of the sides of the object of criminalistics, acting as a functional side of both criminal and crime detection and investigation activities, and the patterns of the mechanism of various types of crimes that manifest themselves on the network, the emergence and finding of information about the crime and its participants, the possibility of search and obtaining criminally significant information, securing, researching and using it as evidence, as well as the use of the Internet as a means of judicial research and crime prevention, the Internet is an element of the subject of criminalistics science.