Global criminal countdown

One get a Global Criminal Countdown, or GCC, when committing a crime in empire space. One cannot get a GCC in 0.0. If one enter high security space with a GCC, or get a GCC while in high security space, CONCORD ships will spawn and destroy his ship (CONCORD won't do anything to capsules). Getting a GCC in high security space is effectively committing suicide.

Other consequences of the Global Criminal Flag includes

• Security status loss depending on the nature of the crime (penalty gradually increasing from aggression to destruction of property to destruction of life (podding))
• Everyone can legally shoot your ship
• Sentry guns near gates and stations will shoot you, getting you an additional aggression flag toward the owning corp. I.e. if you get a GCC in open space, then warp near a gate or station five minutes after, you'll get a new aggression timer with the NPC corporation owning the guns, that will last 15 minutes itself. So you'll continue to be shot at by the relevant guns after your GCC has expired, each time the timer being reset to 15 minutes.
• Everyone assisting you (remote sensor boosting, remote repairing, etc...) will get a GCC themselves

A GCC lasts for 15 minutes after the last crime committed.

One get a GCC for the following reasons

• Shooting a player that is neither flagged to you, neither a war target and neither an outlaw or their property
• Shooting a starbase structure owned by a corporation you are neither at war with nor flagged (you can shoot legally a starbase structure that shot you in the last 15 minutes or than you shot legally in the last 15 minutes, e.g. you can shoot legally a POS if it is configured to shoot you after it shot you, or you can continue to shoot a POS you were sieging after the expiration of the war)
• Assisting someone under a GCC
• Assisting an outlaw

The other way to get a GCC is to get shot by the CONCORD faction police while travelling having a too low security status in the CONCORD sovereignty constellation (Sanctum constellation in the Genesis region). The inescapable CONCORD ships won't spawn but your GCC will forbid you to jump out of the system, the gates denying you the right to jump, your only hope is to hop from spot to spot fast enough not to have your timer reset by the spawning faction police in order to get out (you need to do that during the whole 15 minutes in order for the timer to expire and the gates leaving you out). Getting a GCC for committing no crime is widely viewed as a bug, it was brought over the CSM but disregarded as a feature, but GMs have been known to reimburse ships lost that way.