Cyber victimization: We can prevent it…..and we will

http://www.cybervictims.org/

In India, cyber victimization remains a hush hush issue when it comes to individuals. In 2009 I, a lawyer and a Ph.d candidate of NLSIU myself, along with my criminologist husband created “Centre for Cyber Victim counseling”© for the cause of cyber crime victims of India. We are happy to note that our organization’s website http://www.cybervictims.org/ proves useful to many. Indeed, me as a woman and as an internet user also, have been ridiculed and teased several times in the internet and I know there are several men and women who have been victimized like me in the cyber space. I have learnt to use my bad experiences, my knowledge of   law and my legal background for good and I dedicate my experiences for the cause of betterment of the society through “Centre for Cyber Victim counseling”© . Our organization will be celebrating it’s first birthday in July this year and as a first anniversary celebration, we have revamped our organization website and it can be seen @ http://www.cybervictims.org/. We help victims through online counseling and we have teamed up with our national and international knowledge partners to work towards prevention of cyber victimization. We are now spreading our wings and we will be arranging awareness programmes.  As our first initiative, we will be the “support partner” for the first international conference of South Asian Society of Criminology and Victimology (SASCV) (  http://www.sascv.org/). We are also requesting the print media to contact us for more information in this regard which will be a fruitful effort towards prevention of cyber crime.

From my own personal experiences I can say “being a victim” is the hardest truth one may have to come across. I started ‘interneting’ since 2005 .As a new owner of a personal computer and the broadband connection; I loved to mail my friends and cousins in different cities and countries. I was practically confined in a house with a two year old baby and some arrears in for my   Master of Law (ML) degree examinations. I felt ridiculous with no law teachers who can guide me for the study materials, no fellow students with whom I can discuss and no friends around to whom I can confide how hard it is write exams with a two year old baby. I didn’t take to depression –drugs , instead I went for internet. I started getting huge study materials and friends .Well,   I did pass the exams well, but I didn’t leave internetting even after I was conferred ML degree. Those days privacy in the internet was relatively little known issue. I became members of couple of social networking sites and within days my inbox was swept with teasing, vulgar messages. I loved to fuss about my husband and I prominently displayed “married” status every where. No wonder, he started getting unwanted mails and bullying attacks soon. In fact I remember a particular occasion when I demanded a dinner outside because he “won a lottery”. Fortunately he is well read and he told me no dinner because that was a fake mail. I really didn’t believe it as long as one of our friends reported to have lost nearly Rs. 25,000/-  .Well, that was one of my first encounters with cyber crime. Slowly my interest grew in this area and I found so many victims of similar incidences around me. I know I may sound odd, but it is a bitter truth …....many don’t know how they are being victimized online and many individuals willingly become victims. “Centre for cyber victim counseling”© is build upon the trust that the victim’s immediate need would be looked after. I call all the victims who fear to face the reality, to really face it bravely. Consider our organization at http://www.cybervictims.org/ as your friend ……we are there to help you. 

Ethical hacking: How far it is ethical and safe?

http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/

For some days, I was reading a lot on hacking and especially how hacking can be used for good, how far ethical hacking can be treated as a ‘noble job’ and how the law may treat ‘ethical hacking’. As a researcher of law, I found a noteworthy point: maximum domestic laws do not term the offence as “hacking”. It is more the “unauthorized access and modification of the data there in” which is regulated by laws rather than  the act of ‘hacking’ which in short , means “writing the code in an unauthorized way”. While searching the internet, I found Wikipedia refers the word “hack” as “clever or quick fix of computer problem”. ( Hack (technology). (2010, April 20). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:56, April 21, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hack_(technology)&oldid=357121808 ) .When seeing from this perspective, I feel the laws regulate a more broader arena which include several illegal activities like unauthorized access  to the computer, destroying and perhaps rebuilding the data without permission , blocking the original owner from accessing his personal data and then least but not the last, putting the original victim, i.e. the owner of the informations /data in mental trauma . Now, ‘hacking’ has always been associated with the big bad world and laws and law makers have treated it nothing but as another crime. But how about hacking the ‘hacked content’ and reverse treatment for the hacker and bringing back the computer/data/site to its original owner? Well, this is what the ‘ethical hacker’ does…… the super-man bringing back the rescued child to the over anxious parents. But could this be treated as ‘hacking for good cause’ and thereby exempted from the legal punch? Is it really ‘ethical’? Over all, is it safe to engage an ethical hacker in case one suffers 'hacking'?

Several computer-gurus have voted ethical hacking as really ethical. Given the fact that hacking in this situation is done to stop an iniquitous work; it is but natural to call it 'ethical'........ the motive remains (perhaps) good and not bad and this is the sole justification for terming this particular hacking activity as 'ethical hacking'. But considering from legal perspectives, can this ethical hacking be quoted as legal? Does it really help the common hack-victim to avoid bigger problems? Can the ethical hacker escape legal clutches under the cloak of ‘ethics’?

    Well, I really believe the answer to all these questions is  a big NO. When the victim contacts the ethical hacker to save him, the whole operation is carried out basically on ‘trust’. Indeed there are many ethical hackers, and I got to know many such ethical hackers personally, who really keep up with the ethics. They do use this tricky technology to help and not to destroy. But imagine a situation when the same ‘ethical hacker’ turns unethical to play a little mischief because the victim in distress could not ‘pay’ him as promised or refused to do some other activities in lieu of ‘hacking back’ the hacked contents. It would then turn up as again contacting another ethical hacker to prevent the earlier one from playing with the victim’s emotions and distresses, and then again and again and again……. Also, do remember, being ‘ethical’ sometimes may not help the hacker to get away from the legal proceedings unless the person in charge of such activities is acting as and under the law and justice machinery. Ethical hacker may balm the disaster faster and without any legal hassle; but in other way, he pulls the victim more towards legal hassle in case he is caught in relation to other hacking activities and the present victim is ‘exhibited’ as one of those who ‘encouraged’ the (ethical) hacker to play more tricks.

The safest mode would be to contact the police /cyber crime branch and ask them to be ‘savior’ and not ‘private practitioners’. Remember, hacking is recognized as a penal crime by domestic laws of all the countries who are in the ‘web’ of worldwide computer networks. Hence play safe.

Note from the author: The ideas expressed herein are solely for further legal research purposes. These are based on my personal perceptions and research findings and if anybody wants to avail legal help for cyber crimes such as hacking, for court procedures, he or she may contact me through my email.

A Note to readers: Please do not violate the copyright issues  of this blog .If you would like to use informations provided in this blog for your own assignment/writeup/project/blog/article, please cite it as “Halder D. (April 2010), “Ethical hacking : How far it is ethical and safe?” April 2010, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com