Law to regulate cyber goons?

http://www.cybervictims.org

One more strong amendment to the law meant for regulating cyber offences and this time I am little sceptical about it. The Tamil Nadu government has decided to incorporate the Goonda’s Act to curb cyber goons. Officially known as Tamil Nadu Prevention of  Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug offenders, Goondas, Immoral traffic offenders, Sand offenders, Slum grabbers, and Video pirates Act, 1985, the law is extremely powerful and its arms reach seven categories offenders: bootleggers, drug offenders, goondas, immoral traffic offenders, sand offenders, slum grabbers, and video pirates. Those who research in the area of social sciences including criminology, law and victimology, and those who practise criminal law, may note that in general, the typical offenders in such cases who are first nabbed by the investigating officers are often hired individuals or groups of individuals who work for organised crimes sector. The law definitely is extremely powerful to punish the big heads also. This law, if extended to include offences committed in the cyber space which reports suggest “has the propensity to disturb public order”,(see     http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/tn-will-use-goondas-act-to-curb-cyber-crime/article4218006.ece?homepage=true) would actually acknowledge the devastating damaging effect of cyber crimes. As I get from The Hindu, the law would be used to curb “ any repeated cyber crime that involves harassment, intimidation or cheating of innocent people in large scale”.  But the rest of the news report gave an idea that these definitions may be  largely meant for economic crimes and money laundering activities through identity related crimes in the internet. True; phishing, lottery scams, card scams, whatever you call them, people behind these crimes are becoming cyber goons who are no less than those which are already under the scope of the Goonda’s Act. In real life, the hired goondas may often be less educated and become habituated for need of money. Cyber goons who act as key players for phishing scams are well matured than these sects of people. But their ultimate motives remain the same: to earn money by illegal ways. In the Information Technology Act, 2000(amended in 2008), the offences chapter in Chapter XI already have bunch of provisions like sections 65 and 66, which prescribe punishment for unauthorised access to computer and data and modifying the contents and computer related offences, the controversial 66A which prohibits sending offensive messages etc, 66 C which prohibits identity theft and 66D which prohibits impersonation by cheating etc. All most all of them can be used in cases of phishing activities (off course depending upon the nature of the operation) and they prescribe jail terms which may extend to three years, besides monetary fines. To make the crime more severe, several Sections from the Indian penal Code like Sections 417, 419, 420 are also used in some cases. All of these sing in the same tune (with different tones): cheating and illegal monetary benefit.

Apart from these, is the Goonda’s Act needed ?

          I endorse Ratna Kapur’s one statement in her very recent article Rape and the crisis of Indian masculinity (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/rape-and-the-crisis-of-indian-masculinity/article4214267.ece). She says  More law — or calls for the death sentence — are not the answer to what is a deeply ingrained societal problem. True, one more law may not be the answer for ending the problem, but I feel happy to note that the problem which remained “cyber” for so long is gradually becoming “real”. The true scope of the law is yet to be determined. But I expect that it should not be misused by police personnel just for the sake of executing the law. We already have a devastating example of misuse of section 66A and the after effects must be taken as a lesson for all. However, I am still waiting to see whether the law extends its hand to nab cyber eve teasers too.

Please Note: Do not violate copyright 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. (2012), “Law to regulate cyber goons”, 20^th December,2012, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

FOOLING THE WISEMEN: CYBER FRAUDS ON ACADEMICS

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

Cyber media has become a good platform to do varieties of business including money laundering from innocent victims. We all know about the Nigerian phishing scams: a superb hi-tech way to get easy money by duping innocent people who take such false promises of sharing “blocked account” of huge sum of a dead account holder as true as Veda and get duped themselves. Well, I understand these are ignorant people who have more greed to get easy money than the understanding and observation power of these nasty cyber traps. But what can you say when these brilliant crooks nab the wise men, the professors, researchers or graduate students?  The finest way to fool these wise men is to allure them to publish their research papers, be key note speakers or present their works in front of international academic communities. There is no hassle for peer review of the articles or risk of  being rejected due to “low standard” of the work ; the organization name looks very genuine and the committee chair man always carries a smart “Dr.” in front of his name . Such overnight Ph.d holders sometimes create a perfect geographical map to show the exact venue, put up pictures of their institutions, very serious classrooms and a brochure of their institution. All “the wise men” have to do is, pay through their credit cards or online transfer modes to get their seat confirmed and papers published. However, the story doesn’t have a happy ending for the “wise men”, but definitely for those self claimed chairpersons and secretaries of “made up” academic institutions who, after receiving a good sum suddenly disappear from the world.  The “participators” begin endless wait to receive the acknowledgment note and finally only when the due date arrives they understand the reality.  

There can never be a bigger mockery than this, of the hard work for recognition of one’s academic intelligence. I have seen bright people from the academic world including the Engineering, Medicine or science departments to be duped like this. Suddenly the anger and frustration of these poor souls gets diverted towards the law and justice machinery and the reporting authorities, who in many cases fail to understand how the intelligent, wise people like the professors, senior students and even some professionals can fall in these pitches.  The nature of the crime remains bizarre; the distraught victim makes the whole case more confused by self analysis of the whole situation (which often turns out to be a perfect motivation for deep depression) and the local police station (who can often be ill equipped to understand as well as deal with such cases), fails to balm the pain of the victims due to these confused state of affairs. Well, truly speaking, the victim finally has to be the looser as he not only looses his money but also precious result of the hard brain work. What could be more painful than this?    

But the question which larks in our mind is can we prevent such crimes?   

On a casual conversation with Jayne Hitchcock, President WHOA ( www.haltabuse.org) , I felt the victim could very well prevent such “phishing” victimsation if he / she controlled his /her greed to get “bad money” in an apparent good and easy way. In my opinion, same advice  goes for victims of academic –cyber fraud. I being a researcher myself, can understand a rule or two for academic publications which I prefer to share here.

·        Give your research paper for peer reviewed journals for publication.

·        Check the website of the journal thoroughly.

·        Check out the past issues, volume numbers and the archive.

·        These journals will periodically call for papers submission.

·        Certain institutions or departments who run journals belong to good academic institutions.

·        Generally these journals or even book editors do not ask for payment from the contributors. They call for papers and it is peer reviewed. 

·        If you get to see any call for seminar or conference by any organization, other than well established renowned ones    , you must go for a thorough scrutiny of the organization, website and even the venue.

·        Never give your credit card numbers or even bank account informations.

·        Consult other fellow academicians about the credential of the said organization if you suspect it may not be genuine.

·        However, unfortunately if you get duped, immediately register a case with the local cyber crime police branch. Do not try to police the whole affair yourself.

·        Finally, be wise, observe the current state of cyber crime affairs and prevent such sorts of nasty money making business.  

Phishing: The lawyer says

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

Once you receive such alluring mails which tells you will get loads of money without any legal hassles etc……………… do not be carried away. THIS IS ILLEGAL AND FRAUDULENT ACTIVITY .Yes yes.. I know when the person turns up physically and shows his passport and other legal documents then you are again made to believe “what’s wrong?”.. But it is not right either. The man in front of you, who claims to be the sender of the mail or the representative of the sender, could actually be a racketeer of economic offences waiting to trap innocent, “greedy” individuals like you. But remember, his passport can be a fake passport and even the *registered papers * that he waves in front of you can also be dubious. Once you start giving your personal financial informations, he notes every minute detail and then either he would tell you to give him some money to clear the registration charges or the customs charges of the airport. But beware……. The Indian Penal Code strictly forbids anyone to play fraud with financial informations of individuals. Similarly the amended version of the Information technology act 2008 also touches upon the points of financial frauds in various sections while dealing with identity theft, cheating by impersonation etc. The fraudulent person is subjected to financial penalties as well as imprisonment.

Hence , do remember , those who are trying to play fraudulent games with innocent individual’s beliefs, can not escape from the clutches of law once caught; and those who feel this is the best way to gain money in a “super fast” way… hold on your monetary appetite. This could be a super fast way to loose all your hard earned savings as well.