Death threats in the Information Super Highway

http://www.cybervictims.org

After communication became online, sending threatening mails/messages became an easy job for many who want to vent out their inner anger, frustration or revenge. Today’s breaking news proves that again……. Noted lyricist Javeb Akhtar , one of my favourite personalities in Bombay filmdom has now been enlisted as the newest victim of cyber crime; he has received death threats from someone who felt it necessary to mail this ‘magician of words and lyrics’ stating that his time is limited (see Mohammed Wajihuddin & Vijay V Singh, ‘Javed Akhtar gets death threats on e-mail and SMS’,16th may, 2010,Times of India, available at http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Client.asp?Daily=TOICH&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI&Enter=true&Skin=TOINEW&GZ=T)

Akhtar plays with words in fine tunes. Usage of language to express thoughts about social issues, evil customs, corruption and moral duties to prevent such corruption; about beauty of women;  responsibilities of  men; how mothers play their roles forever;what children mean to the society………is his forte. When the actor speaks Akhtar’s words, Indian audience, and in that matter, cinema lovers of all countries who understand Hindi/Urdu or are made to understand Hindi/Urdu through subtitles, either criy simultaneously with the other characters of the movie or laugh their heart out when the actor tries to make others jubilant with the help of Akhtar’s words.

The message of the mailer was even stronger than what Javed Akhtar spreads through movie actors………… the message conveys ‘shut up or you will die’. The impact of the words was so distraught that even the ‘magician of words’, felt disturbed and could not ignore the message but to report it to the police. I know many individuals may have received such threats which are inclusive of death threats, threat to kidnap their kin, threat to defame their name and reputation etc. And who are these people who send death threats? Strangely enough, they are infact one among us, educated, successful in their own ways, probably satisfied in their lives, but do not know their limitations while they are in the cyber space. Well, it is a curse of technology ………….people can use offensive language in any way they can and still remain anonymous. Isn’t it enough to create a panic? Those who have read the epic Ramayana, must know about Meghanad’s attack from behind the clouds. No one can see the attacker, and the attacker successfully carries out his operation and then returns to his own kingdom as a winner. I find ‘anonymous death threats through emails’ quite similar with the acts of this epic worrier prince. The victim becomes so traumatized due to the sudden attacks from ‘no where’ that he /she forgets his own potentials to fight back. And the attacker becomes successful……..yes, he created what he wanted to create…. ………the FEAR.

Well, our Information technology Act,2008 does not permit the offender to run away. Section 66A puts strong words against playing dangerous games with words in electronic communications. The provision is engraved with multipurpose effects: it covers grossly offensive communications which annoys the receiver; which is knowingly false but is communicated for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will to and also against the receiver; and of course which may try to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages. And the punishment? Well… a jail term for two to three years and fine. The offence is bailable. But this must be read along with Indian Penal Code provision also for cases where the message carries threat to death, as that has happened to Javed Akhtar. Section 506 of the Indian penal Code prohibits criminal intimidation with punishment for two to three years or with fine. But the same law becomes stricter if the intimidation is meant to cause death, grievous hurt, destruction of the property etc.; or the threat is meant to cause any offence which is generally punishable with death, imprisonment for life or jail term for minimum seven years periods. In such cases the punishment may even put the offender behind bar for seven years and also inclusive of fines in certain cases.

The laws successfully convey the message that no one will be spared if they try to play with human emotions, especially, feelings for personal safety and security. Well, it depends upon the technology users to use cyber technologies in a lawful way or illegal way……………but remember, cyber space is created for good of mankind and not for destruction purpose; and if anybody plays hide and seek game, there are some others also who are interested to play cat and mouse chasing game and the mouse *will* be caught because the cat is trained to prevent injustice.

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. (May 2010), “Death threats in the Information Super Highway”, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com on May16, 2010,"

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

WHEN MEN TURN VICTIMS AND WOMEN THE OFFENDERS

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

Many times I get to see women complaining about harassments in the cyber space where the main offender is generally a man/group of men. How about thinking it in the opposite way?  Surprising? Well, not always… women too play parts of offenders to tease and harass men; however, the impact may not be that deeper like in cases of men harassing women, but it is neither “never happened before” case. While I was going through some newsletters, I came across several cases where women are booked for harassing men. Men also fall victims of cyber stalking or defamation or even bullying, hacking and economic crimes and the offender may not be men always.  But probably men do not care to report such incidences unless it is becoming “too much”. For example, women fans often become obsessed with male cine stars /tv actors/players and the truth “pen is mightier than the sword” still plays good when an obsessed female fan tries to reach her hero by hook or crook. Well, I pick up celebs just to give an example. I know many of you male readers are giving mischievous grins as you read this, but this is also a hard truth that cyber behaviors such as being an obsessive stalker or bully or using harsh language/ false statements  in the internet for defaming  some one is very much common for both men and women. Well, the law remains the same when the victim cries for justice and blind towards pleas like “I am woman, spare with me” while awarding the sentence. Hence men and women both should be careful for using internet. Gentlemen, do not always get carried  away by ladies, better have a safe distance ……..Ladies, do not push yourselves towards the extreme steps of becoming ‘accused’….remember you set an example to others.

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. (March 2010), “When men turn victims  and women the offenders”, March 2010, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com

First conference of SASCV

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

With immense pride, it is announced that South Asian Society for Criminology and Victimology is going to have its first international conference at Jaipur, India.Centre For Cyber Victimisation (CCVC) is one the proud knowledge partners of SASCV. Students, academicians, professionals ...........all are welcome to  participate in the conference. Please visit   http://www.sascv.org/conf2011/ for more informations.Please note, you can present your paper/s on any one of the  themes which are announced in the website and not necessarily cyber crime alone.The  papers would be selected after a high level peer review and you may even get a chance to publish your paper in the "International journal of criminal justice sciences" ( Please visit http://www.sascv.org/ for more informations). 


Debarati

Centre for Cyber Victim Counseling (CCVC): A committed organization to help Cyber Crime Victims

It had been eight long months since we started Centre for “Cyber Victims Counseling” (CCVC). http://www.cybervictims.edu.tf/ felt this is the right time to write a few words about this brain child of ours……me and my husband. We are basically a “Trust”, an all voluntary not for profit NGO with social service agenda, working towards betterment of cyber space. Our primary concern is Indian cyber space. Being a lawyer myself, I felt this is the best way I could contribute to my country and countrymen. Indian cyber space has become more secured than before due to several organizations and individuals who are working on cyber crime issues since couple of years. On behalf of CCVC, we are proud to follow their footsteps. 


When we conceived the idea of CCVC, I never knew there would be so many responses. Many contacted us for different sorts of help and guidance from within the country as well as outside the country. We in CCVC are thankful to all of you who consider us “worthy friends” to tell your problems. While we were building CCVC, we received many criticisms too. We consider them as treasures in disguise. Feedbacks, guidance and criticisms make CCVC stronger to help the victims, individuals, students and the researchers as well. We are growing in handling each experience of yours. I take this opportunity to thank Jayne Hitchcock, whom I consider as my mentor. I got to learn basic cyber ethics from her. WHOA and Hitchcock were our “motivators” behind starting CCVC. 


I know, healing a patient with physical pain is a tough job. But healing a victim of cyber attack is neither an easy task. The pain one goes through remains for long, some times for life. Besides providing counseling to cyber crime victims, what satisfies me more is the blogs I run as a part of CCVC’s activities. These blogs creates awareness about cyber crimes and victimisation. I would be extremely happy to help all who need to know about cyber crime and laws . In the CCVC, we are planning for more activities in the coming months. Do keep an eye on CCVC’c blogs @ http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/ and http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/ to know about our further plans and activities.

A tale of few cities: Cyber harassments and reactions of the police authorities

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


No, I am not going to re-run the famous story, but I adopted the “legendary” title with a word replaced by mine, to tell my readers a rather pathetic story of cyber crime victims globally.
When a man or a woman is hit by an offender in the cyber space, the first common reaction is to “report” the incidence to one’s family or trusted friends. The post mortem of the offence begins when the effect of the harm seems to be very deep and hurtening………..and what are these situations? Mine , as well as my other friends’ (who are cyber crime experts) experiences say, that these situations include severe online bullying, stalking, impersonating and creation of fake porno-profiles, hacking ( well, by hacking I don’t mean to include official -website hacking, but hacking of personal email id), morphing , stealing and distributing personal informations ( again , not only economic , but *personal* as well) and off course , offline promotion of the online offences. Well, these are but a few examples of vast categories of offences that target ordinary individuals.
The next step of the aftermath of the offences generally results in encouraging the victim to contact the police to prevent further escalation of the victimization. In many cases, here begins the next episode of the victimization of the already victims. Even though many metro cities of developed as well as developing countries, do have police –offices equipped with efficient men and machines to deal with cyber offences, many easily approachable neighborhood police stations do not have such facilities. The question which many of you would ask is, why should an ordinary police station be approached when there are cyber police stations in the city? Hey, come on , if you stay in Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu and you get to see a “phishing incidence” which took a chunk of your bank balance ; or if you stay in Malda , West Bengal, and you find out a dirty Orkut /facebook profile of yours, you may straightaway enter the local police station to lodge the complaint . You ask “why”? And the answer could be :
a. you do not have a separate cyber police cell in your own city;
b. you may have lodged an online complaint , but you have not received a “quick response” from the main cyber crime cell of your state. In between, the harasser has gone one step ahead to publicize you in worst manners;
c. You do not know the difference between ordinary police stations and cyber crime cells.
Further, even if the cyber harassment has occurred in the main metro city which boasts of a cyber crime cell, the victim may run from pillar to post to lodge the complaint as the jurisdiction- issue will insist that you first contact the local police station for reporting the harassment.
Saddening for a country which has millions of internet users ..isnt it? But wait.. don’t blame “Indian system”. You may get to see these incidences in other parts of the world too.

To give a few examples …..
i. A male victim of cyber harassment goes to the local police station in the greater part of Calcutta; he insists that his complaint must be registered as it has been ‘tagged” as a “criminal offence” in the Information Technology law. The officer in charge at first turns a deaf ear to his pleadings , and then suddenly realizes the characteristics of the offence is a bit difference from the regular offences he is dealing every day. He asks the victim to come back a day later for further discussion.. Note, he didn’t register any case.
ii. A female victim of cyber harassment in the northern part of India, got so disturbed by the nonchalant attitude of the local police, that she decided to never to face the police again.
iii. In an interior part of Southern England, a middle aged woman reports to the police about ongoing severe bully by some of her ‘unwanted virtual visitors”. When the local police wants to check out those public bullying messages, they were perplexed to see no “evidence”, ( it is obvious that after the harassers came to know that the woman is going to the police, they had removed the thread for the time being) .The police asked the woman “ do you believe in ghosts?”
iv. An American internet user got a life time suggestion from the police of her area: ‘stay awake and don’t dream’….
Do these incidents look similar to one of your own real life experiences? Well, possibility can not be ruled out. These distressing incidences run in almost every country even if they boast of well drafted internet security laws. I find a very simple reason behind this upsetting trend: the local police stations still treat internet crimes and harassment as one among the regular harassment crimes; the officials need to be well trained to handle cyber harassments; and over all, both the parties (the one who is complaining and the one who is receiving the complaint) must give a patient hearing to each other. Last but not the least, the victim must remember that “prevention is always better than cure”. Hence do not forget the wise men’s warnings before you depart with your informations in the internet.
Have a safe journey in the cyber space.


A note from the writer: The views expressed in this blog are exclusively mine. Some of the incidents depicted here are real life experiences of my friends'(who preferred to be anonymous) , who gave their kind permission to publish the experiences for spreading general awareness. I do not mean to hurt any officials. But still then, if any officer of the Police department of any country is hurt by this blog, I deeply apologise. It is not intentional and I have practised my fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression.To end with, I sincerely thank Jai, my husband, and my friends in the cyber crime-management field,Jayne, President of WHOA (www.haltabuse.org),Neelabh, Sanjay,"Cyber Cop"...... to name a few of them, who spoke about their own perceptions with me in friendly conversations as well as in their blogs and write ups.
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