Socializing through the net: some thoughts

http://www.cybervictims.org
 

 A couple of days ago I received a funny mail. I was one of those many who were forwarded this mail. I was about to mark it as ‘junk’. But I decided not to ,after I read the content. It was about addiction to social networking sites. Some few lines which caught my attention are as follows:

“A twenty-something man was prone on the floor, his face buried in his hands, while a curly-haired woman comforted him.
"Don't worry. It'll be all right."
"I just don't understand it. I thought my update was LOL-worthy, but none of my friends even clicked the 'like' button."
"How long has it been?"
"Almost five minutes. That's like five months in the real world."
..............................................
"When did you realize that your Facebooking might be a problem?"
"I realized it last Sunday night, when I was on Facebook and saw a message on my wall from my husband: 'I moved out of the house five days ago. Just thought you should know.'"
"What did you do?"
"What else? I unfriended him of course!"

I laughed my heart out because many a times I get “addicted” to my status messages just like this. But no wonder, even I too had smelt messy situations in my social networking world ………..well well, yes I am supposed to not to indulge in these addictions, but I am a human and we are not infallible. I felt I must share my thoughts on this.

Very recently I was minutely scrutinizing the Facebook terms and conditions. A particular awareness tip of Facebook caught my eyes. The inherent message that it conveyed was, there could be risks in internet socializing even if you “lock” your own data. I felt this was an eye-opener for many active participants of social networking sites. Many a times people take to  Facebook, Orkut, email inboxes etc, as ‘addictions’ to come out of the solitariness. The virtual profile gives a special comfort when user gets to see many “humane” messages. No wonder, many of them are machine generated, many senders do not actually intend to comfort the receiver but try to make their own points highlighted. But many users feel that these actually fill up the emptiness. The problem begins there. The communication, the activity, the ‘supposed human gathering’ compels one to be involved. Eagerness to view the next message and even answering some of the messages becomes an ‘urge’ and this fails even a very rational brain.

Besides numbers of health hazards involved in the issue of addiction to social networking, there are numbers of other hazards that line up . Obviously one may face depression, withdrawal symptoms and this may essentially lead to no productivity in workplace and a tainted name in the society. I have gone through numbers of scholarly articles which made me to realize this hard truth.

True, these virtual profiles can be great ego boosters. But the hard truth is you need to be ‘awake’.

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. (2011), “Socializing through net: some thoughts”, 8th April,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

The generation which was forced to accept digitech

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The other day, I saw a 70 year old man pleading his grown up grand son to help him to use the ATM card. The boy impatiently asked the grandpa “make your card and password ready. I don’t have time. I will take just one minute to take the cash and will rush to the college.’ The wise grandpa took out his card and just the moment they entered the ATM cabin, he excitedly helped his grandson by telling him the password …………well, it was not to him alone. We all could hear that. He was excited. He encouraged his grandson ‘press ………..numbers quick quick … that’s like a good boy. Now go.’  He looked relaxed. No long queue, no manual jobs, just pressing of the numbers will do the job. I found quite a similar situation again at home. My 95 year old grandma who still takes pleasure in reading newspapers, analyses the political situation and sometimes predicts exactly too, once asked me do you think machines can really replace men. I asked her the reason for her thought provoking question and pat came the answer.."you are telling us... the old people to use  a card to get the money. Suppose if the machine goes wrong then where is the log book? Where do you go and and press  that it was me who had asked for the money  and  the machine did not pay me, but paid some  one else?' I tired to make her understand but she refused to accept the victory of machines over human beings.

Very ironically, all of us, belonging to all age groups are prone to be victimized by ‘machines’ and  the ‘system’ by which the machines run. But the older generation are even more prone to be victimized because most of them use digital technologies for financial transaction purposes. Many senior citizens may opt for ‘card’ instead of passbooks. But  at the same time, many may feel uncomfortable to use the cards. I have noticed a tendency with old people to write down the password in papers. This habit itself promises very dangerous day out especially when the person concerned asks youngsters to help in operating the ATM machine. Very unfortunately many younger members of families may have to leave the parental homes and also the older generations in the hands of none but destiny for better salaried jobs. Even though the younger generation feels secured that the older generation is left with no huge amount of cash at home like the old days, but plastic money can also cause grave problem for the security of the old people. We need to remember that our older generation was not born in the digital era. They are witnessing an era only. We have brought in the digital era and we have created the digital era. Our children are born in the digital era. Hence it is equally important to make the older generation aware of the safety issues as we are doing for our next generation. But no matter what, we have to trust the older generation’s instinct tremendously in certain cases. If the person concerned declares that he can not manage the plastic money come what may, it is useless to force digitech on him unless there is a guarantee that some one trustworthy and well versed in managing the ATM cards is always there to help him.

The hard truth is, the more we are becoming "techie," the faster human values are become smaller.

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. (2011), “The generation which was forced to accept digitech

”, 26th^th March,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

Young generation of Orkut and Facebook

http://www.cybervictims.org

Many of us adults got to see a new world through social networking sites like Orkut, Facebook etc. We got reconnected with our old friends, connected with like minded friends and found our new ‘groups’ to learn, share and unlearn several things. Many of us adults may have been victims of cyber predators in these social networking sites, many have actually turned an offender ( may be unknowingly or unintentionally) in these sites…………….many have blamed the police for not being able to help them in distress. What about the children who learn from their parents/peers to have their own ‘rooms’ in these sites?  In India this had created many sensational news in past ‘internet years’; remember Bal Bharti school case ? the DPS case ? Children had taken to severe bullying and resultant they turned out to teach their counterparts by more aggressive misdeeds like spreading defamatory words and even sleuth pictures through MMS. Well, we the elders can not blame the children either; they were actually “aping” adults to take revenge through cyber space knowing pretty well that ‘no one knows that you are a dog in the internet’. I would not have believed this maxim until the day I myself saw two hardly 12 years old kids opening their profile pages in a public cyber café under the guise of  two young adults…..yes, I heard them giggling when they told each other “I am 21 and you are 22”. They had chosen screen names that swiftly hid their own identities and they were encouraging other friends to do the same. I grew curious and I asked them is it their school project? They smelled something wrong and immediately closed their accounts and fled off. I grew even more curious because I was then working in a project on cyber bullying. That was the time when café owners were not obliged by law to take down the residential addresses of the ‘visitors’. When I asked the café owner did he know these kids, he nonchalantly answered “koto lok ashye jay….ami ki jani?”……,meaning “so many persons come and go, how am I to know”? Well, probably these kids were one of the thousand kids who used to travel out side their own area to escape the parent’s vigils to do such mischievous works.

But within no time, finance ministry reduced the prices of the personal computers and almost every Indian home having moderate income, could bring a PC. This probably made the situation a little more complex, because now the children preferd to stay indoors and visit their friends through these social networking sites. Well, there is no harm in hanging out in these sites, but what must be remembered is, these children may not know the bad side of the internet. We do not have a “Megan Meier” case in our country still now. But I am sure, many children are facing cyber bullying without knowing what it is, how to handle it and why it should be stopped; many are getting in to traps because they are befriending unknown individuals who may not be “children”; many girls are loosing the joys of childhood and fast catching the perils of girlhood even though they are not physically assaulted or raped. What pains me more is that we do have some laws to punish elders when they try to victimize others including children. But we do not have focused laws when the child is a hi-tech offender. 

Offcourse, it does not mean that we should restrict our children from reaching the computers. Remember India is the highest producer of software professionals and we must encourage our children to enhance the glory further. Hence, it is wise to teach every child to be responsible for his/her internet venture. Here are some advises for parents:

1.Encourage your child to speak to you regarding his/her internet experience.

2. Tell him/her to not to fight in the cyber space.

3. Tell him/her that the world is now watching the whole family. Hence it is upon him/her to behave properly in the cyber space.

And children…….

1.      Be careful when you are in the cyber space.

2.      Use Orkut/Facebook for your good….. trust me, I learnt so many good things from Orkut/Facebook.

3.      Do not make it your “life”……. Leave it when you do not like it.

4.      Remember, if you do any mischievous work, your school might take very strong action against you; they may even rusticate you. Hence do not victimize others.

And above all, be good in the cyber space. You never know how much you can get from the cyber space if you know how to use it properly.

 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. (2011), “Young generation of Orkut and Facebook

”, 20^th February,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

That space is yours and you must not SHARE the KEY

http://www.cybervictims.org

Couple of years back a friend of ours had proudly announced that he no more cares for postmen or the snail mails through post offices. He now ‘owns’ an email id and would love to get updates, new year wishes from his friends in his ‘inbox’. He happily distributed his email id to all of us and wait…… he gave away the password too. This was the time when Indian users of the internet were slowly getting accustomed with the concept of email transactions and there were no consolidated laws to protect the internet /computer users from the big bad world out there. In no time, our friend’s email id was no more his personal id, it became almost a ‘public id’ and he felt every one had known his private life. He closed his email id and went back to snail mails. However, he ensured that no one opens his post box without his permission and kept it under strict vigilance. Nearly 12 years have passed and now almost all of us are equally vigilant with our email inboxes. The first and foremost thing we learnt from our friend’s experience was never to share the “key” of the inbox with anyone; not even with boy friends, or even husbands. Well, we do vow to share each secret of our lives with our lovers when the hearts bond strongly, with our spouses when we get married, with our close friends when we trust each other ; but  I made it a point to not to share my passwords with anyone after I owned my own email id  in due course. The worst result one can expect when one shares his/her own password is, to find himself/herself in a messy situation like misuse of email id, hacking, cyber terrorism, monetary crimes ( if the email id is used for business and official transactions), defamation ( when the personal informations are taken out and publicized without your knowledge) and offcourse,severe spouse- abuse especially when one of the spouse is more dominant and feels it is absolutely right to monitor the other even in the cyber space.

 In 2010, on behalf of  Centre for Cyber victim Counseling (CCVC), we did a baseline survey where we found that 46.6% respondents share  passwords of their email ids and/or other profiles with others (see Halder, D., & Jaishankar, K. (2010). Cyber Victimization in India: A Baseline Survey Report. Tirunelveli, India: Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling. @http://www.cybervictims.org/CCVCresearchreport2010.pdf ). Yes, in some circumstances, sharing the passwords with business partners or even spouse becomes inevitable especially when one can not access internet due to unavoidable circumstances and still needs to keep up with his/her acquaintances. But then think of the risks: a very recent news report states that a  spouse "hacked" her husband’s and her father in law’s email ids to gather evidence for dowry harassment. In course of prosecution, she denied that it was hacking and maintained that the passwords were provided by her husband himself. Indeed, the case got a U turn and she got a “clean chit”( see “Sharing passwords with spouse is risky” by Pankaj Sharma (23^rdJan, 2011) in DNA. Retrieved on 5^th February, 2011 from http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_sharing-passwords-with-spouse-is-risky_1497980). Now, the case may need more investigation to establish the truth; but what makes a point in this case is, if it was really a consensual act on the part of the complainant himself to pass over the secret to the to the other party, he may not claim the benefit of innocence in the process of victimization. Definitely this could make a perfect case of breach of trust when financial loss is incurred. But imagine the plight of the complainant if he really had shared the password! The bitter promises of long techno-legal battles,  the harassments and finally the uncomfortable feeling when in the cyber space may never leave the poor soul to rest in peace .Such instances must not be taken lightly as many readers may feel this was a case of ‘washing dirty linens in public’; Do not forget

1.      cyber space can be used as a double edged weapon;

2.      If you share passwords with persons you do not trust or you fear that the relationship is vulnerable, trust your instincts. Be ready for legal battles such as this;

3.      Do not allow your children to use your emails/profiles and do not share your passwords with them. You never know, they may ‘leak’ your well possessed password.

4.      Change the passwords regularly.

Have a safer cyber venturing

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. (2011), “That space is yours and you must not SHARE the KEY”, 10th January,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

Leakage that threatened world politics in 2010: my thoughts

http://www.cybervictims.org

We have ushered in another new year with numbers of resolutions, plans and programmes for the coming 361 days. Nonetheless many may have tightened their securities to prevent a dangerous “leakage”…….leakage of significant informations to the largest talked over media channel, the ‘WikiLeaks’. When this not-for profit media organization came under lime light recently by exposing the secret US embassy cables ( See Secret US embassy Cables, retrieved from http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html on 04.01.11), the world witnessed a huge wave of concern over the question of “data privacy” and “free speech” rights. WikiLeaks promised to release these Cables ‘in stages’, which may add more embarrassment to the concerned government/s as well as those who had taken active parts in these communications.

See how the internet is being used to expose corruption, secret conspiracies and probably executable plans for violence against mankind. But note that this particular organization gives a message: “messengers are not to be killed”. They are also concerned that the ‘spies’ may be protected from possible atrocious reaction from the person/agency once these secret informations are submitted and then published. Unlike the newspaper censorship, cyber-page can not be censored abruptly unless it is proved that this website is not following due diligence; further, ‘Free Speech’ must be viewed as the most sacred gift of modern democracy. But nonetheless, WikiLeaks had been attacked to prevent the leakage of secret cables. The biggest legal jolt against WikiLeaks were perhaps the criticisms which described the operations of Wikileaks as against national security ("Congress Mulls How to Stop WikiLeaks in Its Tracks". Associated Press. Fox News. 7 April 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/16/congress-mulls-stop-wikileaks-tracks/. Retrieved 17 December 2010. Also see WikiLeaks. (2011, January 3). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 13:56, January 4, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WikiLeaks&oldid=405722954.) The website was also hacked and suspended for apparently cementing the leaking point. But it was a fruitless effort. The website was back on the web soon and restarted functioning.

I remember a brain storming session at my alma-matter, NLSIU with my guide and two other senior faculties. The session was about  protection for the ‘whistle-blowers’ and the seniors were of the view that Kautilya’s Artha Sashtra’s dictum about protection of spies by the King, needs to be re-established with more stronger laws. The question which ‘bugs’ me is, when the whistle blower alerts the people against the law-makers, who will dare to break the law?...................... Not to forget, ‘Rule of law’ theory made the supreme lawmaker also to follow the law and not break it.

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. (2011), “Leakage that threatened world politics in 2010: my thoughts”, 4^th January,2011, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

Mobile phones : some thoughts about victimisations done through it

http://www.cybervictims.org

In my law school days, I came across with a family who had gone through land line phone stalking for continuously six years. The stalker took pain to find out the name of the registered customer for  the number, the neighboring homes etc by manually scrutinizing the huge public phone directory itself. This incident happened nearly ten years back when stalking by phone was an unknown term   in India. The victim family felt terribly humiliated, but kept the matter to themselves because when they contacted the local police, they were advised to switch to new communication media , the mobile phone. They were told that   mobile phones were better as there were no such easily available public directory. Well….ignorance is no bliss. Mobile phones are vicious devises indeed. I finished my law degree and joined the profession. One day I too owned a brand new mobile phone and felt as secured as the victim-family because I circulated  my number to only chosen few. One fine day I found a charming voice of a caller who randomly pushed the buttons and got my voice to hear. He felt it was the best option to flirt with women. But by then I was so busy with my baby daughter that I preferred to hear to her yelling rather than hearing this mobile romeo. I handed over the phone permanently to my husband and the mobile romeo obviously didn't prefer to hear male voices, neither felt like inquiring about the female voice which suddenly changed into a male voice . 

  But this may not be the case always for every one. There are many ignorant 'first time mobile owners'  like me who use social networking sites as public platforms to announce their “prize numbers”. Resultant they become the prize catch for many predators also. I understand that there are three typical routes to harass women by mobile numbers: 1. leaking the number in one of the numerous adult website and cache the number so that in the search engine this number will appear again and again; 2. leaking it in the social networking sites with detailed name and informations ,so that any one and every one of the 'cyber socialites' can have ‘good time’ with the victim; 3.hacking the mobile network to tap the calls and thereby making life miserable for the victim. We do have laws in India to prevent such data leaking. But I consider them very weak when compared to the laws of US or the UK. Yes, we do not have public directory for mobile phone numbers like what we did have for our land numbers, but there are numerous data available in the cyber space by which the victim can be found out and if the harasser is as desperate as the stalker I mentioned above, such easily available data can work better than public directories. 

But, very few note that the ‘safety pin’ actually remains with us from the beginning and we, the general mobile phone users tend to ignore the need to pin up the hole. The safety pin could be used when filling up the profile for the social networking sites, when emailing with ‘signature’ or even when exchanging mobile phone numbers with virtual friends etc by following some awareness notes such as:not to publish the mobile phone number anywhere, not to circulate it among not so known acquaintances etc .

However, I do note that while filling up the form for BSNL services, we are required to choose whether to go for ‘national do not call registry’ or not. No this does not serve any purpose when you speak about personal data protection for mobile  customers from potential harassers who may go for data mining and leave threatening /annoying messages  ( the objectives of the NDNCR clarifies that ‘message’ means only unsolicited commercial communication (UCC) .See http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/index.jsp?reqtrack=qvwhHPNkiQGNDNpwrlvARvsog) But yes, if seen from a broad perspective, this could to a certain extent prevent messy situations that may result due to cloud computing. However, even though harassments through mobile phones are now being considered as one of the core cyber crimes, more stricter laws (well, we do have I.T Act, 2008 to penalize such communications, but it still needs to be broadened) may be needed to restrict unsolicited data mining.

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. (2010), “Mobile phones : some thoughts about victimisations done through it”, 29th November,  2010, published in http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/

Think before you type your heart out

http://www.cybervictims.org

Do you remember the old saying ‘think before you take a leap’? When in the cyber space, this particular saying stands on a far firmer foot than in the virtual world. Often we invite a messy situation for our selves by floating some thoughts and expressions of ours in the web, which may bring unanticipated danger to us. I often get to see victims crying and repenting over their ‘karma’. True, many are unaware of the true nature of the ‘space’ where they spend maximum of their time. A released spade never comes back, but a digitally typed expression may come back in a disastrous form to devastate the creator. Examples of such sorts of ‘boomerangs’ are many…….an ugly caricature;  flaming words; fussing over the issue unnecessarily and creating a huge trail of followers who will say nay or ye to add more pain to the insults; the list may be unending. The mediums of such hounding could be either emails, or chat messages or wall posts or forum boards; and such attacks could instigate cyber bullying, offending messages, stalking, defamation and even phishing. Hence , do think before the followings:

1. Mailing to your girl friend or boy friend or spouse after an emotional outburst.
2. Updating your status in the Facebook, Myspace etc in an agitated mood especially after a fight.
3. Expressing your feelings over political /administrative decisions.
4. Telling about the teacher or fellow student you hate the most, to your friends in open forums or in their message boards.
5. Opting for easy money by replying to ‘lucrative offers’.

The list is not exhaustive.

                        The advocates of ‘Free Speech’ may use their power to express their opinions in this matter. Experiments with the First Amendment Guarantees of the US constitution had broaden the scope to exercise Right to speech and expression in a more extensive way. The social value system in India is also getting new interpretations from the judiciary and it is expected that very soon notions of ‘modest speech’ may also get new legal color. Given this situation, these typical issues and ‘warnings’ that I just mentioned, may chill some personal rights. I do agree.  But, do remember, Rights beget responsibility and every ‘netizen’ is responsible to protect others Right. I would also emphasize that law protects our Rights, but may not guarantee mental peace while protecting our Rights. It is our good senses that we have to use when in the cyber space and only then Rights can peacefully coexist with responsibilities. Hence do not hurt others or others feelings and exercise your right to speech and expression cautiously and with responsible words.

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. (2010),“Think before you type your heart out”

”,October  2010, published in  http://cybervictims.blogspot.com/