A desperate
attempt being made to prevent cyber crimes in Navi Mumbai
Cafe owners of
Navi Mumbai made to submit customers’ details monthly to city police
By Dinesh
Kamath
NAVI MUMBAI: A few days back, as per
instruction of the Panvel police all the cyber cafes in the city had to submit
their customer details by the 27th of every month. The police had cited CrPC
section 126. The police demanded details like customer's name, address, cell
phone number, identity cards, etc. The café owners were also asked to install
CCTVs in their cafes. The café owners were told to put in the drop box the
records by the 27th of every month.
This system will keep a check on any suspicious
activity and make it possible for the police to detect crime and prevent terror
strike. The data collection was started in the late months of 2015. Any cyber
cafe owner who fails to submit the data will have to face action under IPC
section 188.
With the recent blasts in Ahmedabad being traced to a
cyber cafe in Navi Mumbai, the focus is more on cyber crime nowadays. The
perceived advantage of using a cyber cafe is that emails are hard to track. The
directive from Mumbai's police commissioner makes it mandatory for a user to
specify his full name, address, photo identification and purpose of visit.
The city police are become very alert and focus
mainly on cyber cafes owing to three children having been injured in an
improvised explosive device (IED) blast at Shantipara in Siliguri, the
Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) having raided a flat in Navi Mumbai after tracing
the IP address of the persons who sent a threat e-mail minutes before the
Ahmedabad blasts and the police in Ghaziabad having detained the owner of a
cyber cafe from where an email claiming responsibility for the Jaipur blasts
was sent.
Hence the cyber café owners are asked to keep a
detailed identity record of the customers and keep a close vigil on the activities
of the customers while surfing the Internet. The Internet café owners in the
town and its outskirts are keeping records of the identities of surfers to be
on the safe side and in spite of the fear that an attempt to obtain the
identity proof of their customers at this stage might lead to a fall in their
business.
An expert on Cyber-crime says “Cyber-crime is
emerging as a serious threat and is perhaps the most complicated problem in the
virtual world. The police in charge of cyber crime should think about the
origin of the cyber-crimes, how they are committed and what adverse effects
they have on the victim and society at large. Another question is why
cyber-crime is firming its roots in society at such a rapid rate. The main
question is how to prevent cyber-crime.
Cyber-crime is defined as crimes committed on the
internet using the computer as either a tool or a targeted victim. Worldwide
Governments, police departments and intelligence units have started to react,
realising the potential of the damage it can cause to society. Today
cyber-crime has taken several forms. It can be committed as a crime against
individual, a crime against individual property and as a crime against society
at large. No matter in which form it is committed, the ultimate victim is the
society.
Cyber-crime is the outcome of high innovations and
development in the field of Information Technology and therefore to prevent and
nullify the effects of this crime, technology has to play a major role. There
are some of the latest technologies developed primarily to prevent
cyber-attacks. Keeping in my mind the quantum of damage cyber-crime can cause,
it is a question of global concern that how cyber-crimes must be regulated and
how that regulation should be carried out most effectively?
The world of internet today has become a parallel
form of life and living. It has become inseparable in such a way, that life
without internet is beyond imagination. Internet has enabled the use of website
communication, email and a lot of anytime anywhere IT solutions for the
betterment of human kind. One cannot question the significance and utility of
this virtual space but at the same time one also cannot deny the threats and
dangers to which we are exposed due to internet. Invention of computer and evolution
of internet in modern times has almost become a parallel form of life and
living. It is rightly said that development comes with a cost. Crime today
remains elusive and hides itself in the face of development. Every crime leaves
a social and negative impact and so does the most recently evolved crime.
Statistics show that in 21st century cyber-crime has
grown at an alarming rate owing to new innovations in Information Technology. Realising
the quantum of loss and insecurity it can cause, worldwide Governments, Police
Departments and Intelligence units have started to respond strictly to such
happenings. Different laws have been formulated with the help of cyber experts
and professionals to prevent and penalise cyber-crime. In India, the cyber
world is regulated by the Information Technology Act, 2000. It defines and
penalises the offences relating to computer.
Person committing these crimes is well-versed with
the technology. The victim or the targeted victim is not in all cases a person
of technical background and therefore easily becomes vulnerable to such crimes.
Cyber-crimes can broadly be classified into three types namely - crime against
individual, crime against individual property and crime against an organisation
or society.
Crime against individual: Recent years have seen a
series of “moral panics” regarding information accessible on the Internet and
its use for criminal activity. A new form of harassment has increased these
days known as stalking. Stalking is when an individual targets his victim and
threatens him/her. Some examples of stalking is unwanted telephone calls
regardless of content, death threat, walking past the target’s home or
workplace and sending letters or flowers. Cyber stalking is a virtual or
electronic form of physical stalking. Unsolicited e-mail is one of the most
common forms of harassment, including hate, obscene, or threatening mail. Other
forms of harassment include sending the victim viruses or high volumes of
electronic junk mail (spamming).
Against individual property: Intellectual property
assets is an important asset for any business which require substantial
investment of time, money, and creative input and may or may not be tangible.
In the Information Technology age, the protection of Intellectual Property
Rights (IPR) requires great attention and dedicated strategy for its
protection. IPR protected information including music, computer programs,
databases can be easily copied and pirated using instantaneous means of
reproduction, publication, and dissemination causing serious financial loss to
rightful owners. Traditional principles of Intellectual Property Law which
apply to the real world also apply to the virtual world.
Against society: There exists an interrelationship
between terrorism and the internet. The internet came after 1990s when computer
services became cheaper, quicker and readily available. The internet came with
the main purpose to allow cheap communication. But these days the internet has
become a popular medium between terrorist group and individual terrorist to
communicate their message of hatred and violence. They use the Internet,
encrypted E-mail to plan their acts of terrorism and to spread propaganda. The
fear surrounding Cyber Terrorism is that terrorists and criminals penetrate
infrastructure computer systems and endanger human lives by disrupting military
networks, telecommunications, etc. Cyber terrorist create chaos and anarchy by
attacking banking and financial computer networks.
Innovations in IT have led to evolution of new
criminal methods. Cyber offenders are using new tools to prevent identification
and hamper investigations. The nonfigurative nature of cyber-crime poses tough
challenges to prevent it at first place; and then to investigate it. Cyber-crime
has become a part of cyber world today. Everyone accessing internet is equally
vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It is always wise to us to take precaution rather
than seeking remedy. This however does not mean that remedial solutions are of
little use. There are three types of solutions to cyber-crime: precautionary
solutions, technological solutions and legal solutions.
It is practically impossible to eliminate cyber-crime
from cyber world; but it can definitely be prevented. No legislation till now
has eradicated any crime completely but they have been successful in preventing
them. Similarly cyber-crime also cannot be removed completely by any law but it
can be prevented through joint efforts of individual, technology and law.”
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