|
|
Cyber
Crimes
and the Real World
Our understanding of the
virtual world is woefully slim; and of cyber crimes, even less. But, as
law enforcers are finding out, their effect on the real world is
devastating; preventing and detecting cyber crimes is now being given
priority. Economic offences which dog the $1.2 trillion electronic
commerce industry worldwide include credit card schemes, property
cheating, systems corruption, corporate and political espionage, mafia and
drug cartels, multi-site gambling offences and Internet frauds committed
mainly in the course of legitimate business.
At times, these assume the character of organized crime, involving
accounting, management, administrative and political establishments. Even
as law enforcers struggle to cope, other - and newer - violations loom
large, the victims falling into an anonymous abyss. The Internet can, and
often has, become the space for predators seeking women and children.
Studies have shown that about 60 per cent of all websites are sexual in
content. Twenty per cent of them solicited their visitors, 13 per cent
went voluntarily and the rest were pictorially lured. An estimated 100,000
pornographic websites generate revenues in the region of $1 billion
annually. The increasing popularity of chat rooms and the vulnerability of
personal data to criminal access makes women and children the easiest
targets for a range of culpable crimes.
The European Union has set up a Commission on Illegal and Harmful Content
on the Internet. The United States has a quasi-governmental organization
called Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. But computer sex
offenders take advantage of the gullibility of their victims and the inept
laws protecting them.
Children are victimized by pedophiles who are no longer lonely and hunted
individuals - they are untraceable instead. Young people are exposed to
pornography, hateful and violent literature, harassment, exploitation and
spurious job rackets. Child molesters recruit, seduce and control the
future of their victims on the Internet, capitalizing on the natural
curiosity of children.
Cyber stalking happens when a person is followed and pursued online,
privacy invaded, and every move watched. Cyber stalking usually occurs
with women, who are stalked by men; or children, who are stalked by
pedophiles. It is believed that over 75 per cent of the victims are
female, in a form of harassment that can disrupt the life of the victims
and leave them feeling very afraid and threatened.
Says V. Lalitha, Assistant Vice-President, Polaris Software Laboratory,
Chennai: "In one landmark case in the United States, when a woman rebuffed
the advances of a security guard in her office building, he posted her
name, address, e-mail ID and phone number in pornographic chat rooms, with
sexually explicit invitations promising her 'availability'. She was
besieged by vulgar and offensive propositions, her home was stalked and
her work life affected by obscene callers. She took the case to court and
the man was given a prison term of six years."
With 19.5 per cent of online stalking translating into offline offences,
cyber crimes can spill over to the real world with very real consequences.
Lalitha cautions that a common area of cyber stalking is 'edu' sites. In
Mumbai, a 16-year-old-boy was kidnapped by a woman pedophile. Cyber crimes
are very easy to commit and require very few resources in relation to the
damage that can be caused. Family members have to watch out for symptoms
in victims, particularly children. Cyber victims could be using
inappropriate language or displaying an excessive fear of some places or
things.
India is one of the few countries that has adopted the Information
Technology Act, 2000. It has been lauded as a good beginning - but it is
also seen as a bumpy start. The IT Act defines, among other things, what
constitutes tampering with a computer source, hacking of computer document
systems and publishing of obscene information.
But in what is widely acknowledged as a glaring lapse, it does not cover
cyber stalking or child abuse. Unlike in a real world crime, a cyber crime
is generally not preceded by a motive, the time zones can be different and
a crime cannot be pinpointed to a particular hour. The crime could
originate in one continent and target victims in another part of the
world. Investigators find that data can be easily destroyed while
clinching evidence is difficult to collect from voluminous weblogs,
network and hard disk contents. Often, only strong circumstantial evidence
is available.
"Finding a stalker is difficult, securing evidence even more so. The best
defence is certainly prevention," Lalitha says.
Says Sundari Nanda, Deputy Inspector General of the Indian Central Bureau
of Investigation's pioneering Cyber Crime Cell, set up in 2000: "Cyber
crime is simply a normal crime facilitated by information technology. Most
cutting edge law enforcement functionaries are not tuned into this yet.
The minute the e-word comes in, it is the Cyber Crimes CBI Cell that is
approached. Our experience has shown clearly that this cannot be a
separate category for registration and investigation."
Nanda emphasizes the need to orient legal officers and court procedures.
"E-mails and computers were extensively used in the terrorist attack on
the Indian Parliament. We come across cases of rape and murder with an IT
component. Besides antiques and wildlife, women and children are victims
of trafficking which originated in computers." The CBI reports a spate of
complaints originating from dating services and chat rooms.
There have been times when cases have had to be closed because the
courtroom did not have a computer. Cyber cafes, preferred destinations for
cyber criminals, remain unregulated. In one example from Pune, the court
could not understand the intricacies of the case.
Problems beset law-enforcement efforts: The IT Act is ambiguous in many
places; and multinational companies operating in India refuse to share
information and insist they are governed by US secrecy laws.
Says Nanda, "Meaningful linkages and cooperation between agencies is vital
to cyber crime-solving. Cyberspace is an extension of the human
experience. Internet users have to be made aware that there is an
authority to complain to."
"Teenagers exult in an environment without strictures," continues Nanda,
"They find their newly-found independence linked to a cyber identity. They
find it exciting but they are extremely vulnerable."
Nanda recently went to Pondicherry to charge an 18-year-old wanted in an
e-mail bombing case which held up a computer in the UK for four days.
Public awareness, she says, is essential. "Women, teenagers and children
have to be made wary of dating services and chat rooms for they are
especially risky. No one is required to share personal profiles and
information on 'public' spaces in the computer - hardly 10 to 15 per cent
of the data sought is mandatory.
"Although limited Internet penetration curtails the number of possible
victims, connectivity is growing by the day in India and we must have a
strong defence in place. Our greatest challenge is to make users aware of
their rights. We need to evolve proactive measures to catch offenders -
old ways cannot work for new problems."
It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million people. Television reached
the same number in 13 years. The Internet did it in four. By the end of
2002, there are expected to be 800 million Internet subscribers in the
world. NASSCOM predicts there will be 23 million Net users in India by
2003.
Cyber crimes multiply, meanwhile, undetected and little-understood. When
the victim does not even understand what his/her rights are, when the law
is unclear about what precisely constitutes a crime, and when old
infrastructure judges constantly changing technologies, cyber criminals
can remain virtually free of both punishment and repentance.
� Lalitha Sridhar
November 17, 2002
Top
By arrangement with
Womens Feature Service
|
|
