Beware of predators in the guise of information seekers

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

This afternoon I got a call from a sweet female voice. The girl claimed to have called from a nationalised bank and wanted to give me a good news. When I looked at the phone screen again I found that the number from where she is calling resembles the district code and also the area code of the central area of our city. When I concentrated again in her message she told me that my “son” had participated in a drawing competition and the bank authorities would like to come over to my home to present the certificate. I told her that I don’t have any son ! The voice from over the line politely confirmed “no it is your child”. I knew the whole episode is going to set another example of probable phishing activity or simple phone harassment and I grew more interested to learn how she did her home work. I firmly told there is no possibility of such participation from my “child”; she quizzed me on whether my child studies in the same school (she did very good homework regarding this), whether my house bears the same number (well she gets the full mark here to) and whether my husband is Jaishankar (full marks again) or not.. For a second I was dumbstruck... such a good home work !!!! I said “good, so you seem to know me so well .. now what do you want”?  The voice, which became a little shaky, said “we want to know when will you have free time so that we can come over” ? I stated “you can always see me here with my full battalion. And if you need any specific information why don’t you try calling my husband”? She was visibly taken aback and cut off the phone.
My dear readers, have you ever encountered such situations? I am not surprised by the informations this caller had gathered regarding my child’s school, my home address or even my own phone number; for in the era of informations technology, almost all of us are ‘open books’ about ourselves. I keep my Facebook, Orkut and Twitter accounts absolutely private; beyond my virtual friends, who are over 3 or 4 years old in having friendship with me, I don’t discuss anything about my child’s activities.  But you are bound to get shocks and even more shocks when these well kept ‘private’ informations are well ‘digested’ by strangers from various cloud sources; which may include friends of our ‘close friends’, postings in group walls of social networking sites, blog feeds about ourselves, emails and messages which may have been accessed from the recipient’s accounts if the said account is unauthorisedly monitored or hacked, or even phone hacking which is becoming tremendously popular now a days. Frightening.....isn’t it? For a moment I feared are they going to kidnap my child? Well, any mother would think so when the information about the child reaches back to the mother in polished or unpolished manner.  The next moment I knew what is was likely about, especially when I called back the number and I got to hear that this number is provided by some other private service provider and not the regular government supported telecom service provider. Praise the intelligence of the racket leader; the number which is being used in this fraud game is so accurately chosen that any layman would believe that this is from a land line telephone connection and may also be from the same “office” from where the caller claimed to have called.
What could be the result if I would have given the details of my stay at home? Well.. any unwanted thing could happen if such details are divulged; theft or  robbery, when the house is empty; forceful breaking in and physical assault, even rape of the woman of the house if the mischief mongers target a silent and lonely afternoon; physical phishing attack, i.e, the mischief monger comes over to house in the guise of a sales man or low level corporate staff and induces the inmate of the house to part with money by promising some good fortune or by handing over fraudulent certificate etc,.   

  Since past two three years, criminologists, researchers in the behavioural patterns of information technology users, lawyers etc have started vehement campaigning about related dangers that can happen from the excessive and unmonitored usage of  geo-location features  in the social networking sites such Facebook and also Google maps etc. Not to forget, one of the executing ‘device’ for creating/producing such dangerous situations can be the poor little hand phone also. In my book Cyber crime and the Victimization of Women: Laws, Rights, and Regulations. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global. ISBN: 978-1-60960-830-9 , I had stated that the third type of crime that can affect women especially besides non-sexually crimes and sexual crimes, is cyber assisted offline crimes (pg 20). This has been proved repeatedly......................and I vouch from my own experiences now.       

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), "Beware of predators in the guise of information seekers through phones ”, 24th April,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

“Gang raped” in the assembly

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

By the middle of this week, we the curious watchers of legal battle between Google and 20 more websites and the Indian courts got a “nice” surprise ...not from the Google, or from Facebook or even from the rest of those websites, neither from the courts and legal fraternity; but from three ministers in Karnataka state, which is known to have India’s first and most famous cyber crime police cell. When the assembly was being stormed by some very important debate, one of these ministers allegedly was  looking at a clipping which involved sex, abuse of woman, violence and probably violation of internet decency codes. The news reports suggested that it was the minister for cooperation who had the mobile phone device placed between his lap and the desk and started watching the clipping. He then started “flipping pictures of women” . The other two ministers joined him out of curiosity (see http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article2869723.ece). Who were the other two ministers? One was in charge of ecology, environment and ports; the other was none other than the minister in charge of women and child welfare. The ministers were immediately indicted and later they had voluntarily resigned from their posts. Even though they argued that they were seeing the clipping of a gang-rape incidence that was sent to the mobile phone device, their argument needs to be proved. But the issue that really moved me was, probably no human being can resist himself from viewing sex-related video images...but seeing these stuff in the assembly? No way... quite a long ago Bombay High court refused to provide a blanket ban on porn materials in the internet. I had even discussed about it in my earlier blogs. The high court rightly held that law cannot stop a person’s sexual rights (including right to be aroused by viewing such materials), if these materials are gained in the legal way and seen in private.  

Such materials could be gained in the legal way  as per the Indian laws, if they do not violate sections 66E, 67, 67A and B of the information Technology Act, 2008  specifically which prohibit voyeurism and publishing and transmitting of obscene, sexually explicit materials to anyone including children; and off course  sections 292, 293 of the Indian penal code, which prohibits sale of obscene books etc to anyone including children, 375, which discusses about rape, and 509  of the I.P.C,which is a popular provision used by the police for indicting  the perpetrator for creating nasty profiles in the social networking sites. Well, these are just a few provisions which prevent sexual exploitation, rather “slavery” of women and children, and also men (leaving aside provisions for rape and 509) online. But the law does not roll up its sleeve here. There are many other provisions which could be brought in to prevent the “world wide web” to transmit the humiliation. All were glaringly violated on this very day. First, the ministers saw the sex-clippings violating the core decorum of the assembly; second, if these were the pictures of gang rape incidence that were transmitted to them by someone else, as alleged by them, they did not immediately made a note to the assembly, which they should have, especially since the minister for women and child development was also involved; third, the clipping itself being shrouded in controversy, they may have also violated the legal provisions meant for internet sex-offences as I mentioned above. The ultimate result... a real gang rape of laws meant to prevent sexual exploitation of women online.

It is hoped that very soon the incidence will be probed and the real story behind the hush-hash viewing of the clippings by the ministers will be revealed; probably they will positively testify their own argument. But the underlying fact remains the same..... Audio-visual clips of naked or semi nude women writhing in pain gained from sexual intercourse,  transmitted through digital technology  to millions,  are the best entertaining materials even in a busy and important commitment like making ,breaking or deciding the fate of the laws in the parliament................. Shame......

** The author does not intend to hurt anybody’s political sentiments. This is an independent view of the author and the author has expressed her views in her own right towards exercising freedom of speech. If anybody feels hurt, the author apologises in advance.

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), ““Gang raped” in the assembly”, 10^th February,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

No more slangs: it may land you in jail…….……….really?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

The last page of the newspaper  The Hindu always offers some amusing news for me . Today was no exception. I was pleasantly “surprised” when I read the news “Pakistan bans 1,695 words on cellphone” ( see http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article2642848.ece). The news report gave a strong suggestion that activists within Pakistan have condemned it. True, in any democratic country the government can not ban the freedom of expression unless it falls within the strict criteria of constitutionally frame-worked “banned words”. Further, the government can not suomotu shut the mouth of citizens unless it has been proved that some one/group of people are really hurt and such activities will bring in huge chaos in the country. But the news report further suggested that Pakistan government has taken this decision after a series of court orders came out  “favoring reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech” . The Pakistan telecom authority (PTA) has ordered for content filtering for all the mobile phone service providers of some words including words like “Jesus Christ”.  Well, if this act is done to prevent mobile harassment especially for women, I am for it ( off course not for curbing other words which do not carry offending or sexually harassing or obscene motives). But one needs to see that whether this act of the government resulted from huge complaints from women regarding this. In India sending offensive communications via digital media is considered as an offence under section 66A. Along with this Section 509 of the IPC is  also  used in some cases when modesty of women are targeted, i.e, they are targeted with words which actually sounds very nasty. Not to forget the power of sections 69 and 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2008, which gives enough power to the government for intercepting, monitoring and even blocking the free flowing of informations through digi-tech services; India can also probably take up such action as her neighbor to prevent individuals from using slangs targeting women.   

Now, coming to the arguments against such government acts, I will sum up my points as below:

1.      women are targeted with slang words, men are neither spared. It has become a new fashion among some people to use abusive words, including slangs while texting or even speaking with friends……forget about the heated up arguments which often carry ‘unwanted words’.

2.     How far the government can check? Checking the usage of  words with double meaning  will become a huge task. Probably for this a new academic course would be needed to study the changing trend of  words with black and white meanings. Don’t forget, we in this peninsula speak both English and vernacular language and majority have excellent ability to use “Hinglish” to express thoughts.

3.     We get to see so much ***ing words/images in popular social networking sites which are hugely shared and also enjoyed by many of us… would government go ahead with banning these social networking sites too? Well, once Pakistan did ban Facebook for insulting Islam. But in India no such act was taken except the 2006 ban on an Orkut community which triggered tension for insulting the great Maratha king Chatrapati Shivaji. But note that Orkut as a site was not banned.

It is no wonder that the concept of unprotected speech and expression, seen from the aspect of Article 19(2)(v) under Indian constitution is becoming more narrowed. This provision speaks about curbing right to speech on the ground of morality and indecency. But at the same time, it lies upon the users of the free speech guarantee to use it in a proper fashion, so that the government need not step in to curb the right. Once the individual users, irrespective of their gender, decide the level of decency for usage of language themselves, the problem of objectionable words and government’s “Big Brother” attitude towards free speech guarantee may be  set at rest to a certain extent…..if not fully.     

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), “No more slangs: it may land you in jail…….……….really?”20^th November,2011, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/