Women, be careful when you join 'groups' in Facebook

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of day’s back I came through a research which showed that women are more attracted to social networking through popular social media like the Facebook or Twitter than men (See http://in.lifestyle.yahoo.com/women-more-attracted-facebook-twitter-men-study-105041750.html). Being a woman myself, I cannot wholeheartedly agree with this research as I have seen many men *also* have taken likings for social networking too. But this research made it once again crystal clear: women are vulnerable in the net. In this era of social media, women do not click in the Facebook or Twitter just as a leisure activity only. I see these Medias as mines of informations; and I am sure many women like me visit these ‘mines’ for gathering useful informations, which are essential for home maintenance, baby care to safe e-banking, online shopping, part time or full time jobs from home etc. Where do we find these mines? Anywhere and everywhere if you have your 6^th sense ready for gaining the informations. I look specifically for the ‘groups’ and ‘trending topics’ for gathering informations, which in very sophisticated term, can also be called as ‘data mining’.

          But women of my genre, beware!

All is not safe when you switch on your Facebook account with your personal informations and albums open to your friends. In a ‘group,’ in the Facebook, there are numbers of privacy issues which may bother members, especially women members; let me detail them here:

1.     If one member tags you or your photo, your well protected informations, status updates and even the entire album can be pulled out from your profile. Do not feel secured if you have made your informations available for your friends and not for the public. You may never know, but your friend’s friends can also view your ‘secrets’ meant only for your friends.

2.    A group expands by snow balling its members through existing members. So if any one of the members mistakenly adds any unwanted individual, the security of the other members may be jeopardized.

3.    You may get introduced to many likeminded members in a group, who may be interested in knowing you more closely. But be careful. Once an individual sends a friend’s request, he/she may be able to see the status updates and the new addings to the album if they are not ‘protected’; this is possible even when the ‘friend’s request’ is in the ‘pending’ status. Hence if you do not wish to share anything with him/her, immediately close your door to him/her.

4.    Remember if this is not a closed group, your contributions to the group may be visible in  the world wide web if someone searches for your name.

These are but some of my own findings from my own experiences in the Facebook. But women, don’t withdraw yourself. There are more ‘safety pins’ available for protecting the loop holes.

Ø Facebook offers few types of friend’s category, namely; acquaintances, friends and close friends. It falls upon you to categorize your ‘friends’ for a better networking.

Ø When it is an open group, be careful to choose your words for contribution.

Ø Be watchful; if you are tagged without your permission, ‘de-tag’ yourself .

Ø Take immediate decision regarding friend’s requests. Pending requests may add more privacy risks.

Ø If you are a member in a group which allows snow balling, be sure to add known and reliable friends. This is will make you a safety valve in your own group.

At the end, let your friends be aware of the positive side of social networking. Being a social species,  no human beings are fallible. But remember, we are humans and a little bit of awareness would definitely make our lives in the well webbed world wonderful.

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), “Women, be careful when you join groups in Facebook”, 6^th September,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

A shocking reminder of victimisation of women

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Since long women are used as a ‘cursor’ of chastity. A devoted wife is supposed to be a best woman, a devoted mother may not make a best wife, a devoted professional may not make a good wife, nor a good mother; the list goes on. Depending upon such analytical subjections, a woman can be a ‘good’ woman ( wanted by one and all in marriage markets and can make a good example for other women in the society), a smart woman (may not be wanted by one and all and may not prove to be a good example for other families who would like their daughters to be so called ‘good women’), and a bad woman ( wanted by none as the male dominated society may portray her as a woman who  can satisfy only her own demands, be it physical or emotional). Such ‘bad women’ make good "items" to be displayed. In the pre internet era, the gossip columns of news papers and popular magazines used to display them. In the internet era, it is again the gossip columns but in the web magazines where they are displayed. Who fall in the category of bad women? Any one right from a prostitute, who work to feed herself and her children,  to a stubborn female government official, who may stand for her as well as other women’s rights at any cost,  to a female academician who may fight against gender discrimination, to even an authoritative mother who may lay strict rules at home for welfare of her children irrespective of their sexes  and offcouse a female lover who finds her heart’s happiness going against her social customs and commands which may have been made to regulate women more than men, can fall in the bad woman category depending upon the social value system of her country and region. In the internet era these women, who fight for their own rights and happiness and yet tagged as bad women find unique places through unique mediums. One such example is the recently executed Afghan woman whose public execution pictures  are being circulated in the internet today (seehttp://in.news.yahoo.com/photos/public-execution-of-woman-condemned-in-afghanistan-slideshow/) . A regular reader of  Yahoo news services, at first I was taken aback when I found the news clipping titled “Afghan woman executed in public” in the Yahoo India news link today. Anyone would feel extremely disturbed. I nurse a curious woman in me who loves to see and read about  silver screen celebs, women entrepreneurs and achievers. This particular image of a man targeting his gun towards the head of a woman (she is not facing the camera....fortunately not), all wrapped up in a colour less cloth patiently waiting for her death, made me think that it is a trailer picture of Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit’s  forthcoming film (well the scroll showed a picture of Madhuri with her two sons  and an adoring husband in the backdrop of  TajMahal just before this horrible real life killing picture.) My brain made no mistakes in assuming the next picture in the scroll as a continuation of Madhuri’s story, as in the previous picture Madhuri was captured covering her head and face with a scarf for paparazzi reasons. But my poor brain slowly registered the fact; it was not a cinema clipping, it was real; a real picture of killing a woman in the most inhuman way because she was charged with adultery. The slides opened one by one and I got to see this woman’s execution slowly unfolding in the remaining six slides: many men watching the killing of a woman.
            These pictures could earn best journalistic pictures award in near future, may be this news reporter would earn accolade for reporting this inhuman act of  some fanatic humans. But it is now widely available in the internet. Men, women and especially children (matured as well as younger teens who surf the net for so many purposes) who may come across this clipping anywhere in the internet may lose a peaceful night’s sleep. What disturbs me is, there is no prior warning for ‘viewer’s choice’ before this clipping opens or the link pops up. This opens up wide range of dangers for humane internet savvy humans; imagine the psychological trauma of a matured teenager who may never have heard or seen such nasty executions, older viewers or even pregnant women who may have opened this slide show without properly understanding what it is about. It is indeed true that when a report is read without any images attached with it, the impact may give different results than when still pictures such as these are seen. The Yahoo would play a safe game as they won’t be liable unless someone asks them to remove it from their list; the link may find its place for a long time as this may not fall under ‘illegal speech and expression’ category in the internet if  advocates for free speech establish the fact that it doesn’t cross the red line. But to me it is revisiting victimisation of women in yet another new form. The more this clipping bearing  execution pictures float in the internet, the more some fanatics would get *strength* to terrorise innocent women with dire consequences.People, how long you will enjoy this cruel victimisation of women even in the internet age?

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), “A shocking reminder of victimisation of women ”, 9^th July,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

The problem of Online grooming of children

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
This is me reporting from Sweden criminology conference at Stockholm. Since yesterday when the conference opened, I am attending all the sessions on victimisation in the cyber space and restorative justices. Well, no doubt, I am getting extremely strong and confident for my own presentation scheduled for tomorrow morning. There is a flow of informations from trans border jurisdictions, especially Europe and it is definitely scary.....cyber crime against female species of human beings is growing... Off course I have not come across any presentation stil now which spoke about adult victims ( I will be the first to start it tomorrow and I am looking forward to hear something regarding hacking etc afterwards), but quite a number of researchers did find similar results...online grooming of young girls are on the rise.in fact the situation is no different from India...... We name it pedophilia and related activities in India, they call it grooming. Well, we still feel reluctant to name this activity as grooming. Probably we in India take the word grooming in a very positive note. But the online groomers have the same methodology as is the case in Europe. I felt extremely uncomfortable to hear the specific ways and to see the chat messages that the members from the police in Sweden showed. I felt awkward because I was sitting along with a good number of men and women who were watching the presentation with me and I am used to see such comments or posts only in private while I am working as a cyber victim counsellor or writing something on the burning issues.Slowly the natural realisation settled in.. We are all birds of the same flock, all of us are working towards helping the victims and there is nothing to feel awkward to see or talk about some thing which we in India generally don't do even in gatherings like this. In fact I have even dropped the plan of showing a naughty text message in symbols....I have no "shame" feeling about sharing some of my personal experiences now. 
Why online grooming is not getting this very approach in India still now? The answer is crystal clear now. We refuse to believe that our children can actually fall in such traps. Last year in India while I was participating in a seminar as a keynote speaker, a participant, who also belongs to legal fraternity, openly challenged me on my observation that girls in India are also "groomed" and they are also asked by their potential groomers to show their private parts through web cams or post the pictures. He refused to accept the hard truth that I have actually dealt with minor victims of such sorts of victimisations. He falls in the majority section. No one, not even the victim's parents can believe that their child can fall in this very section. But I feel sad  to note that  in India online grooming is probably increasing. You ask me evidence for it and I would show the numerous police websites where they are now showing up caution messages for children. A good sign indeed. But the question remains about acceptance of such victims and victimisation in our society. The presenter in the conference himself was a police officer and he informed me that their society has successfully cut off the feeling of shame from the concept of victimisation. Perhaps he is true; he showed so many messages from the matured children which proved his words. We in India could not do this. It is the time for us to believe in the ancient saying "shame, hatred and fear... the more you grow them, the more they settle in you". The more victims would come up, the lesser we can expect the rate of victimisation,for it may finally teach the offender that they are being noted and they are not welcome.

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), "The problem of Online grooming of children ”, 12th June,2012, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

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/

 

Pesky calls…..and some simple ways to deal with it

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

I had a writer’s block. Exactly when I was searching for a solution, came an idea through a phone call. It was a pesky call for others, a ‘thought provoking’ call for me. A male voice conveyed the message that he loves me. Well, I was not taken aback. I have dealt with such cases and I know how amazing it may sound like when one young individual gets such phone calls for the first time. But when it involves women who do not want to entertain such callers, the experience is definitely not good. If it is a mobile number and the owner is very cautious about the privacy, it could be presumed that there would be no such pesky calls to disturb her. But this myth is easily broken when such tightly shielded privacy is suddenly broken. One may wonder how these phone numbers are publicized especially for pranksters like the guys who called me a couple of hours ago. Well, it is not the result of data mining, neither a part of stalking; I presume it is part of festive fun. It is chosen game for many youngsters to make calls to random numbers when some plan for a get together. When a woman’s voice is heard, these pranksters immediately start showing off the ‘Romeo’ inside them. Some of their targets get scared, some take it very seriously and threaten the callers to take it to the police if again they try such tactics; some transfer the phone to the male members of the family to deal with the matter in a ‘manly’ way and some become permanent victims because they don’t want to get anyone’s help thinking that the whole blame would be put on them. The last category of ‘targets’ are always ‘chosen’ types for pranksters as they feel these recipients are reliable targets; they will not bring in any trouble for their (annoying) fun time.

            But how to deal with it? There are ways ….not one, but multiple ways to tackle them; complaining to the police with the received call records, approaching the man directly through lawyer’s help,changing number and even avoiding the number when it rings , etc. But the problem does not really end here. The woman needs to be strong enough to deal with it. I did a counter prank when these guys were ‘playing’ with my privacy and testing my patience. I gave the device to my Mr. Right and we decided to make it the biggest Diwali fun. The soft voice informed this ‘festive season lover’ that he has jumped in front of the gun; but anyway, we are willing to help him because we are THE police station. Well, we really are, as it is my job to record the patterns of approaches so that I can contribute for a better law. Did he blink? Did he go blank? Did he faint? Probably. Because there were no more phone calls and my ‘lover’ switched off his phone in between.

Hope all of you there had a wonderful Diwali.

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), “Pesky calls…..and some simple ways to deal with it

”, 27^thOctober,2011, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/