PROMISES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

In this digi-courtship era, the worst nightmare one may expect is to break the promises for eternal love. But this is what every digi-lover must be prepared for. There are umpteen numbers of ‘love-windows’ ; for example, the SMSs, mobile phone  calls, internet chat options like the Yahoo chat messengers, Gtalk, etc to name a few. Easy accessibility to the private contact numbers and  the usage of proper language, be what vernacular medium it may, and enchanting human voice( in cases of audio chat options) could make the trick. And the human mind…………………………..how easily it can be duped.. Not very long ago I read news clipping in one of the regional newspapers that one person attempted to commit suicide when he understood that he can’t really go ahead with this “platonic” relationship. True, man or woman ………both can be duped by beautiful communicative, persuasive languages. However,  not to forget, sometimes some clever ‘romeos’ and even ‘juliets’ also provide good pictures which may or may not be their own. The heavenly feeling of being in love breaks when one partner dumps another for no valid reasons.

I had once read a very good scholarly article by Monica Whitty on online romance and cheating. Ironically, we Indians used to think that this happens only in the US. But look at the reality now, almost half of my readers in India would have experienced such false cupid attacks either directly or indirectly. In India, we women especially, can’t take this sudden hollowness in the relationship as strongly as our counterparts in the western countries may do. The feeling of being in love is the most sacred and purest feeling. Our mythology tells how Meera and Andal loved Krishna. None could really enjoy his company as his consort Radha did. But these two women are worshipped because of their unconditional pure love to some one whom they believed to be the truth of their lives. I find  digi-love affairs quite the same as that of Meera’s love for Krishna. The lover feels heavenly even if she has not seen the partner or she could not enjoy his physical company ……….. but with one big difference… Lord Krishna kept his promises to make his love immortal; the digi-age lovers break their promises to make the immortal feeling very much mortal. The hard and bitter truth is, the heavenly feeling has been reduced to merely earthly feeling when communication was made much easier through digital technologies. When in a stressed office atmosphere, a good female voice could really feel like a splash of fresh cool breeze.. This is vice versa for women walking on tight ropes as well. We humans tend to fall on unknown shoulders when we need to express our anxiety, expectations etc.In these circumstances, I have noticed that men and women often feel like running away from the existing relationships , perhaps to find some one new, who had never heard about them. Problem begins here. When such communications turn to lovy dovy chats, one may obviously feel that a peculiar feeling of trust is being born every time he/she talks with this stranger. In women this feeling could be stronger. But when this trust suddenly evaporates, it hurts; for, there are so many new ways to suddenly close the windows…. The man on the opposite side may change his SIM to avoid the calls, may change his virtual identity, and may even treat the duped woman ghastly by shattering her image in front of the whole world.   Well, known devils are better than unknown ones, and this maxim stands true in the digi-age, because law can probably compensate for the broken promises, but the broken heart takes it very long to understand that promises in this digi –age are not to be kept.

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), “Promises are made to be broken”, 6^th May,2011, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

  

Grooming the woman for bad

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Grooming the adult women had remained a much unrecognized trend of unethical cyber conduct. Often it is thought that it is the children who can be groomed for the purpose of cyber pornography. I defy such theories, for I have experienced myself how a new internet user can be groomed for  evil purposes. It is particularly very disturbing especially when the user is a woman and who needs emotional supports from outside her own family. The grooming sessions can take place in the public or even in private chat rooms, personal walls or scrapbooks of social networking sties like Orkut, Facebook etc, message boxes and even emails. The typical grooming lesson starts with warm friendly conversations between the harasser and the victim. the groomer may slowly overpower the victim to obey the ‘orders’ such as posting personal pictures, personal informations including financial informations etc; and  to restrain  her from discussing about her internet activities with her immediate family members like her husband, children and/or friends and relatives etc . The victim then becomes confident about her relationship with the groomer and may not accept any resilience as such when she is restricted from using the internet for reaching the groomer.

The grooming session may end when the victim is finally ‘exhibited’ in the internet in a very derogatory form and the perpetrator starts search for another ‘fresh prey’.

True, online grooming of the modern adult women is not an easy task……………..But I can neither accept the fact that these women who may be well educated, can not be groomed. I am using internet for several years for now and I have come across several women who come to internet with a crave to have friends , a good listener (read ‘reader’) of their every day routine of  juggling between husband, children and may be professional work. Home makers especially take internet as a real window to the outside world when their domestic chores are over and husband and children leave home for office and school college purposes. Mostly their status message in their networking profiles are construed as green signals for the groomers.

But do remember, adult female victims of online grooming may never get a favorable position when it comes to comparison between child victims of online grooming and adult victims of online grooming. The obvious reason lies with the level of maturity of the victims. Hence, it is best to be aware of the malpractices in the internet………….. ‘do not talk with strangers’ still stands good for adults especially when the stranger suddenly wants to make one more confident by his warm soothing words.

Wishing all women users a very happy women’s day

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), “Grooming the woman for bad

”, 8^th February,2011, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Do not mess with your wife through cyber space; it could lead to divorce

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Marriages are made in heaven, but divorces may not be made only in the real space. People have found cyber space a perfect platform to express views about others and this may also include ridiculous humiliation of women, including one’s own wife. Truly, off late I have been noticing many ego clashes and typical domestic quarrels taking place through online chats and emails. Not very long ago a Muslim wife was declared legally divorced by the Shariat (Islamik law) when her husband conveyed the word “talaq” three times through online chat (see “Talaq joke during  internet chat may cost youth his marriage”(2010,October,27) in msn news. Retrieved on 25.12.2010 from http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4508570). The write up claims that the husband had unknowingly used the devastating word and that brought the marriage to an abrupt end. But Shariat is not the only legal source to punish such thoughtless idiotic communications which takes toll on marriages. The definition of domestic violence under section 5 of the Protection of women from Domestic Violence Act,2005, may also be cited as one of the preventive legal provisions which bars usage of humiliating, insulting words by husband or relative/s of husband against the victim woman. This law strengthens protection of women from verbal abuse hurled by their men especially when such verbal abuses are carried out by any means including the digital medium.

Sadly enough, in India, many educated men have taken to verbally abusing their wives over their work place designation, relationship with colleagues, child bearing capacity, attitude to their families and homes etc.  This is especially because these men do understand that physical violence over their wives may mar their own reputation as educated, matured and modern young husbands. Hence verbal abuse through internet could be the most sorted after way to express anger and frustration over the marriage relationship. If the  Supreme Court judgments over the grounds of divorce are analyzed in light of digital era, it could be seen that such via-internet mess up may include conveying insulting, humiliating words to the wife through online chat, emails, message box etc, spreading ridiculous messages about the wife to friends and acquaintances, creating fake profiles to irritate the wife etc.

No wonder, women also take to internet to abuse their husbands. Many anti-domestic violence law activists have rightly pointed out that the broad provisions of this Act supporting women almost blindly, may be misused by many women against innocent men. I do support them partly. But in a traditional patriarchal society like India once a woman’s reputation is destroyed by her husband, it is none other than the woman herself who has to suffer the brunt of the “mistake” of her husband. Cyber space must not create the war-zone between the husband and wife. Once it is turned in to so, even the law of the land may also not save the marriage.

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), “Do not mess with your wife through cyber space; it could lead to divorce”, 27^th December,  2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Is your (virtual) boyfriend goading you to show yourself nude? Beware! He might be a cyber sex-addict.

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Very recently I opened an account in MySpace with a gender neutral name to get some more friends. As usual of the cyber trend, I received couple of messages from men and women and when I clicked on the women’s profiles I felt I have wrongly clicked on some porno site. All those girls who sent me requests braved to show their nude body parts, some could have very well be fitted as advertisements for stylish inner wears  for girls, some had smoky eyes, some wore decent dresses but maintained a “breast line” for their hemline to show off their cleavages. Some had low hip jeans pants which ended almost immediately where they begun. Well, I did receive request from men too; some had amazing six packs like movie stars, some had wonderful tattoos on their strong arms, some were again modeling for men’s under wears  and some had very decent dresses on them but the tagline told me they are mischievously decent. Well, this happens with every new user of social networking sites. Women users may get to see many male profile owners who are “really interested” in having a “relationship”. Beware if such profiles show a host of female friends who may have “sexy” profile screen names or sexually explicit pictures like women in bikini, in see-through lingerie, or women showing only nude breasts or groin or parts of these nude body parts. No genuine user would create such profiles in social networking sites specially made for all age groups for socializing. Either these profiles are impersonated profiles or are created for completely adult entertainments. Mostly men, who display such friend-list, suffer from addiction to cyber sex. This term represents a conglomeration of sexual activities including masturbation by getting high level sexual arousal after viewing the sexually arousing images/audio/video movie clippings etc.(see  Cybersex. (2010, December 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:19, December 18, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cybersex&oldid=401497743). If befriended, such men can ask the female friend to come over for live video chat or show her pictures or can even ask for showing nude body parts like bare shoulders, cleavages, size of the waist, naval, the colour of the bra or even panties. Well, the man may not ask these things right at the beginning of the chat or socializing, but he may slowly gain the confidence, and then groom the victim to fulfill his emotional and sexual needs and finally go ahead with these “demands”. If the demands are not fulfilled, the ‘good friend’ can even turn a real ‘hard nut’ who can misuse the previously captured images or personal pictures of the victim that are shared with him.

In India, the recent Bombay High Court judgment about viewing of pornography in private places as a personal right (see http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_bombay-high-court-says-no-to-blanket-ban-on-porn-websites_1357395) may really put such cyber sex addicted people in an advantageous position and the victim may have really nothing to do except repenting over her decision to allow this ‘friend’ to ‘watch’ her for his satisfaction. Hence be careful when choosing a virtual boyfriend. Remember “prevention is better than cure”.

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), “Is your (virtual) boyfriend goading you to show yourself nude? Beware! He might be a cyber sex-addict”, 18^th December,  2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

Match making sites ………do they really match?

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER

Couple of years back one of my friends had a tiff off with her boyfriend and she decided to take revenge in a unique way…….she created a profile in a matrimonial site with a fictitious name and bio to show her boyfriend how much in demand she is still now.  Fortunately she was wise enough not to give her own personal details except her good old granny’s phone number which she often used as a ‘spare number’ . In no time, her inbox was flooded with proposals asking her to send her picture immediately. Some were from the prospective grooms; some were from the parents of ‘boys’. She played a trick. She chose one proposal from a prospective groom who described himself ‘good looking’, ‘in his thirties’, ‘caring’, ‘well paid’ and ‘only son of parents’. She fixed up an appointment with this Mr. Handsome in a public place (well, she knew it was a ‘game’ so she dared not to see him in a restaurant or a ‘lover’s corner’). He obviously exhibited a very charming picture in his profile page and he indicated that he would be in ‘pink’ shirt as my friend loved that soothing colour. She reached the place in time and hid herself in the crowd to keep a watch on this Mr. Pink. There he appeared, gave a message to her mobile about the exact place where he is standing and told he is eagerly waiting to see his lovely would be bride.; he was medium built, half bald, had a good bulging belly. My friend probably guessed all these. She came back, changed her number and withdrew her profile from the site..........Both of them were not right and my friend promised that never again she would play such tricks...... and perhaps the man was a habitual 'flirt'.

This is not a new story for many readers…..isn’t it?  Cheating through matrimonial sites has become very common phenomena now days. Although the sites do caution the viewer about reliability of the informations provided by the account creators, many parents rely on the face value of the profile holders than the real value of their daughter’s life. At the same time,  I also know another friend of mine who is now leading a blissful married life due to matrimonial site…she chose her husband from the matrimonial site herself after having a thorough investigation done by her friends and acquaintances and finally she even dropped in herself with her parents to check the reality.

            Marriages through online matchmakers really have a 50-50 chance especially when one does not search properly. Internet has given a platform to create numerous avatars of oneself and it has indeed become very easy to cheat. I have noticed that there are sockets which can easily pull the ‘ignorant’ participant/s to the vicious web; these are as follows:

Anxiousness of  parents who want their daughters to get married by hook or crook;

Eagerness to get ‘foren’ bridegrooms;

Presumption that the ‘boy’ really earns and owns a good fortune;

The peculiar Indian mindset that ‘looks really don’t matter for men when they can feed their wives well and look after them comfortably’;

Lack of awareness about the dangerous ‘side effects’ of internet match-makings.

Some may argue……what is so special to talk negatively about internet matchmaking when people can be cheated in offline real life match making too……Well, there IS some thing to talk about. There are always chances that the girl’s personal informations and pictures are misused and her reputation is so much jeopardized that she may never be considered as a ‘good girl’ in the marriage market. What pains me more is, these innocent victims become heavily depressed and withdrawn for some mischievous activities of others.

            Well, the good news is, in India, we do have good laws both under Indian Penal code and also under Information Technology Act which can nail the charlatan. Both these laws can be applied to book the mischief monger under sections dealing with cheating and impersonating primarily and also under provisions which safeguard one’s privacy, reputation etc. But the bad news is,  suing  the matrimonial sites may not be fruitful for the fraudulent activities of the fake ‘prospective groom’, as they enjoy  immunity from this very liability (especially when they have  already exercised due diligence).

Hence the only way to be safe when going for matchmaking through internet is, to search and research and then refresh the search.

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), “Match making sites ………do they really match?”,October  2010, published in  http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com/

EXTORTION OF A DIFFERENT KIND

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN BY DEBARATI HALDER
www.cybervictims.org

As practitioners, students and also researchers, all of us are familiar with the term extortion and its related consequences. But I wish to discuss something other than ordinary extortions. No, it is not coercion for money, but it is coercion for sexually explicit pictures and lust for having such images in one’s personal computer for further purposes; or in one word ‘sextortion’ that is the prime focus of this blog of “Centre for Cyber Crime Victim Counselling (CCVC)”©. The word sounds peculiar…...isnt it ? But most researchers on cyber crime and internet pornography, especially those who are dealing with child-victims, may have come across this term. It is actually a form of exploitation where the accused coerces the victim for more sexually explicit pictures for future hardcore pornographic use.* Often Sextortion may also begin with ‘sexting’** by the victim himself/herself; that’s a risky game in real sense where one captures self nude or seminude images and floats it in the web to ‘show off’. General internet users, women and children especially may face this problem where harasser may suddenly start playing dirty tricks after he befriended the victim under the guise of ‘visitor’. Perhaps exchange of a few words about sexual orientation, personal interests and a peep into the personal albums may be enough for extorting sexually explicit images. There are umpteen numbers of examples where teenagers and young adults had fallen victims of this. Especially high school teenagers, who may have started experiencing the adventurous, daredevil days, may be in the high risk zone. No wonder, in some cases women are also the vulnerable victims especially when they are novice internetters and befriend one and all through chatrooms, social networking sites or even dating sites. Sextortion could happen in ways one can only think of in his/her bad dreams ……may be peer networking and then hacking or may be simple data mining from ‘unprotected’ online profiles. My quick research on this topic lead me to a news clipping “Man pleads in apparent sextortion case” (could be found in http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/man-pleads-in-apparent-sextortion-case-20100719) and I was nearly shocked to find this man was pleaded NOT GUILTY for a train of federal charges which he confessed to have done on the instigation of some over zealous cautious male intimate partners.

What could have been the case as per Indian laws? Well, seen from a holistic legal point of view, extortions such as these could be a complete NO as per our laws. There are several penal provisions both from the Indian penal Code and also from the Information Technology Act 2000 (amended in 2008) which could team up to give a good lesson to these sorts of accused. Note that these provisions may push these types of cases to non bailable offence also especially when the harasser decides to play over smart.

But do not think these are new ‘games’ in the Indian cyber space. Such tricks are already experimented and many innocent victims do tend to fall in the trap. Hence be careful.

*see Sextortion. (2010, August 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:48, September 1, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sextortion&oldid=379740340 and also see “Feds: online sextortion of the teens on the rise” .Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_sextortion_teens

** see Sexting. (2010, August 31). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:24, September 1, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexting&oldid=382156023

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), “Extortion of different kind”, 1st September, 2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com"

Abuse of intimate moments in the cyber ways

CYBER CRIME AGAINST WOMEN
http://www.cybervictims.org


Often I am asked why plight of adult women in the internet bothers me more than children. It is disheartening to note that adult women often suffer more than children do and few understand the problems. There are many vicious windows which portray women in nasty styles .Earlier when I was researching on these sites, especially on adult entertainment sites, I noted that these sites present apparently “very legal” pictures; for instance, the viewer needs to certify that he/she is not a minor, the sites display that models have acted with their free will and none are minors even though some may look like minors. But what whirled around in my head was……… are these models playing really as per their free wills? Well, in certain circumstances I doubt and I have every reason to doubt. As a cyber crime researcher and counselor, I get to see many cases where releasing either original or morphed  intimate pictures, videos etc, showcasing women especially, has become a fashion for showing revenge taking power for many broken hearts. Couple of months back, I wrote a blog on ‘forced pornography’. Well, in this blog I wish to discuss about some ‘real breach of trusts’ through adult entertainment sites, ‘storage websites’ with capacity of store huge MBs of files , peer to peer networking etc. Often men and women enter into ‘forbidden experiments’ either coerced by emotional needs or just for experimenting. In such intimate moments either both of them consent or one is forced to consent by the other partner for emotional needs. What the female partner do not consent for, is clicking her in this ‘too much private’ situation. These people are mostly not married couple but may be committed or may not be. Well, this had never remained new phenomena, but what emerged as a new fashion is to take undue advantage of this situation in the very cyber way.  Often these pictures or videos are offered to many unwanted sites which are possibly the best revenge for breaking hearts one can think of. A year back I came across an article which pointed out how possibly internet helps to carry on trafficking of women for sex industries. Perhaps this is one of easiest ways to traffic women virtually. Now, where does the breach of trust or abuse of intimate moments arise here?

Internet has become a way of life for us. Internet provides every single information we need. Practically after the internet revolution many people forgot the ways to real life libraries, smell of old and new books and even the patience to read the good old books. Well , well…….definitely I belong to one of those who now rarely visit libraries. People of my sort love to stay in the internet as long as it is possible and no wonder, several men and also women love to get sexual pleasure from such adult entertainment sites. Imagine the plight of those innocent women who would have popped up in these sites without their knowledge and even consent. How much humiliation these women may go through when some inquisitive, caring friend or relative  makes an international call/long distance call /lands up at the door step suddenly  to let  such victims know what has happened…!

Do our Indian laws say some thing? Well, off course yes. The Indian Penal Code, the century old caretaker of Indian victims’ rights may be mentioned as foremost. Section 509 strictly prohibits harming the modesty of women with a penal punishment  which may run to one year imprisonment or fine or both. The mischief was given a more strict approach through  Indecent representation of women (prohibition) Act 1986, which through section 3 and 4 aims to prohibit indecent representation of women; this Act writes a stronger note  when such women victims are depicted in that particular indecent  fashion without their consent and knowledge. Quite in the same line, Indian information Technology Act (Amended) 2008 also prohibits intrusion into the privacy of women ( and also men) in the cyber way through section 66E which prohibits voyeurism and prescribes punishment for three years and also a huge monetary fine; the Act further prohibits publishing obscene materials under section 67 and materials containing sexually explicit materials under section 67A . Note that   the later section prescribes a noncognizant, non bailable imprisonment for a term of maximum 7 years.

 Readers, don’t be surprised to note that even though these ‘seems to be strong laws’ operate in our country, innocent women are still being  exhibited in these adult entertainment sites. Humiliation piles up, victimization leaves a deep trauma and those behind these nasty activities feel this is the magic of cyber space. People don’t forget, one moment’s mistake can land you in legal trouble for ever……………no matter whether it is cyber space or real space, law will never forgive such mischief mongers.

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), “Abuse of intimate moments in the cyber ways”, June  2010, published in http://debaraticyberspace.blogspot.com"