another example of the Credit Card industry's deceptive advertising targeting children
cartoon of the month

Monday, May 23, 2005

Information Technology Act 2000 myths

Is it any wonder that Cyber Crime in India is exploding if the national press publishes ill informed stories like this? Secondly what is the quality of courses and faculty at the Asian School of Cyber Laws if they publicise this kind of garbage and mis-information?

(source: Zahra Khan Times News Network)

Beware what you access on your computer. The cyber police is on the prowl.

Did you know that creating an e-mail account on a false name is illegal? Did you also know that forwarding pornographic pictures to your friends over the internet makes you criminally liable? And that you could be fines crores of rupees in addition to jail time for such ‘crimes’?

Every day, millions of people use the internet to send and receive e-mails, download files and surf websites looking for information or gratification among other things. Every little thing that we do the internet is stored in our computer’s hard disk and can be traced back to us if need be.

After the IT revolution came the inevitable cyber crimes. What followed was the IT Act 2000. as per the Act, any “unlawful acts wherein the computer is used, either as a tool or a target or both” is termed as a ‘cyber crime’.

Imagine forwarding a humorous e-mail attachment to a few of your friends. The next thing you know you’ve been accused of sending an e-mail virus through the attachment. Even sending a virus unknowingly or accidentally can make you liable for up to rupees four crore as fine. And of course, the jail time for three years, if you get convicted. But this is only Section 43 (c) of the Act.

Section 67 of the IT Act is the most serious legislative measure against pornography. Offences of ‘publishing, transmitting or causing to be published, pornographic material in electronic form’ are registered under this section. If you send or forward anything even remotely pornographic in content, it becomes a case of unauthorized electronic publishing, and the Act prescribes imprisonment of up to five years plus rupees one lakh as fine, if the case is a first conviction.

Shuchi Nagpal, the Information Officer at the Asian School of Cyber Laws explains,”the reason why cyber crimes attract greater criminal liability as compared to regular criminal cases, is because the extent of damage is far reaching. Take the case of cyber pornography for instance. Pornographic distribution is not that much through magazines, but over the internet. In order to achieve stricter implementation of cyber rules and to curb illegal activities on the internet, such stringent laws with serious consequences have been enforced.”

‘Hacking’ or the unauthorized access of computer systems and networks is covered by Section 66. it provides for imprisonment of up to three years and a fine of rupees two lakh as penalization. Nowadays, almost all companies have employees logging onto systems with a unique username and password. If someone misuses your identity on the network, then you become liable, whether it was you who committed the crime or not.

Another activity that could get you in a lot of trouble is posting on internet message boards and bulletins. If you happen to be in an internet discussion group or forum and post some remarks or personal opinions, especially against the Government or the Constitution of India, you become criminally liable and can be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted!

A big misconception among the masses is that such crimes cannot be traced. On the contrary, tracking emails is very simple. Each time you log on to the internet, you are allotted an IP address which is very easy to trace within a matter of minutes and in some cases hours. But nevertheless, it can be tracked. Another method of tracking down an email is to view the header – all you need to do is the press ‘Options’ button in your e-mail program and go to ‘Preferences’.

This will throw up two boxes where you can view the origin of the e-mail in full detail, including the IP address.

So every time you log on to the internet, be careful what you do. For all you know you might have the men in khaki knocking at your door, and of course your PC!

Do you know your cyber laws?

* Section 43 (c) - sending a virus - Rs four crore fine, three years jail
* Section 67 – forwarding pornographic material - Rs one lakh fine, five years jail
* Section 66 – Hacking into accounts - Rs two lakh fine, three years jail
* Posting remarks against the Government or Constitution – life imprisonment

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home