If one goes by Cyber Crime statistics in India, it appears
that cases under Sec 292 of IPC and 67 of ITA-2000 on Cyber Cafe owners seem
to be dominating the scene. Apart from Tamil Nadu Police cracking e-mail
threat cases to VIP s in TN and MP, and the Bomb Hoax case in Delhi, there
does not seem to be any other worth while cases involving say solving a Credit Card frauds or a Hacking
or Virus contamination
naavi.org has also pointed out that the real war on Cyber
pornography has to be fought on the number of unsolicited E-Mails that are
being sent to the VSNL e-mail box in Chennai and elsewhere. There has been a
criminal negligence of the Police and VSNL in not taking efforts to block
pornographic e-mails sent to "All Recipients@md2.vsnl.net.in" or similar
addresses (Some of the cases have been reported in naavi.org earlier).
On the other hand, the poor Cyber Cafe owners from Belgaum
to Jaipur, Meerut to Mumbai are being repeatedly harassed for the activities
of the browsers on which the Cyber Cafe owner has little control.
In particular, Mumbai police seem to have made it an ego
issue that ID cards are to be issued to all Cyber Cafe users. This move which
had been mooted some time back had been relegated to the background because of
public opposition. Even naavi.org, in spite of it's un compromising stand on
the need to block Cyber Porno attack on Indian youth, strongly opposes the move
which is reminiscent of the "Passes" that the Black population in South Africa
were once made to carry forcing young Gandhi to take up a struggle
which changed the course of world history.
But now the same move has come back as an "Expert Panel
View" as the only solution to the problem of tackling Pornography in Cyber
cafes. The Committee appointed by Mumbai High Court to give its report to the
court based on a PIL has come up with a view that "Content Filtering" is
not effective and could block even good sites and hence they recommend the
issue of ID Cards .
While one agrees that the Content filter software is not
perfect, it is strange that the panel thinks that the "ID System" can
effectively check the Porno viewing. The suggestion has not taken into
consideration, the practical difficulties such as
"Who will issue the ID s?",
" Who will monitor their Use? " etc
If a person who is not having a valid ID
tries to use a Cyber Cafe for sending an e-mail, under what law can he be
punished?.
If a person with ID continues to watch Porno sites, What
action can be taken?
Will the ID card be confiscated for any violations?
What action can be taken if the porno viewing activity
shifts to private homes where Internet access is available?
If ID is required for Internet users, why not ID
for all STD booth users since several terrorist out fits use public
telephones to send out threats or exchange messages. Why this discrimination
for Computer users? ..
...are some of the other questions that can be
raised.
The expert committee has come to a hasty decision not
backed by realistic assessment of the practical and ethical issues involved in
carrying out their suggestion on ID Cards.
It is sad that while Mumbai Police has turned a blind eye
to many restaurants letting out secret resting places for couples, during day
time when many young boys and girls frequent the restaurants for lunch or
snacks, they seem to be hell bent on controlling Cyber Cafes as if they
are the center of all sins in Mumbai. This is neither necessary nor desirable.
It would be far simpler to have a Content filter even if it
blocks good sites, since they can be unblocked selectively.
naavi.org humbly requests the community to think on the
feasibility of the following two proposals to prevent misuse of Cyber Cafes
by some errant owners.
Suggestion 1: "Clean Cyber Cafe Certification" from
Citizen watch dog committees.
Under this scheme, an NGO will take up the responsibility
for defining "Good Cyber Cafe Management Practices" and urge all Cyber cafes
to voluntarily adopt it. The representatives of the NGO who are volunteers
will keep filing their observations on Cyber cafe's in their respective areas
as to the extent of compliance of the good practices. Based on the flow of
information, different degrees of Certification would be given to different
Cyber cafes. Those who want decent crowd to visit their Cyber cafe will sport
such certificates prominently so that public will respect them.
The good practices will include not only Content
filtration, but also other measures such as visitor log maintenance, Computer
log maintenance, Instructions given to browsers to avoid Cyber Crimes etc. The
compliance will be voluntary from the owner and no restrictions will be
directly imposed on the citizens.
Suggestion 2: Maintenance of a data base of Sites to
be blocked which can be integrated with the Content Advisory feature in the
Internet Explorer or a Filtering software.
Since the Content Filtering softwares are automated and are not intelligent, they can block BSE site which contains Sensex
details along with sites with sex information, even while they can let many porno
sites sporting good names. There is a need therefore to add and delete sites
to the list of sites used by the filtering software. No doubt this is a
massive job since there will be millions of sites in the world carrying
obscene material.
However, if Police can extend their support, Naavi.org
would like to maintain and update a data base of sites that needs to be
blocked because they contain obscene material. This data base can be
made accessible on line by all Cyber Cafes, Schools and Companies so that the
security feature in their browsers can be turned on to implement the blocking
of the sites.
It is then sufficient for the Police to ensure that the
"Good Practices" of Cyber cafe includes tuning in to this "Online Clean
Content Advisory Services" and there will be no need to introduce a system of
"Visas to Cyber Space" as proposed by the expert committee in Mumbai.
Naavi
February 19, 2002
Related Article in Indian Express
Views from a US based Indian
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