May30: US President has created a
controversy involving Cyber Laws by using "Autopen" to sign an important
constitutional document from afar. It is reported that the "PATRIOT Act"
was due for renewal and required the President's signature which could
not be physically obtained within the stipulated time since Mr Obama was
abroad. He authorized the use of "Autopen" to sign the Bill. Report in NDTV : NewYorkTimes.
:
The decision opens up a Pandora's box as to the
legality of "Signatures". ...
More
Corporate AGM online
May 29: Ministry of Company Affairs has been one of
the most ardent promoters of ITA2000/8. It was MCA which made digital
signatures mandatory and gave a lease of new life to Certifying
authorities in India. Now MCA has also clarified that it is possible to
conduct shareholder's meetings virtually. Naavi's CEAC in conjunction
with Arbitration. in provides a cyber law compliantvirtual
meeting solution for
companies. Hopefully companies take advantage of the provision. Related
Article
Role of Media in ensuring that Justice Reaches People
May 27: The
fact that the President of India cleared a mercy petition of a victim
who had been convicted 7 years ago by the highest Court of the land has
naturally made news. If the Executive which has to only review the facts
and circumstances based on the trials already conducted in three or four
different Courts needs 7 year’s time to decide yes or no on the mercy
petition, no body can blame the Judiciary which takes ages to decide on
the underlying cases.
It is in this
context that the role of Media in highlighting certain cases becomes
useful to the society. Though we may call it as “Trial by Media”, it
often quicker decisions. The need for such media intervention is
therefore necessary to ensure that the judicial system is not rendered
more and more inefficient due to lack of timely delivery of justice...More
Cyber Appellate Tribunal Sitting
in Chennai again
May 27: In
only the second such instance the Cyber Appellate Tribunal (CAT) which
is the appellate authority over Adjudication of contravention of
Information Technology Act 2000/8(ITA2008) will be sitting in Chennai on
1st June 2011. The CAT will hear proceedings on three pending cases of
Phishing one of which is on ICICI Bank and two on Punjab National Bank.
NewYork Police Blunders in Cyber
Crime Investigation
May25: In
a case of a shocking blunder, the New York Police have committed a grave
blunder by misreading the IP address and addressing a wrong person who
happened to be arrested, handcuffed and humiliated for an offence not
committed by her. On the other hand when the real culprit was later
identified, it appears that he was not arrested or handcuffed. The
arrested girl, Ms Krittika happened to be a daughter of an Indian
diplomat and even her claims of diplomatic privilege was ignored. The
offence itself was trivial and concerned sending abusive e-mails to the
teacher. In the whole episode, New York Police come out as inefficient
and racist. Related
Article
Regional Consultation on Cyber
Laws
May 23: National
Legal Service Authority (NALSA) conducted a Regional Consultation meet
on Cyber laws in Hyderabad on 21st and 22nd of May 2011. Honourable
Justice Sri Altamas Kabir, a Judge of Supreme Court of India and
Executive Chairman NALSA presided over the event. Several eminent
Judicial personalities including Chief Justice of Gauhati, Honourable
Sri Madan Lokkur, Chief Justice of Orissa, Honourable Sri Gopala Gowda,
Chief Justice of AP and Executive Chairman AP State Legal Services
Authority, Honourable Sri B.Prakash Rao, Presiding Officer of Cyber
Appellate Tribunal, Hnourable Sri Rajesh Tandon and several others
participated in the event. Honourable Minister of Law of the Government
of AP, Sri E.Pratap Reddy was also present.
The meet represented a grand summit
of the Judicial authorities in the States of Orissa, West Bengal,
Jharkand, Bihar, Chattisgarh, Sikkim and Andaman and Nicobar and
Hyderabad appears to have emerged as the preferred center for this group
of Eastern States to deliberate on Cyber Law and Cyber Crime related
issues.
Naavi participated in the program
as one of the speakers during the session on "Challenges and Issues in
Cyber Laws "and placed the Netizen's perspective of the issues focussing
the issues surrounding Cyber Judiciary. A
summary of Naavi's presentation made during the event is available here.
New Regulations Under ITA 2008
May23: A
copy of the new notifications dated April 11, 2011 under Sec 6A, Under
Sections 43A and 79 along with a notification on Cyber Cafes is now
available here. All notifications under ITA 2000/8 are to be placed
before the Parliament before notification. It is not clear when these
notifications have been placed before the Parliament. Information on
this is awaited. Copies of
the Notification are
available here. Sec
6A, Sec
43A and 79, Cyber
Cafe:
The notifications have been a
subject of criticism on several grounds. More discussions on these will
follow.
New Adjudicator for Tamil Nadu
May20: With
the change of Government in Tamil Nadu, there has been a shuffling of
the IAS officers. In the process the Principal Secretary IT of Tamil
Nadu has been replaced and Dr Sathosh Babu who was presently the
Managing Director of ELCOT has been appointed as the new IT Secretary of
the State. It is to be recognized that the post of IT Secretary in a
State also carries the responsibility of the Adjudication under ITA
2000. In effect the IT Secretary is the Chief Civil Judge of the State
for adjudicating against any contravention of ITA 2000.
Mr P W C Davidar had been an
exceptional officer who held the post of Adjudicating officer with
dignity and a kind of expertise which is rare. It was during his tenure
that four cases of Phishing were resolved. His landmark judgment in the
case of S.Umashankar Vs ICICI Bank has made it into all Cyber Law text
books and will remain as the trend setter in the development of Cyber
Judiciary in India. It was not surprising that after the Umashankar
verdict the presence of an office of Adjudication became known and
nearly 16 other cases came to be registered with him. At the time of his
transfer nearly 14 cases are pending of which two cases against PNB are
significant. These cases are significant since the Bank tried all tricks
ethical and unethical to ensure that the case could not be completed on
schedule and got adjourned on several pretexts only to ensure that the
case does not get decided before the change of guard.
As a result, the new Adjudicator
will need to take stock of the developments of last 6 months before
proceeding with the adjudication and inevitably the poor victims of
Cyber Crimes who were hoping that their cases would be decided within
the statutory period of 4 months will now have to wait much longer.
We hope that the new Adjudicator
would quickly get into operation and continue with the case from where
it was left off. The situation is a test for Cyber Judiciary system as
it would determine how the system functions when there is change of the
Adjudicator midstream in an ongoing case. The advocates representing the
parties would perhaps demand a fresh enquiry where has the victims feel
done in by the system and the delays which are common in Civil Cases but
were sought to be removed in the Cyber Judiciary system. Since the
Adjudication system is an "Enquiry" process and is not bound by the
Civil Procedure Code, it is open to the Adjudicator to device his own
system for continuance of the pending proceedings to uphold the
principle of natural justice which is the driving principle of
Adjudication under ITA 2000/8
International Perspective of
Rules under ITA 2008
May19: Here
is an international perspective of the proposed rules under ITA 2008
draft of which were released on April 11th 2011. The rules need to be
Gazetted. There are several objections raised regarding the rules and a
final word has not been said as yet... Article
Will Banks take note of this
flaw in their security system?
May17: Banks have been
claiming that internet banking is safer with SMS alert systems being in
place. RBI seems to innocently agree with the same. Now this warning
from Delhi Police should open the eyes of RBI and the Banks. The Delhi
Police has pointed out to the modus operandi of fraudsters to divert the
SMS alerts to cloned SIM cards preventing the account holder from
getting any alerts. This diversion of SMS alerts are used in conjunction
with phishing to commit frauds.The so called 2F authentication through
OTP also suffers from the same weakness since OTP can be obtained
through the cloned SIM. RBI should therefore consider 2F authentication
though SMS as inadequate security.. HT
News
One More Phishing Complaint
upheld in Chennai
May 17: After the
Landmark judgement in April 12, 2010 in the case of S.Umashankar Vs
ICICI Bank, the adjudicator of Tamil Nadu has delivered another
judgement in the case of Thomas Raju Vs ICICI Bank holding the Bank
liable to repay the loss sustained by the customer on account of
unauthorized access to his account. Though these cases are generally
termed as "Phishing" cases, it is always the Bank that claims that no
body can access the account without the customer sharing his password
and try to paint all cases as cases of negligence by the customer.
However in the case of Thomas Raju, the customer claimed not to have
received any phishing mail at all. In two other cases before the
adjudicator of Tamil Nadu involving PNB, the customers have claimed not
to have divulged one of the two passwords required for passing the
transactions. It therefore appears that these are not strictly phishing
cases but are cases where there is a prima facie failure of security in
the Banking system.
It may also be noted from the website of TN Government that in the last
year ICICI Bank has entered into compromise in two more cases where
ICICI Bank was involved. Thus to 4 customers of ICICI Bank in the last
year have found relief through adjudication. I hope that the legal
community would consider making use of the adjudication system in every
State in appropriate cases in future. Copy
of Judgement
Why
top law students in India donot want to practice?
May 16: Legal
profession has in the past been considered as a noble profession where
public spirited persons may serve those who need the support of the
judiciary for relief when they were victims of some contravention of
law. ....It is therefore heartening to note that bright young people are
showing some interest in the profession as is indicated by the response
to the competitive examination, CLAT 2011 which determines the
qualifiers to enter into the prestigious National Law Schools. ...More
RTI Appeal with RBI remains unanswered
May15: Naavi
had filed an RTI application with RBI regarding the G Gopalakrishna
Working group report. The information officer had rejected the
information on grounds of national security interests. An appeal had
been preferred on the same on April 1st. Even after 45 days, there is no
response from the appeal authority. A reminder has been sent today. The
application and the RBI reply is being made available through this site
so that somebody in Mumbai can assist me in pursuing the request. RTI
Application : Reply
received: Appeal
Unauthorised Blocking of websites is also an
offence
May10: It
is observed that many websites and articles are being blocked by ISPs.
It is presumed that at least some of these are done on the basis of
informal orders from the DIT. If ISPs donot have a formal written order
to block a website then their action can be termed as "Denial Of
Service" under Section 43 and 66 of ITA 2008. ISPs should therefore
clarify if the blocking of websites such as bloggernews.net have been
properly authorized. Since some of the articles of Naavi which have been
blocked cannot be justified under national interests, the blocking of
the sites can only be termed illegal. If action is initiated, some
officials of ISPs may find themselves answerable to law...provided law
cannnot be bent by the influential !
The end of Naavi.org in sight?
May 10: Given
the trend of website blocking resorted to by the Government of India,
DIT, it will not be surprising that Naavi.org may be the next target for
being blocked by the Government of India, DIT. In the recent days there
have been so many objectionable happenings in the Indian Cyber space
that it becomes impossible not to express opposition through the
website. However this makes many in the administration unhappy. The
current approach of the GOI is tending towards the "emergency day
arrogance" and hence there is a reasonable expectation that Naavi.org
would be forced to close down.
If this happens, the nearly 14 year old crusade on
"Creating a Responsible Cyber Society" being pursued by Naavi may come
to an end. In the past whenever websites are blocked, they have remained
blocked for an indefinite time and hence our communication with the
readers may get cut off. I therefore would like to to place this
contingent obituary on the site and thank all those who were supportive
of Naavi.org in the past.
Even if Naavi.org is blocked in India it is intended
to continue the publication for the international audience and those who
can access the site from outside India may still continue to receive the
site.
Is Bloggernews.net blocked?
May10: It
appears that not being satisfied with the blocking of a selective
article on bloggernews.net, the Government of India has now blocked the
entire URL www.bloggernews.net.
It is not clear if this was a result of any Court action. There is a
possibility that this could be because of this article on "Calling
attention of CVC.." or it may be due to this
article where a copy of
the letter sent to RBI Governor is published though in such a case it is
likely to be an administrative order not backed by any Court order. Related
Article in Statesman. Related
Article in techgoss.com
Fake EVMs in West Bengal
May10: Fake
EVMs have been detected in Midnapore, West Bengal where Trinamool
Congress workers have also been accused of having prevented voters from
casting votes. It would be interesting to observe if cases will be
booked under ITA 2008.... IE
Story
Beware of Osama related Cyber Frauds
May4: With
a high interest in the cyber space to know more about the killing of
Osama Bin Laden and view the photographs, it is expected that Cyber
Crime perpetrators will exploit this interest in enticing Netizens to
visit malicious websites and implant trojans and viruses. Sympathizers
may also be lured into advance free frauds in the form of donations.
Netizens may therefore refrain from visiting any site not known to be an
official website of a reputed agency. If a search is thrown up on
Google, Netizens should verify the hyper link and check if the URL is
correct. It is preferable to type the URL where known. Related
article in Chicago times
G Gopalakrishna Working Group Report notified
May1:RBI has notified Banks on information
security guidelines in e-Banking based on the G Gopalakrishna working
group report. It would be interesting to analyze the RBI notification in
comparison with the original report and its recommendations. Naavi.org
would provide its views in due course. Copy
of RBI Circular
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