A Complete Forensic Lab in Your Breifcase ICS Presents Road Masster II

Yet Another e-Bay Fraud Mail

Further to the earlier e-bay Billing e-mail fraud attempt reported here, yet another e-mail containing a false Fraud alert has been sent from an e-mail address impersonating e-Bay, details of which are available here. Netizens are advised to be alert not to respond to such messages....Details

The Cohesion of Law, Justice and Technology

Mr Praveen Dalal, a practicing High Court Lawyer from Delhi has been kind enough to send a well written article on the response of Judiciary in India on Information Technology. Naavi.org thanks him for the article and his kind words sent along with the article....Click Here for the Article

Beware of e-Bay Billing Update Fraud

An e-mail is under circulation in the name of e-bay Billing Update which appears to be an attempt at phishing for critical information from the unwary Netizens.

Netizens may kindly take steps not to fall prey.........Details here

Microsoft to Check Server ID to check SPAM

Microsoft is preparing to filter e-mail messages sent to its Hotmail, MSN and Microsoft.com mail accounts to see if they come from valid e-mail servers, as identified by the Sender ID, according to a company executive. The company is strongly urging e-mail providers and Internet service providers (ISPs) to publish Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records that identify their e-mail servers in the domain name system (DNS) by mid-September.

Presently many corporate networks have blocked e-mails emanating from hotmail and hotmail address owners are warned that their messages may be simply lost in Cyber space without a warning.

Now if VSNL, SIFY or Dishnet fail to register their e-mail server IDs, Hotmail address owners may not receive e-mails from any sender from these servers.

It is high time that network managers realize the consequences of such actions that reduce the reliability of the e-mail systems... Details at infoworld.com

Beware of the Trojan that promises to show Osama's suicide

A Trojan is reported to be in circulation hidden behind a message that promises to show pictures of Osam Bin Laden's suicide. Netizens are advised to ignore the message....Details at News.com

India should get ready for IPV6

ICANN has announced that its root servers are now ready to accept IPV6 domain addresses. These 64 bit addresses will extend the availability of domain addresses based on the current 32 bit IPV4 addresses. The availability of IP addresses is critical to the development of Internet based services including mobile services. India with one of the highest populations needs to have its allocation of share in the addresses.

When IPV4 addresses were allocated, India got 0.05 % of the available addresses while US got 70 %. I urge the Indian Government to take measures to prevent such anomalies in the IPV6 allocation since this this affects the growth of the economy.

If necessary, India should invoke WSIS into the allocation process since the relevance of ICANN has diminished after the WSIS. ..Details at news.com

ISAC 2004 Highlights e-Trust

The three day International Conference on e-Governance, i Assurance and Forensics conducted between July 21-23, 2004, by e-Information Systems, Security and Audit Association of India at Hotel Le Meridien, New Delhi concluded with a call for a collaborative effort from the IT community for enhancing integrity and reliability of e-transactions. Several industry majors such as AMD and Wipro as well as officials and professionals involved in e-Governance Cyber Security and Assurance Audit participated in the programme. Mrs Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi while inaugurating the seminar suggested that all measures would be taken to make Delhi the preferred IT destination in India. (More information on the deliberations will be available at www.eissa.org).

Parents Ignorant of Internet Risks

A study by the London School of Economics has indicated that 57 per cent of children aged between nine and nineteen have seen net porn. Most of them stumbled on it accidentally via spam or pop-ups. What is more revealing is that good number of the parents did not appear to know of such risks though a majority of them wanted to have tougher laws over online pornography.

The study underscores the responsibilities of Schools and Public Service organizations in educating the parents on the risks and how to handle them.

 Details at Sify.com

Microsoft Patents Human Body

Microsoft is reported to have patented (US Patent 6,754,472) a technology for using human body as a conducting medium to create a computer network...More in TOI.

RFID Access Control System in Parliament

It is reported that RFID cards and Face recognition systems are to be used in conjunction to monitor physical access to Parliament to prevent unauthorised intrusions...Report in TOI

The New Avtar of the Nigerian Scam

Naavi.org has earlier reported to several versions of the Nigerian scam, its Iraqi and Nepali versions. We now place before you the interesting story of how the scamster himself was duped by a volunteer at 419eater.com which is educative.

I also bring to your notice the latest version of the scam which takes the compassionate route on sympathy for cancer patients. Readers are advised to keep away from responding to such mails.

IBM, HP and others question patent on JPEG

Major Companies including IBM, HP and others have sought  to invalidate a patent for the JPEG standard of digital-image processing alleging that the patent holders are "attempting unlawfully to subvert the JPEG standard and to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in unwarranted profits" ..Details at San Mateo County Times

Fonts as intellectual Property..views of Lawrence

Naavi.org has received a comprehensive analysis on the copyrightability of fonts from Mr Lawrence of Kolkata. We thank Mr Lawrence for this contribution...Details

No Copyright on Fonts.?..." It is ridiculous"

Mr Anand, M.D. of the Company which produced "Akruti",  a Kannada font which was allegedly misappropriated by the free software developer Mr. Sheshadri Vasu of "Baraha" expresses his views...Details

We respect the views of Mr Anand. However his attention is drawn to the legal cases cited herein where a distinction is made between "Typeface", "Glyphs" and "Software that produces Fonts" and the copyrightability or patentability are discussed...Ed

An Interesting Case

Mr Prashant, an advocate of Mumbai says "While I personally feel yes fonts cannot be copyrighted I feel the process ie the software or the programme written for this purpose can be still copyrighted There is a fine line that distiguishes these issues."

Mr Prashant has also forwarded details of a case sent by Mr Basil Almeida.

Copyright on "Fonts"..Praveen Dalal

The object of Copyright Act, 1957 is to protect intellectual creations of the concerned persons on the one hand and to maintain a balance between the public interest and the rights of that person on the other hand. The concept of public interest is given a paramount importance in our constitutional scheme, which is a mandate of a welfare State like India. The ultimate fate of the claim of copyright in “fonts” depends upon that fact whether it satisfy the requirements of both the Constitution of India and the Copyright Act, 1957. Even if the copyright is claimed or granted in this situation, the same can be challenged, perhaps successfully, in the given facts and circumstances...More

There have been several responses on the issue of Copyright on Fonts" which present interesting views. These views will be presented in these columns for the purpose of academic discussion. Views expressed herein are the views of the individual authors unless otherwise  specified...Naavi

Can "Fonts" be Copyrighted?

Of late there has been a discussion on the web on copyright of the fonts of "Kannada" which is a language used by over 50 million persons in India and officially recognized by the constitution of India....While thinking on this issue, it is necessary for the community to consider if at all it is correct for copyright to be recognized for "Fonts"..."Font" is a written expression of a language or the alphabets of a language. ...Any copyright claim on the "Font" indirectly claims the "Copyright" on the language itself.

I wish that Netizen right activists take up this issue in the appropriate forum and fight for the "Free Licensing" of Fonts...Alternatively, the Government .. should legislate that "Fonts" should be subject matter of "Compulsory Free Licensing". ...More

Channeling the Youth With ICT

World Assembly of Youth (WAY), youth wing of United Nations Organisation organised a dialogue at Melaka, Malaysia on 28, 29 and 30th June 2004 to discuss the 'Youth participation in decision making process'.  One of the comments made in the deliberations by Mr Donald Charumbira, Secretary General of World Assembly of Youth was that a youth structure was missing in US and efforts are required to be made for providing employment to youth to prevent them from deviating into path of drugs etc

Mr Charumbira's comments are also relevant in the context of increasing Cyber Crimes through mis utilization of ICT and lack of a focused plan to use ICT for youth employment...More

US Passes Bill Against Spyware

A Law that could impose heavy fines and imprisonment terms upto 5 years on software manufacturers who plant "Spyware" is being passed in US. A U.S. congressional committee on Thursday approved a bill in this regard. ..Details in CIOL

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