Fighting Cyber Crimes is a difficult art. Many times, the crime trail
becomes hazy immediately after he crime. If the criminal is an expert,
he will take efforts to erase his trail and except in the case of crimes
with large stake, it may be impractical to hunt down the criminal.
Even when caught, the criminal can often wriggle out of prosecution
because of lack of evidence. The objective of the Law Enforcement Authorities
worldwide is therefore to device strategies for catching the criminal
while he is in the act of committing a crime and also capture enough evidence
to prosecute him.
It is therefore necessary as a "Crime Prevention Strategy" to undertake
"Honey Pot " Strategies and lay down appropriate traps for catching the
criminals. This is much the same way, women Police in India try to catch
eve teasers on the street, by posing themselves as potential targets.
One of the areas where the western Police are focussing is the possibility
of "Child Abuse" in Chat conversation. In one of the recent cases, which
may be of academic interest to the students of Cyber Crimes in India, the
New York Police arrested a Roman Catholic priest after allegedly
having explicit sexual conversations online with an undercover agent posing
as a 14-year-old boy. It was unfortunate to note that the Priest was
the spiritual adviser at a Connecticut high school.
The accused, Rev. John J. Castaldo was charged with attempted
dissemination of indecent material to a minor, which is punishable by up
to four years in prison and has been arrested. The FBI has also used such
strategies to trap criminals who were trying to extract sensitive financial
information about parents through the chat sessions with children. This
highlights the fact that the risks are not only regarding the children
being lured into pornographic sites and thoughts but can be used for more
sinister end.
FBI is also reported to have exposed some web sites to hacker
attacks in order to lure Black Hackers (Crackers) into a trap.
The question which we need to ask ourselves in India is "Are our Law
Enforcement Authorities" geared towards such strategies?. Successful use
of such strategies requires enormous training in Cyber culture which is
not easy for the Indian Cyber cops. If an Indian Cyber cop tries to operate
in a Chat room and pose as a 14 year boy, am sure that he is likely
to be caught easily be any experienced man at the other end.
One has to give a serious thought to the possibility that a solution
may lie in building up a Cyber Law Conscious Young Netizen force that can
assist the Police as informers.
Naavi
May 26, 2001
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the Detailed Story at MSNBC.com