Ever since Law entered Cyber space and the term “Cyber Law” was coined, the field of law has been shaken up.
When ITA 2000 (Information Technology Act 2000) was notified and conventional lawyers started reading it they soon encountered right under Section 3, terms such as “Asymmetric Crypto system” and “Hashing”. Immediately it was clear that their years of study of LLB and experience in the Bar was of little relevance in the new emerging world of “Cyber Law”.
At this point of time, a breed of “Cyber Law Specialists” were born who studied ITA 2000 from its birth and had no prior in depth knowledge on Civil or Criminal law. Gradually, many of the “Computer Savvy Lawyers” who could understand some computer terms such as hard disk, memory, hacking, denial of service etc graduated as “Cyber Law Specialists” with different degrees of specialization in civil or criminal law along with an awareness of computer technology.
Simultaneously, pure technology specialists working in the area of “Cyber Forensics” also graduated into a multi discipline specialization by acquiring awareness of ITA 2000 or Cyber Laws.
With this convergence of technology knowledge/specialization with law specialization/awareness was born a new breed of specialists who could describe themselves as “Techno Legal Specialists”.
In the Information Security domain, these specialists became “Techno Legal (TL) Information Security Specialists”.
Some of these specialists like the undersigned recognized the importance of “Behaviour Science” in Information Security area just like in the case of “Criminology” and added the “Behaviour Science Specialization” to their forte to create a “Techno Legal Behavioural Science Specialization” to be used both for Cyber Criminology and Information Security.
We may recognize these developments as different generations of Cyber Law specializations that are developing not only in India but also elsewhere.
When we look at some of the emerging problems such as Section 65B of Indian Evidence Act and the struggle of the community to handle the Cyber Crimes emanating from the deep web, it is clear that we are still a long way off from mastering the art of “Techno Legal Behavioural Science (TLBS) Specialization” either in the Information Security area or in the Cyber Law area.
Failure to acquire this TLBS specialization in the Information Security domain results in increasing Cyber Crimes, data thefts etc including the Cyber Analytica kind of issues.
Failure to acquire this TLBS specialization in the Cyber Law domain results in increasing cases of bad Judgements such as the Section 66A and Shafhi Mohammad judgement by the Supreme Court of India or the Shapoorji Pallonji case judgement by Mumbai High Court.
Emerging Cyber Law Scenario
While there is a need to continue our work on creating better awareness and better understanding of the TL and TLBS concepts through our education system both in Law Education and in Engineering education and let it percolate through the practicing lawyers to the Judiciary, the environment has moved further with the advent of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Computing making further changes to the interpretation of Cyber Law principles.
Just as Digital Signature concepts which included Asymmetric Crypto System and Hashing which are mathematical concepts into the domain of Cyber Law, the development of Quantum Computing has now brought “Physics” directly into the domain of Cyber Law.
Now a full rounded Cyber Lawyer needs to not only know law, computer technology and behavioural science, but also Physics.
We must remember that what we were calling as “Computer Technology” so far already incorporated “Physics” because every “Bit” that held the data in a computer device was actually a “Transistor” in miniature form and every processing on a computer happened with “Electronics” in the back end.
But just as “Classical Physics” was disrupted by “Quantum Physics” and the laws of Classical physics including the famous laws of Newton had to be re-written in the Quantum world and even the geniuses like Albert Einstein were proved wrong in parts in the Quantum Physics domain, all the current laws which we codify as “Cyber Laws” may need a complete re-look in the Quantum computing environment.
We must therefore recognize that the next generation of Cyber Law specialization is now here. I will call this the “Quantum Cyber Law Specialization”.
The Quantum Cyber Law (QuCL/QCL) specialists need to not only understand the depths of Law along with “Transistor based Classical Computers” but the emerging “Qubit based Quantum Computers” where the “Qubit” is not a transistor but a Nucleus or an Electron.
Just as the Classical Computer works on a transistor representing a “Bit” which can be either with a charge or no charge representing the binary states of one or zero, the Qubit represents an electron or a nucleus which is spinning either in the clockwise or anti clockwise direction representing the two states Zero or One.
The enigma of Quantum Computing however is the “Principle of Uncertainty” that a spin state of an electron can be one and zero at the same time but collapses into one of the two states at the time of measurement.
The readers of this blog consists mainly of Classical Cyber Law Followers. Some of them may find the concept of Quantum Computing a bundle of scientific fiction. They may have to chose to ignore some of the articles that may appear here on this “Emerging Technology” concepts and focus on improving their understanding of the “Transistor Based classical technology” and how it affects Section 65B etc .
But those crazy technology buffs who would like to explore the computer world of the future, it is necessary to slowly start grasping some of the new concepts to stay relevant in the post 2030 Cyber law world.
The undersigned is also in the process of exploring the Quantum Computing principles and is experimenting with some thoughts not all of which may be considered “Definitive”. Errors and mis-interpretation could be expected since this is considered as a learning process.
Readers may therefore treat some of these articles more as as hypothesis to be tested and tuned. The presented hypothesis may be debunked and improved. by Quantum Cyber Law (QuCL) watchers.
Understanding QuCL requires even more depth of technical knowledge than what is required for understanding Cyber Law as we know today.
Further the technical knowledge required for understanding QuCL would include the knowledge of Quantum Physics and its application to the creation of logic gateways and data store techniques which is more than what most computer science specialists possess in the natural course of their development.
I am yet to find a term to describe this “Multiple Domain Experts who know Computer Technology, Law and Physics”.
Probably they should be called “Techno Legal Physicists” or “Quantum Physics Technology Law Specialists” (QPTLS) and this specialization should be termed as Quantum Physics Techno logy law (QPTL) specialization.
Like many things in the life of Naavi, perhaps Naavi will be the first to describe himself as a Techno Legal Physicist or Quantum Physics Technology Law Specialist (now in the process of graduation).
Even today, many of the lawyers ask me in a cross examination in a Court “Where did you get your Cyber Law Degree” to make you an “Expert”. I normally reply that “In 1998 when I started studying Cyber Law and in 2000 when I started Cyber Law College, there was no other university or college which was qualified to give Cyber Law degrees (at least in India) and hence my Cyber Law specialization had to be and is self acquired”.
Similarly, now I have to say that the new specialization of “Techno Legal Physicist” or “Quantum Physics Technology Law Expert” will have to be a self acquired skill which I will endeavour to acquire through self study.
With this, I have a message to the Cross examining lawyers who try to embarass me on a witness box with questions that I donot have a law degree or a computer science degree and cannot call myself as eligible to give evidence on computer aspects. They must remember that I have a Master’s degree in Physics with a specialization in nuclear physics itself that makes me eligible to talk on law that depends on transistors and quantum mechanics, as an expert.
However, I humbly submit that “Expertise” is a “Relative expression”. Knowledge is so huge that no person can call himself an “Expert”. One can be more an expert than the other in a given niche area and may be a novice at the same time in another aspect.
The description of an “Expert” under Section 45/45A of Indian Evidence Act has to absorb the “Quantum Principle” that a witness may be an “Expert” or a “Novice” at the same time and it is only when his knowledge is measured against a specific question that his “State” will collapse into either “Expert” or “Not an Expert”.
Next time when a cross examining lawyer asks me, “Are you an Expert?” “Do you know technology?” etc., I may answer, “I am an expert or a novice at the same time like a Qubit being in the state of one of zero at the same time. You try to pose a question and I may collapse into either being an expert or not”.
Problem however is that the Judge may immediately say.. Please donot argue with the counsel and put counter questions… answer Yes or No not Both…..
Practicing lawyers specialized with court procedures may kindly advise me what would be the correct answer to the question that witnesses cannot be in quantum state and say “Yes and No” but have to be always in either “Yes” or “No” state.
In the wonderland of Quantum Cyber Law , a new specialization of Techno Legal Physics needs to be recognized to answer such questions.
Naavi
