Cyber Crimes in India

Cyber crime is an evil having its origin in the growing dependence on computers in modern life. In a day and age when everything from microwave ovens and refrigerators to nuclear power plants is being run on computers, cyber crime has assumed rather sinister implications. There are many times of cyber crimes in the world and so is India. Cyber Crimes are usually categorized in two ways viz., (i) the Computer as a target – it means using a computer and attacking another computer by means of Hacking, Virus/Worms attack, DOS (Denial of Service) attack etc., while the 2nd kind is the computer as a weapon – it means using a computer as a aid to commit real world crimes such as Cyber Terrorism, IPR violations, Credit Card Fraud (Remember for instance Bombay IIT student) Pornography specially of children. To understand the cyber crimes to depth, let us understand the words, Hacking and Child Pornography.




Hacking

Hacking in simple terms means an illegal intrusion into a computer system and/or network. There is an equivalent term to hacking i.e. cracking, but from Indian Laws perspective there is no difference between the term hacking and cracking. Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer. They possess the desire to destruct and they get the kick out of such destruction. Some hackers hack for personal monetary gains, such as to stealing the credit card information, transferring money from various bank accounts to their own account followed by withdrawal of money. They extort money from some corporate giant threatening him to publish the stolen information which is critical in nature.

Government websites are the hot targets of the hackers due to the press coverage, it receives. Hackers enjoy the media coverage.

Motive behind The Crime



(i) Greed, (ii) Power (iii) Publicity (iv) Revenge; (v) Adventure; (vi) Desire to access forbidden information; (vii) Destructive mindset; (viii) Wants to sell n/w security services



Child Pornography

The Internet is being highly used by its abusers to reach and abuse children sexually, worldwide. The internet is very fast becoming a household commodity in India. The technological explosion has made the children a viable victim to the cyber crime. As more homes have access to internet, more children would be using the internet and more are the chances of falling victim to the aggression of pedophiles. The easy access to the pornographic contents readily and freely available over the internet lowers the inhibitions of the children. Pedophiles lure the children by distributing pornographic material, and then they try to meet them for sex or to take their nude photographs including their engagement in sexual positions. Sometimes Pedophiles contact children in the chat rooms posing as teenagers or a child of similar age, and then they start becoming friendlier with them and win their confidence. Then slowly pedophiles start sexual chat to help children shed their inhibitions about sex and then call them out for personal interaction. At this stage the actual exploitation of the children starts by offering them money or falsely promising them good opportunities in life. The pedophiles then sexually exploit the children either by using them as sexual objects or by taking their pornographic pictures in order to sell those over the internet.

In physical world, parents know the face of dangers and they know how to avoid & face the problems by following simple rules and accordingly they advice their children to keep away from dangerous things and ways. But in case of cyber world, most of the parents do not themselves know about the basics in internet and dangers posed by various services offered over the internet. Hence the children are left unprotected in the cyber world. Pedophiles take advantage of this situation and lure the children, who are not advised by their parents or by their teachers about what is wrong and what is right for them while browsing the internet

How do they Operate

1. Pedophiles use false identity to trap the children/teenagers

2. Pedophiles contact children/teens in various chat rooms which are used by children/teen to interact with other children/teen.

3. Extract personal information from the child/teen by winning his confidence.

4. Gets the e-mail address of the child/teen and starts making contacts on the victims e-mail address as well

5. Starts sending pornographic images/text to the victim including child pornographic images in order to help child/teen shed his inhibitions so that a feeling is created in the mind of the victim that what is being fed to him is normal and that everybody does it

6. Extract personal information from child/teen

7. At the end of it, the pedophile set up a meeting with the child/teen out of the house and then drag him into the net to further sexually assault him or to use him as a sex object

8. In order to prevent your child/teen from falling into the trap of pedophile, read the tips under Tips & Tricks heading.