Tech city ignorant about cyber crimes

Tech city ignorant about cyber crimes
Deccan Herald

Surprise, surprise! The netizens of silicon valley, who provide software solutions to the world, are ignorant about cyber crimes. And, even those who are aware or are victims, do not want to fight.

Cyber Crime Police Station, the first in the country, has registered only 38 cases from September 13, 2001 till date. The category of registered crimes include — ‘tampering of source code’ (3), ‘hacking’ (23), ‘obscene e-mails’ (10) and ‘Copy Right Act 1957’ (2). Though the police station’s jurisdiction includes the entire state of Karnataka, most of the complaints are from Bangalore.

Lack of awareness among people about what amounts to cyber crimes and inadequate publicity about the existence of the Cyber Crime Police Station may be cited as reasons for the low rate of complaints. Another reason is the ignorance among civil police personnel about Information Technology Act. “They (civil police at the police stations) book cases (which can actually be booked under the IT Act) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and this has resulted in the reduction of the number of complaints coming to us,” says a police officer of the Cyber Crime Police Station.

However, 193 persons have approached the cyber cops for help, but have chosen not to register a complaint. “In many cases, the culprits, usually young people, are known to the complainants,” an officer explains.

“They just want the harassment to end and are not interested in pursuing the case. They want their complaints to be kept secret too. Hence, they choose not to register any case,” he added.

Treating these complaints in a different way, the cops look into the complaints, summon the culprits, and later, let them off after issuing a warning and getting a written undertaking from them. Meanwhile, the State government is all set to implement some path-breaking measures to stem cyber crimes and regulate cyber cafes in the state.

Notification soon

A notification is in the offing, making it mandatory for net users to establish their identity before using cyber cafes. They have to show their photo-ID cards and enter details like name and address in a log book that will be maintained in each cyber cafe. “If a person is not carrying a photo-ID card, then he will have to get his photograph taken in a webcam in the cafe and enter his details then and there.

The photograph and details will be stored there for a period of one year,” says Dr Ravindranath, DIG, Economic Offenses, Corps of Detectives.

The cyber police station deals with all the offenses committed under ‘The Information Technology Act, 2000’ or offenses relating to Intellectual Property Rights.

Cyber crimes are categorised as unauthorised access, e-mail bombing, data diddling, salami attack, internet time theft, logic bomb, virus or worm attack, trojan attack, denial of service attack, e-mail spoofing, cyber pornography, intellectual property crime and cyber stalking. The Cyber Police Station can be contacted at— ccps@kar.nic.in.