The Technical Awareness Series - Cyber Crimes and Cyber Laws in India (Part 2)

This blog post is second in the technical awareness series. It basically aims to create technical awareness. For past 20 days, I have been researching many websites and articles on Cyber Crimes and Cyber Laws in India. This article is a result of all those efforts. Please understand, that this article is a general one and based on my understanding of the various articles on Cyber Laws on the Web. It is not meant to be used a guide, its just about general awareness. Links to the websites are available for further reference.

From the Alert Indian Website I also got a few things. I would like to request to my readers that if you have created any fake profiles or are planning to create so, please have a look at Section 66C. For those who have habit of bullying or harassing others please have a look at Section 66A. Facebook users should refrain from posting comments/posts/notes about others as it is a public platform. One should also remember the line "shall be punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or with both."

Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008

Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008  has been notified and enforced on 27th Oct, 2009.
This Act punishes various cyber crimes including Cyber Terrorism.

Important Sections Related to Cyber Crimes

Chapter XI

65. Tampering with Computer Source Documents

Whoever knowingly or intentionally conceals, destroys or alters or intentionally or knowingly causes another to conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code used for a computer, computer programme, computer system or computer network, when the computer source code is required to be kept or maintained by law for the time being in force, shall be punishable with imprisonment up to three years, or with fine which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or with both.

Explanation -

For the purposes of this section, "Computer Source Code" means the listing of programmes, Computer Commands, Design and layout and programme analysis of computer resource in any form.

Sec 66. Computer Related Offences

If any person, dishonestly, or fraudulently, does any act referred to in section 43, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to five lakh rupees or with both.

Explanation: For the purpose of this section,-

a) the word "dishonestly" shall have the meaning assigned to it in section 24 of the Indian Penal Code;

b) the word "fraudulently" shall have the meaning assigned to it in section 25 of the Indian Penal Code.

66 A Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc

Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a communication device,-

a) any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing character; or

b) any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will, persistently by making use of such computer resource or a communication device,

c) any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.

Explanation: For the purposes of this section, terms "Electronic mail" and "Electronic Mail Message" means a message or information created or transmitted or received on a computer, computer system, computer resource or communication device including attachments in text, image, audio, video and any other electronic record, which may be transmitted with the message.

66 B. Punishment for dishonestly receiving stolen computer resource or communication device

Whoever dishonestly receives or retains any stolen computer resource or communication device knowing or having reason to believe the same to be stolen computer resource or communication device, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to rupees one lakh or with both.

66C Punishment for identity theft

Whoever, fraudulently or dishonestly make use of the electronic signature, password or any other unique identification feature of any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to rupees one lakh.

66D Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource

Whoever, by means of any communication device or computer resource cheats by personation, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to one lakh rupees.

66E Punishment for violation of privacy

Whoever, intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding two lakh rupees, or with both

Explanation.- For the purposes of this section--

(a) “transmit” means to electronically send a visual image with the intent that it be viewed by a person or persons;

(b) “capture”, with respect to an image, means to videotape, photograph, film or record by any means;

(c) “private area” means the naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks or female breast;

(d) “publishes” means reproduction in the printed or electronic form and making it available for public;

(e) “under circumstances violating privacy” means circumstances in which a person can have a reasonable expectation that--

(i) he or she could disrobe in privacy, without being concerned that an image of his private area was being captured; or

(ii) any part of his or her private area would not be visible to the public, regardless of whether that person is in a public or private place.

The Technical Awareness Series - Cyber Crimes and Cyber Laws in India (Part 1)

This blog post is first of the technical awareness series. It basically aims to create technical awareness. For past 20 days, I have been researching many websites and articles on Cyber Crimes and Cyber Laws in India. This article is a result of all those efforts. Please understand, that this article is a general one and based on my understanding of the various articles on Cyber Laws on the Web. It is not meant to be used a guide, its just about general awareness. Links to the websites are available for further reference.

According to my experience, people in India tend to believe that India does not have any Cyber Laws. As I can see on the websites, of Cyber Cells of Kerala Police, Maharasthra Police, CBI etc, we do have lots of Laws, we are not just aware about them.

The use of Social Networking has its effects. Many tend to believe that they can post anything about anyone. People also post many photos violating Facebook's policies. You can only upload photos if its yours or you have the permissions of your friends.

For more information on the same, please visit the following pages-

http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=798 

http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1021

http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=1022

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=381403139552

One of most wide-spread cyber-crime is Defamation. The Sangli police website clearly states laws regarding defamation- "This occurs when defamation takes place with the help of computers and / or the Internet. E.g. someone publishes defamatory matter about someone on a website or sends e-mails containing defamatory information to all of that person's friends."

Also from Lawyers Club India we get - "Defamation can be understood as the intentional infringement of another person's right to his good name. It is the wrongful and intentional publication of words or behavior concerning another person, which has the effect of injuring that person's status, good name, or reputation in society. Libel is written defamation and slander is oral defamation. The primary difference is that in libel, damages are presumed, whereas in slander actions, unless the slander falls into a certain category, called slander per se, the plaintiff must prove actual or quantifiable damages.

A person's good name can only be damaged if maligning statements are made to someone other than that person; that is, the defamatory statement must be disclosed to a third person, thereby satisfying the requirement of publication.....

Thus the law of defamation places a heavy burden on the defendant. All that a plaintiff has to prove, in a defamation action, is the publication of defamatory matter. The onus then lies on the defendant to prove innocence. Once again, most people are unaware of this burden."

Will continue with more in Part 2 :)

Gmail Has a New Look!

I bought Tata Photon+ on 13th Jan 2011. The validity expired on 13th Feb 2011 and I was forced to use the BIT Mesra Intranet! Hell it was pain full. Imagine how would you feel if you are robbed off your Ferrari and you have to travel on a Bullock-cart for 4 days!! That is how it felt. Luckily I got my Photon+ recharged and began surfing the net.

When I opened Gmail in the non-basic HTML mode I noticed a few changes. It might have been implemented by the Gmail team earlier, still I felt the need to share this. I used 'Print Screen' option to take a few snapshots of the same.

You can see the following changes (the ones marked in red ellipses):

 Pic-1

Pic-2

Pic-3

Pic-4

Windows vs Linux - The Auotmated System Restore feature.

About a week ago, I installed VMware on my Windows7. I did this to run Windows7 and Linux simultaneously as required in the NetTech Course-curriculum. However, when I installed VMware a Dangerous virus program disguising itself as an Anti-Virus program got installed. I had the VMware Setup in a pen-drive which was circulated among 3-4 colleagues before I used to setup on my system. Hence I am not sure where the virus came from!

It changed my Desktop Image; blocked all my programs and flashed a message - 'Your system has been attacked by viruses and trojans, please upgrade the anti-virus software'. I was surprised because I never installed an anti-virus since I first installed Windows7. The anti-virus program had blocked all other programs. I couldn't run any program and the anti-virus software took me to a webpage asking for my VISA-card credentials to get rid of the viruses found by the self proclaimed anti-virus program.

Since I was not able to run any program - I couldn't use task manager nor msconfig. So I restarted the system in Safe Mode. As expected the Virus (or the anti-virus software) didn't attack me this time. I used msconfig to check out all non-Microsoft services but when I restarted the system again, I found that the problem persisted! It was then that the System Restore feature in the Advanced Boot Options of Windows came to my rescue. I simply went back to a previous stage.

I clicked the following  pics of the whole process (which was very painless and user-friendly):

I was glad to see the message after the process was completed which read - "System restore completed successfully. The system has been restored to 08-02-2011. Your documents have not been affected." I was glad to see this message, since I had moved a lot of files after installing VMware.

As for the anti-virus program and its cousin viruses, trojan and spyware - they were all gone! Now, I was able to run all the programs; and all this happened without any authentic ANTI-VIRUS program. I was reminded of the times when I used to format my system every now and then for such petty issues.

I installed licensed Windows7(from my MSDN Visual Studio Premium Subscription) on my new Laptop in June 2009. Since then I have never installed an anti-virus program nor have I formatted my system. I use multi-boot with the following Operating Systems:

• Windows7 Ultimate Edition
• Windows7 Ultimate N Edition
• Windows Web Server 2008
• Windows Server 2008

For sometime I also had Linux Distros - Ubuntu, Granular, and Fedora. making it a total of 7 Operating Systems.

You know what's ironical? People still say -

• Windows in not secure!
• There's no recovery tool and system rollback for Windows!

Launch of Microsoft Software and Technology Club India Website.

Microsoft Software and Technology Club (MSTC) India's website was launched in second week of  January, 2011. Since then many changes have been made based on the feedback we have received. We have also included Practice tests to aid anyone and everyone who wants to hone their computer science skills and/or prepare for GRE/GATE/Campus Placements.



MSTC India has been established to create technological awareness in the society and specially among students. We believe that training on technologies is a necessity for overall development of society. As the Founder & Chairman, my job is to make sure that training on Microsoft Technologies are available to the general public free of cost! 
 

MSTC India has affiliations with: 

1. International .NET Association (INETA) 
2. Global IT Community Association (GITCA) 
3. Microsoft User Group Support Services (UGSS)
4. Student Tech Clubs

We will soon be adding many more functionality. Please let us know if you need something else. As for the Events - we are soon gonna rock you very soon with our unconventional and non-traditional approach as we always do!

You can follow the updates on:
MSTC India Website
MSTC Facebook Page
MSTC Facebook Group
MSTC on Twitter.

My Interview with MicrosoftFeed.

Being a Microsoft Student Partner has contributed a lot in making me what I am today. It has refined many aspects of my life and my personality. It gave me many things, and even took away my most Loved Possession :(.  It has taught me - Time Management, HR Management, Resource Management but the best thing it has taught me is Life Management :)

I have received some appreciation and criticism. Appreciation has kept me motivated while criticism led to introspection. Recently I was contacted by Mr Ali Raza Sheikh, a Microsoft Valuable Professional from Pakistan. He's the Founder of MicrosoftFeed in the Middle East. His team conducts interviews of MSPs and MVPs all around the world. To my knowledge, till date, approximately 40 MSPs have been interviewed by MicrosoftFeed and only 4 Indian MSPs (out of 600+).

To be honest I was happy when I came to know that he had selected me as well. I went on to read interviews by other MSPs and realized that there was something missing; they all were talking about networking and passion about technology. I believed being an MSP was much more than that, and that should reflect in my Interview.


I was happier when Ali sent me a facebook message - "Your interview has been one of the best we had! Thanks for that!"

Windows vs Linux - Almost everything you do in linux you can do equally efficiently in Windows.

With all due respect to  Linux, Linux Distros, Google, Open Source Communities, Open Source Lovers and Developers, Linux User Groups and NetTech team, I would like to say that Windows indeed is a wonderful Operating System and when it comes to GUI and approach to user comfort its much better than Linux, as it makes almost everything a cake walk for an average user.

I have heard people talking about Linux and compare it with Windows. I regularly hear these statements:

1. Its Command Prompt that makes Linux special. 
2. If you can work with linux you can work with any OS.
3. Linux is smart since its case sensitive when it comes to commands and directory/file names.
4. One can do 'this' with/in Linux but not with/in Windows.
5. Windows is for dumb users
6. Windows is Dumb!
7. etc etc

Well, let me ask you a few questions:

1. In this era of advanced User Interface Design do you really want to work all time with command prompt? I agree its fancy sometimes, but all times?
2. This is the time of surface technology, LCDs and touch-screens you still want to sit and type commands instead of using the advanced GUI features?
3. Do you really know Windows well - when you put up claims that 'This can't be done in/with Windows'?
4. Do you not understand that Windows and Linux are simply two different ideologies?
5. If everything is same on Linux and Windows would you not complain that Windows has copied from Linux?
6. Does an average user care about how exactly the command works? Just like these days we use IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) instead of the command line compilers and debuggers, what's wrong in using a full featured GUI provided by Windows?
7. Would you say that people should begin everything from scratch - lets say for example websites instead of using templates and/or tools like Wordpress?

I have observed that people who make these statements are (most often):

• People who do not have much idea about windows. 
• People who do not like to pay for software and/or Operating System.
• People who just want to promote Linux(for their own benefit) and the best way to do that it so criticize windows.
• People who feel more comfortable with command prompt and traditional computing facilities and are either afraid or reluctant to explore the new world.

So my dear friends let me make it very clear that Almost everything you do in linux you can do equally efficiently in Windows!

I've decided to post a series of blog-posts on the same. Stay tuned and you'll see for yourself how things can be done, how windows have made everything look so simple and how beautiful windows really is!