Symantec ranks India as 5th in cyber crime

Symantec in its “Internet Security Threat” 2009 report has ranked India 5th in malicious activity, i.e. a climb of six places. India is the highest spam originating country in the world, contributing 4 per cent to the worldwide spam volumes, while the country ranks first in the Asian region. On the basis of web-based attacks,India has gone up from the rank of 13 in 2008 to rank 3 in 2009, next to US and Brazil. Of the phishing URLs identified in India, 91 per cent targeted the financial services sector last year.
source:http://www.cyberlawtimes.com/2010/04/28/symantec-india-ranks-5th-world-cyber-crime/

Google India Faces Defamation Suit

Bombay High Court has ordered Google to disclose the identity of a blogger who allegedly had criticized a Mumbai based construction company. The judgment has come in pursuance of a suit filed by Mumbai-based Gremach Infrastructure Equipments & Projects Ltd. Appellant in the plea had demanded for Google’s discloser of the name of the person who had criticized them using Google'sblogging service.

Now, if Google does not disclose the name, it could face the charge of defamation. Incidentally, blogger.com offers a facility to a blogger to blog without disclosing real identity. And, in the given case the blogger had used the name ‘Toxic Writer’ and had criticized the said company. Now, the Bombay High Court has asked Google to present the blog written on February 26.

The court observed that there is merit in the contention, and on the basis of the article put up by the defendant on the blog site defamation is apparent. The court further ordered to defendant to reveal the identity of the blogger within four weeks of the order.

My Comment:

This is an absolute case of defamation but based on the definition of the defamation all the conditions of defamation should be met for the court to accept this as defamation. Regardless of the presence of the defamation conditions, what I'm willing to focus here is not the defamation itself but emphasis on role of third parties involved in such issues. As you see here, even the ISP or the facilitator (Google India) is responsible to control and monitor the content of the virtual space it has given to its subscribers/members.

Source: http://www.india-server.com/news/google-india-faces-defamation-suit-3084.html

'Iranian cyber army' hits Twitter

A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army managed to redirect Twitter users to its own site displaying a political message. Twitter said the attack had been carried out by getting at the servers that tell web browsers where to find particular sites. The site said it would start an investigation into what allowed the "unplanned downtime" to take place

my comment: I believe this case is a cyber crime issue. To be more exact, this should be recognized as website defacing which falls under computer crimes.

source: http://www.qlinks.net/update/2009/12/iranian-cyber-army-hits-twitter.htm

Mumbai CCIC arrests Army officer for Child Pornography

Investigations started in Germany in September 2009, when German Police tracked the IP address to India in respect of some Child Pornography matter. And the Police alerted the Interpol, which through CBI, forwarded the matter to Mumbai Police.
After completing the investigations, the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell raided the flat of the 42 year old lieutenant last week, who was caught red handed, while downloading porn clippings. The Mumbai Police has collected the hard disks, mobile phones, print outs, etc from the residence of the Army officer and booked him under section 67A of Information technology Act.
If convicted, he can be sentenced to a maximum seven years in jail and also fined Rs 10 lakh. The accused has been remanded to Police Custody till 12 May 2010.

my comment:As sending indecent material, in this case child pornography,is an illegal use of internet ,define as computer crime and he is arrested by the cyber crime investigation cell (CCIC) of the Mumbai police for allegedly posting obscene pictures of children on an international web site.

source:http://www.cyberlawtimes.com/2010/05/10/mumbai-ccic-arrests-army-officer-for-child-pornography/

Pakistan blocks Facebook and Youtube

A Pakistani court ordered temporary blocking of Facebook.com on Wednesday due to the controversies over a competition for caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. And the next day on Thursday, similar order has been passed for the blocking of YouTube.com… the Pakistan Government has urged the international community to address the issue at the earliest, as it is an extremely sensitive and emotional matter for Muslims across the world.
A statement from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said that YouTube and Facebook websites were blocked after the government failed to convince them to remove "derogatory material". A webpage called "Ban FACEBOOK in Pakistan" has been set up "to condemn the hypocrisy of FACEBOOK. As it won't delete the hate mongering page called "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!".
source:http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Web-abuzz-over-facebook-ban-in-Pakistan/articleshow/5957676.cms

'Cybersquatters:' Invading big names' domains

from the clip above you may have a brief definition of cybersquatting and how people can deal with that.so lets take a glance on the case below about cybersquatting.

LONDON (CNN) -- If you are a Madonna fan and want to visit her on the web, do not bother logging on to madonna.com.
If international travel is your online interest, avoid singaporeairlines.com or klm.org and if you want to know more about your favourite drop, guiness.net and steinlager.com will not help.
Confused? So are the individuals and organisations claiming to have had their internet identities stolen by so-called "cybersquatters".
The occupation of website domains by people seeking to trade on famous names is a rapidly growing trend and an increasingly lucrative one.

Scotland's Charles Sweeney is one of Europe's aspiring net name entrepreneurs.
He has claimed the ownership of more than 300 domains ranging from those of famous people and organisations to ones featuring current events.
Despite investing more than £10,000 ($14,500) on the rights to the names, he is confident he can make a healthy living from either trading them or selling advertisements on phantom websites.
"You can register a name for about £12 ($17.41) and once you have, it is yours," he said from his Glasgow home.
"It's a great deal because if you pick the right one it could turn out to be a great investment."
His interest in websites is hardly driven by any technology fixation: "I'm not into computers as such. I'm into buying something for a tenner (ten pounds) and selling it for five grand."
He has just done exactly that.
Sweeney sold his first domain name last month -- the innocuous enough URL londontolet.com -- for £5,000 ($7,255).
He says he held out for the price after quite a few offers.
While that domain name is hardly controversial, Sweeney also has control over babyleo.com, as in Leo Blair, the new son of the British Prime Minister, and babyrocco.com, which is dedicated to Madonna's new son.
He has names featuring the car brands Porsche and Ferrari and has just bought benainslie.com in the hope that the English yachtsman will win a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics.
It's this variety of cybersquatting that poses a vexing problem for regulators.
The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) arbitrates domain name disputes and every month, the increase in its workload sets new records.
Almost 1,200 challenges -- a third of them from Europe -- have come before WIPO since its establishment last year.
With the number of URLs now estimated at more than eight million, the United Nations body says its massive job aims to ensure the integrity of the net.
"I think there is a broad-based, underlying interest in having authenticity in identifiers on the internet," Francis Gurry, WIPO's assistant director-general said.
"You aren't dealing with someone face to face. When you type in a name you want to know you are going to that site and not to a pornography site."
source:http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/06/internet.domains/index.html

The online gambling addiction

According to statistics, one in ten people has an online gambling addiction and can't get out of it anymore. In addition, the worse the gambling addiction is, the more that they have a loss for life, their circle of friends, their hobbies, and their broken family. One person out of ten becomes a slave and servant to the gambling addiction.

The victims of an online gambling addiction will not take a taxi or go to rehabilitation. On the other hand, the wife shouldn't worry if her husband comes home on foot the next day. In the other aspects, the online gambling addiction is the same. People can hold on for a week, a month, or even longer but then all the same, will wish to get into this ideal world. He will do this especially quickly, if someone reminds him about his illusionary existence every 100 steps.

my comment:althoug online gambling has its own psycological problems it also has some concequences such as tendency to cybercrime or other offences through internet in the purpose of extortion.means that when a person was addicted to online gambling he or she may motivate to commit crime or other offences through cyber space to gain money ,like hacking other's bank account number and in this way hurts other online user.

source:http://www.syl.com/gambling/theonlinegamblingaddiction.html