October 11, 2003

With the explosion of the Internet the floodgates to information were opened. Educators, entrepreneurs, students, etc. all were jostling to make the most of this wonderful opportunity which broke down the barriers of geography, language, distance. These obsolete factors that prevented the free flow of information are all gone.

It is hardly surprising that the less than lawful segments of society are also having their share of ‘fun’. They have found numerous uses of the Internet in order to facilitate their ‘interest’ taking optimum advantages that cyber space provides in order to increase their various interests.

The strangest aspect of it is that none of the most common crimes such as spamming are even illegal. This is due to the lack of a proper internationally adhered framework for international law with regards to what are Internet crimes and a practical working model of how they are to be dealt with.

A real solution is needed instead of the demarcated laws that differ between countries and even their own provinces.

There are various crimes that repeatedly plague the millions of Internet users each year. The most common ones are Hacking, Virus programming, Credit card fraud, Spamming, Personal privacy rights violations and other illicit crimes.

Spamming is undoubtedly the most common of all cyber crimes. There are a ludicrous number of victims estimated at 90 per cent of all Internet users being affected by it.

Spamming is when someone, who has an email account, receives a large number of emails or subscriptions from various Internet companies.

The amazing thing about spamming as a crime is that it is actually encouraged by some consumers. It is basically a wide variety of pointless junk mail. The few who actually open these unwanted mails are the ones that further fuel the belief in the Internet world that spamming ‘is alright’. It is seen as a proper marketing tool by most companies that operate in cyber space.

Their argument is simple: If the recipients don’t want to receive any further mails they should follow the instructions at ‘the end’ of the email. They seem to totally discount the fact that haggard recipients must at least skim through the entire email before attempting to unsubscribe. This doesn’t include the long arduous process of unsubscribing to the sender. Spamming is also the reason why children are heavily restricted in their use of the Internet. Parents are growing increasingly afraid of children opening their Internet inboxes only to discover cores of unwanted junk mail. There are also numerous instances of Pornographic emails being ferried into the mail boxes of the underage. These illicit acts are done through the use of innocuous misleading titles.

Through spamming and other Internet crimes the personal privacy rights of millions of Internet users are compromised in an instant. Spammers often use the services of each other to increasingly bombard helpless Internet users with undesired correspondence.

What happens is simple: If a cyber user logs on to an educational site and wishes to subscribe to a newsletter about birds, the site owners will often ‘share’ that information with a chosen few partners, who will share it with their own chosen few partners and so on.

What started of as a simple request for a particular newsletter results in a bombardment of intercontinental email bombs. It wouldn’t even be surprising if the flood of emails would permanently put the person off from birds for good. This sharing of personal information is completely unjustified and in many cases illegal. However, in this case the world does not lack far behind Pakistan in apathy for these petty acts of untrustworthiness. Since people in general have a wide range of interest it is hardly surprising that inboxes are largely filled to brim with junk mail that happens to take into account the personal details entrusted by the user to another.

If someone’s information is online it simply isn’t safe. Be it personal or business in nature the risks are the same.

That is a lesson learned by the great and the gullible. One of cyber spaces own pioneer was attacked. His name is Bill Gates. The then CEO & Chairman of Microsoft, Mr Gates’ credit card details were splashed onto the Internet. The man who is quoted to be the richest man on the planet was even not able to prevent his own personal as well as credit card details from being promulgated online. Obviously most people don’t share this sort of information too openly. They generally take the information, steal other people’s hard earned money and live their cyber lives as if an honest ‘business’ dealing had just occurred. There are no real measurable figures as to how much money is stolen this way over the years as in many cases the victims either don’t notice it or feel as thought they are incapable of doing anything about it.

Moreover, most of those who are robbed are generally middle aged and have little or no understanding of cyber crimes. In numerous cases confused victims say that they believe that they had ‘paid’ a service charge. Hmm.... I suppose in a way they did.

There are a number of sites that are not appropriate for children and adults of a decent disposition. Besides this, a lot of children must beware of people who would try to lure them into doing something wrong.

Children must avoid giving personal information and meeting people, who they meet online, in person. But if meeting them is imperative it is important that they are accompanied by a grown -up. This would help children avoid unnecessary risk. Besides this, it would be best if youngsters only chat with people they know.

Hacking obviously is another real cyber crime which more or less encapsulates obtaining personal information.

This crime hasn’t really been made easier specially with web sites that cater to hackers. These distribute information on hacking, popular techniques, hacking programs etc. These ‘helpful’ sites are then used as an instrument for learning the ways of this particular cyber crime. Hacker’s primary objective is to cause havoc and damage all throughout cyber space and the financial world.

Of course, Viruses like the ‘I Love you’ virus and the ‘Blaster’ virus all act as prime examples of this sort of damage. The first viruses were programming errors. Nowadays it’s almost as if any viruses created without the intention of doing so is unforgivable... specially in the eyes of a web criminal. These are crimes that bring fame and generally interesting stories to mind.

Several years ago, legend has it, that a young Russian hacker on his 133 mega-hertz computer by-passed the security system of the main MSN web site. He proceeded to shut down the site for an estimated three days. After using his Internet service provider (ISP) to locate him Microsoft punished him for causing them millions of dollars of damage both in reputation and money. They gave him a job.