UNIT 5 Computer in Society and Cyber Law

UNIT 5

Computer in Society and Cyber Law

Computer in Real World

The computer is used in almost every field in developed countries. Industrial advancement, agriculture, defense, education, commerce and business, medicine, tourism, banking, etc are the core areas where computer science is utilized. Today, a man can communicate from one part of the world to another part easily, which is an example of the advancement of computer science.

Within a minute, man can communicate through Telephone, Telex, Fax and TV from one part of the world to the other. The computer has helped in banking network also. Your deposited money in a bank of the foreign country can be withdrawn using ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) card or Master Card from the other country and your handprints can be sent to any part of the world at great speed.

The computer has its application not only in manufacturing, medical research, education and defense, but it is also used in small business offices to handle day to day work easily and efficiently. Due to growing importance and numerous applications of computer, it is essential to provide Computer Education.

Computers are used as aids in the study of gravity, a flow of electric current, atomic structure, chemical reactions, blood circulation, etc., as the textual matter or graphical analysis. Computer assists the students in learning and understanding the subject matter easily.

The computer is used in developed countries in the study of history, mathematics, geography, etc. Similarly, mathematics, science and statistics are taught with the aid of computers. Distance learning like ‘Open University’ is another educational application in Europe and America.

Students can get university level education with the aid of computers through the ‘Open University’. In the 1960s, computers were basically applied in research and in 1970s, computers were used in industries for process control and quality control. In the 1980s, computers were extensively used in education and economic sector which is called ‘Information Technology (IT)’.

Information technology is recently developed technology which includes fast processing capabilities of information and transmitting them from one part of the world to the other. It has tremendously increased the capabilities in telecommunication, television, telefax, etc.

Staying at one corner of the world, one can receive information from any part of the world or he can transmit the information easily with the use of information technology devices.

Computers help in decision making. Sometimes, the situations are erroneous in the study of science and mathematics. Complicated mathematical problems and error free scientific processing can be done easily with the help of computers. It also helps in checking the students’ exam paper (objective types), database management, spreadsheet calculations, record keeping and numerous other activities.

Automated Production

Computer-Aided-Software-Engineering(CASE)
It can help automate the often tedious task of documenting entity relationships and data flows in a complex new system. Most CASE tools include project management, data dictionaries, documentations support and graphical output. Some of them even generate prototype code automatically. CASE software, however, is expensive, requires extensive training and is difficult to use.

Computer-Aided-Design(CAD)
It is one of the most popular software used by engineers for designing bridges, roads, building, etc. This software has become an essential tool for the modern engineering approach.

Computer-Aided-Manufacturing(CAM)
It had been used in industries; there are places and situations where human beings personally cannot be present. In such places and situations, the computerized machines and robots help in solving the problem.

The automatic robots and computerized control system helps in manufacturing some sensitive computer parts. Likewise, at a very high temperature and low temperature or place of risk, such machines are used to manufacture components of computer aeronautics, etc.

Computer-Assisted-Learning(CAL)
It is numerous packages developed to study different subjects. Students can learn different subjects, such as Mathematics, Chemistry, Astronomy, English Physics, etc. with the aid of computers. To study a single subject, a variety of software has been developed. Such packages are called CAL (Computer Assisted Learning).

Computer-Aided-Instruction(CAI):
In the industries, while manufacturing and processing, computers are used. Such computers give instructions to the equipment. Such instruction in the laboratory processing or industrial manufacturing is called Computer Aided Instruction (CAI).

Computer Aided Instructions enable us to use the equipment in the laboratory for scientific researchers. The instructions through the computer are understood by the equipment and give the information to the user. He/she read the information and asks questions to the students.

Student study the information or instruction presented, answer the questions and perhaps asks questions of his/her own. The computer then accepts, analyzes and provides immediate feedback to the students’ responses. It maintains records of the student’s performance for evolution.

Computer Aided Instructions and Computer Assisted Learning are very popular these days since one can sit at a place and control the equipment or learn with the help of a computer. Educational packages developed by different software developers are becoming popular these days.

The software can be run on the computer and the student may ask a question to the computer and find the answer. Thus, the students perform their work.

Advantages of CAI/CAL

The Advantages of CAI/CAL are:

1.      Individual assistance is available for each student.

2.      Only the correct answers are accepted by the computer and thus, there is no chance of wrong evaluation.

3.      It gives a constant feedback and thus, provides the learning environment.

Limitation of Manual Operation

Manual storage of data and information occupy more space and supply limited information. The computer based processing system occupy limited space and possibility contains huge data and information. The damage of files that contain data due to water, fire, etc. directly affects the organization.

The papers become old and they may be eaten by the termites in some cases. For safe use of data and information, we need to have computer-based data processing and information housing systems.

Computers and Privacy

Computers are electronic devices. They contain various kinds of data and information. The user should be aware of a type of data being accessed and the purpose for which it is accessed. The database management system, computer operating system and file systems should be protected from unauthorized access.

This enables the maintenance of data, information and communication. There are intruders who try to pirate the data and information from the computer. It is safe to keep the information on a computer if the security is tight enough from accessing by unauthorized personnel.

Anonymity: The term anonymity refers to the ability to convey a message without disclosing one’s name or identity. A society in which anonymity is illegal would provide the perfect foundation for a totalitarian police state. Anonymity can be abused. Anonymity frees people from accountability and as a result, they may abuse the privilege of anonymous speech.

They may engage in defamation, which means the act of injuring someone’s reputation by making false and malicious statements. Technology and computer with the Internet are eroding the privacy. One of the methods the internet makes it possible is with the help of cookies. Cookies are small files that are written to your computer’s disk by means of the Web sites you visit.

Cookies are used for legitimate purposes. Essentially, cookies provide Web sites with the way or recording information so that it is available for future browsing sessions at the same site.

CONCEPT OF CYBER LAW

Pavan Duggal, acknowledged as one of the top four Cyber Lawyers in the world, gave a definition of Cyber law in 1996, which is broadly accepted, as follows: –

Simply speaking, Cyber law is a generic term, which refers to all the legal and regulatory aspects of Internet and the World Wide Web. Anything concerned with or related to or emanating from any legal aspects or issues concerning any activity of netizens and others, in Cyberspace comes within the ambit of Cyber law.

In other words, cyber law which is also known as internet law, is the area of law that deals with the use of internet and computers and the exchange of communications and information, which includes the issues concerning with the protection of intellectual property rights, freedom of speech and public access to information. In simple words, cyber law is the law that deals with the legal issues which is relate to the access, usage and the privacy of information’s. Cyber law is made for controlling the crimes like theft of information’s, fraud, forgery, etc. that happens due to the use of internet and computers.

The computer has revolutionized the public life in many ways. The students, teachers, lawyers, administrators, doctors, engineers and many others are using the computer in many ways. The computers are providing information through the Internet.

The internet has played a key role in bringing the world together and provides a lot of information. On the other hand, the hackers and virus invaders are trying to spoil the function of the computers.

The computers are the risk. A computer security risk is defined as any event, action or situation that could lead to the loss or destruction of computers or the data they contain. So, cyber law is made for the protection of private information’s like intellectual property rights, from the cyber criminals.

For example, many people fail to make backup copies of their data. A hard disk failure could lead to a devastating loss of data. But such risks should be distinguished from computer crimes, the action that violates state laws. The term cyber crime is often used to describe crimes carried out by means of the Internet and a new legal field called the cyber law, is developing in order to track developments in this and related areas.

Various obstacles were being faced due to the rigid cyber law and its implementation in Nepal before 2057. On the principle of this law, the government has decided to implement the law since 2061/5/30. Since then, Gadget and cyber laws are implemented.

International Cyber Law

At the time of origin of information technology, there were no laws formulated internationally. Due course time, there were many obstacles faced by the software developers and users at the same time. To overcome these obstacles, the following laws were implemented.

Fair Credit Reporting Act in 1970	Free access to Personal Credit Report
Freedom of Information Act in1970	Access of information posted by the government
Federal Privacy Act in 1988	Access right of a government to see any record.
Video Privacy Protection Act in 1988	Prohibition of personal record without judiciary order
Computer Matching and Privacy Protecting Act in 1988	Right of government to keep the personal key record
Copyright Act 1992	Unauthorized copy of software (5 years Jail or US$25000 both)

Some laws implemented by various countries are given below:

Issues	Laws	National Actions	International Actions
Contracts	Electronic Transaction Act	Hong Kong/ China, Singapore, Thailand	UNCITRAL: Model Law
Harmful sites or contents	Penal Law or Legislation, Obscenity Law, Communication Decency Act, Obscene Publication Act, Self-regulation Act	Australia, China,HK/China, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore Hong Kong/China, USA, UK, EU etc.	N.A
Hacking & Virus	E-Commerce Act	Philippine	N.A
Intellectual Property Right (IPR)	Copyright Law, Patents Law, Trade Marks Law, IPR Law Green Paper on Counterfeiting & Piracy etc.	Hong Kong/China, Skouras, Sin galore, India, EU etc.	WIPO: Ratification
Data protection and privacy	Personal Data Law Privacy Law, Directive, Self-regulation etc.	Hong Kong/China, S.Korea,EU (e.g. D95/46/EC) 2 USA etc.	OECD: Guidelines on Transformer Data Barriers and The Protection of Privacy
Security	Electronic Transaction Act, Digital Signature Laws, Standards IT Act etc.	Hong Kong/China, Germany, Italy, Malayasia3, Singapore etc. UK (e.g., BS 7799) India	ITU: Recommendations ISO: Standards
Taxation	Internet Tax Freedom Act etc.	USA etc.	N.A
Domain names	N.A	Adopt ICANN practice in many nations	ICANN
Consumer protection	Extension of existing consumer protection	EU etc.	N.A
SPAM	Spam Bill (2003)	Australia, EU and USA	ITU: New initiative(2004)4
Beyond national jurisdiction	N.A	N.A	ITU and ISO standards EU:Cyber-crime Treaty (2002)

 

Cyber Law in Nepal

Cyber Law is one of the most important law in Nepal, which is deal by the Company Registration in Nepal as cyber law is connected to our day to day life and is the significant area of human life. The Government of Nepal (House of Representatives) has approved the Electronic Transaction Act-2063 on 4th December 2006.

The law does not only legalize all sort of electronic transactions and digital signatures, it has undoubtedly implied the ways to run several computer-based mechanisms and penalize cyber crime. Apart from that, the act has formulated the terms of Comptroller of Certification Authority which is further divided into 12 sections and 80 clauses. For more effective, it has assigned separate judicial body called IT Tribunal and Appellate Tribunal to keep an eye into all cases which are connected to computer and cyber crime. If anyone is found to be violating Cyber Law, then he/ she is equally punished like other crimes.

We cannot ignore that Internet has unlocked numerous opportunities for mankind but it is also true that cyber crimes are also getting huge place in our lives. There is no doubt that technologies are being a crucial part of humans and it is our responsibility to deal with the problems that are created by the use of internet and computers and maintain proper security of our information’s. According to Cyber Law in Nepal, if an individual is found in such cyber crime like hacking the intellectual property of others he or she will be punished for minimum 6 months to 3 years in prison and has to pay minimum 50 thousand to max 3 lakhs. So, stealing other’s intellectual property is akin to steal in other’s homes.

According to this Law, IT consumers, their certification, digital copyright, their legal status, control, authentication and permission are explained. Similarly, the network facilities provided by the computer vendors, their duties and responsibilities clearly stated in the law.

In addition to the rights, the law also has explained about the crime activities such as forged documentation, leakage of privacy, etc. A person or vendor or supplier acting against the law will be responsible for the consequences of the judiciary and he/she can be fined or jailed or both punishments can be bailed.

In the same way, the law has explained about the bilateral contracts, their certification, legal status, authentication, provisions, etc. The computers users, rights of the computer employees, etc. are also explained in the law.

It would be good practice if everybody practices the cyber law. But the rate of cyber crime is increasing and the concerned body will have to be conscious of the fact that the criminals should be punished. Nepal has formulated some policies and acts as given below:

·         Electronic Transaction Act 2005

·         IT policy 2000

·         Electronic Transaction Regulatory 2005

 

Cyber Crime

INTRODUCTION

Anyone who wants to invade or harm a computer system can make use of the variety of tools and tricks. These tricks related to unauthorized access. The unauthorized access mechanism and other methods by which an intruder accesses the database are given in coming sections.

Computer Crime is an illegal activities carried out by the use of computers by the individuals who has a good knowledge about the computer. Alternatively, computer crime is also known as cyber crime, e-crime, electronic crime or hi-tech crime. Computer crime is an act performed by a knowledgeable computer user, sometimes referred to as a hacker that illegally browses or steals a company's or individual's private information.

As the number of computer's users are increasing, the computer crime are also increasing. Due to the increment of computer crime, cyber law was made to control or minimize these crimes but the crimes has not be fully controlled by cyber law. Different types of computer crimes that has been in practice are as follows:

·         Cyber terrorism - Hacking, threats and blackmailing towards a business or person

·         Creating Malware - Writing, creating, or distributing malware (e.g. virusesandspyware)

·         Denial of Service Attack - Overloading a system with so many requests it cannot serve normal requests

·         Espionage - Spying on a person or business

·         Fraud - Manipulating data, e.g. changing banking records to transfer money to an account

·         Harvesting - Collect account or other account related information on other people

·         Identity Theft - Pretending to be someone you are not

·         Intellectual property theft - Stealing another persons or companies intellectual property like copyright, patent rights, etc.

·         Phishing - Deceiving individuals to gain private or personal information about that person

·         Scam - Tricking people into believing something that is not true

·         Spamming - Distributed unsolicited e-mail to dozens or hundreds of different addresses

·         Spoofing - Deceiving a system into thinking you are someone you really are not

·         Unauthorized Access- Gaining access to systems you have no permission to access

So, in simple words, we can define computer crime as the unethical or illegal acts like fraud, unauthorized access, phishing, identity theft, etc., done by the knowledgeable computer user by the use of computer.

Password Guessing

The computers usually use some type of authentication technique using plain text passwords to protect the system from uninvited guests. But, some people can penetrate or break the authentication and access the computer resources. The activity can be carried out by the following methods:

1.      Password guessing

2.      Shoulder surfing (look from shoulder for someone using a password)

3.      Packet sniffers (A program that checks all the traffic on a section of a network)

4.      Dumpster diving (look in dumped documents for password)

5.      Social Engineering (False call for a password das if you are the user)

6.      Super user status (provide facility to access all the files and documents protected like in UNIX or Windows NT)

Salami Saving and Data Diddling

Most of the computer crimes are generated from inside the job. In salami shaving, a programmer alters a program so that it subtracts a very small amount of money from each account and diverts the funds to the embezzler’s account.

In the case of Data Diddling, insiders modify data so that it is difficult to tell that they have stolen funds. In some cases, data diddling requires little more expertise than altering accounts or database records to disguise illegal activities.

Forgery

Basic shortcomings in the Internet’s technical design enable knowledgeable users to make data appear to come from one place when it is really coming from another.

Pranksters can easily originate forged e-mail messages, which can do such things. Spammers (marketers who send unsolicited e-mail) use this technique to disguise the origin of their messages.

Security Loophole Detection Programs

There are some programs that can detect security loopholes. Intruders can use a variety of programs that automatically search for unprotected or poorly protected computer systems and notify them when a target is found.

They can also use SATAN, a security loophole analysis program designed for use by system administrators. The program can tell how to get into a poorly secured system.

Computer Viruses

Computer Viruses resemble a living virus in frightening ways. The computer viruses require a host and they are designed to make copies of themselves. There are varieties of viruses like file infector virus, boot sector virus, macro virus, time bombs, logic bombs, Trojan horse, etc.

Hackers, Crackers, Cyber Gangs and Virus Author

Hackers are computer hobbyists who enjoy pushing computer system to their limits. They experiment with a program to try to discover undocumented features, capabilities that are not mentioned in the system’s manuals. Sometimes, they try track down all the weaknesses and loopholes in a system’s security.

Hackers are those individuals who are technically proficient and attempted to access to any system in unauthorized ways. They are also known as ' Ethical Hackers' or 'White Hat Hackers'. So, hackers are those individuals who are technically proficient and are intensely interested in exploring the things and recondite workings of any computer operating system by discovering the holes within the system but never intentionally damage data. Hackers are most often programmers and they obtain advanced knowledge of operating systems and programming languages.

Crackers (also called black hats) are hackers who like Darth Vader in George Luca’s Star Wars trilogy, have turned to the dark side. They become obsessed with gaining entry to highly secure computer systems.

Crackers, who are also known as 'black hat', are those individuals who breaks into any system or violates the system integrity with malicious content. Having gained unauthorized access, crackers destroy vital data, deny legitimate users service or cause problems for their targets. Crackers can easily be identified because their actions are malicious.

Cyber Gangs brings crackers together by means of the Internet and physical meetings. The group dynamics reinforce their immature and often destructive aims.

Computer virus authors typically want to see how far they can push the boundaries of virus software.

Effects of Computer Crime

Breaches of computer security can be costly. As our entire economy and infrastructure move to the networked information systems, the potential costs grow higher every day due to the breaches of computer security.

The following are the consequences due to an attempt in the computer crime caused by hackers, intruders, crackers, and viruses.

1.      Consumption of time of staff member in detecting intruders and managing safety methods.

2.      Physical theft of the computer and other equipment cause a lot of damage to the companies.

3.      Due to the attackers, the banks, and financial companies get adverse publicity.

4.      Vandalize the original web page with the different contents.

5.      The privacy of public can be lost due to unauthorized access of data and programs.

Safety of Computer Crime

We are going to discuss some methods of protecting our computer from above mentioned possible damages to the computer and databases. None of them are 100% safe but they will definitely reduce the risk damage.

The following are the safety measures of computers.

1.      Protection of computers from power-related problems such as power surges and power outages.

2.      Using call back system which helps to identify the intruder’s location and phone number.

3.      Using firewall which protects the computer from receiving unknown e-mail messages.

4.      Using encryption method for the databases for its access.

5.      Using antivirus programs to protect from virus infection.

6.      Using backups regularly with safe and virus free hard disks.

Unauthorized Access

Most of the computer systems use some type of authentication technique. They may be plaintext passwords which help to protect the system from uninvited guests. It isn’t difficult, though, to guess or obtain a password. In fact, many unauthorized access attempts target password lists.

Computer Related Legal Problems

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a serious offense. It is the presentations of somebody else work as it were your own. Plagiarism may cause legal problems. Plagiarizing copyrighted material is called copyright infringement.

If you are tempted to copy anything from the Web, you need to bear in mind that there are U.S is a signatory to international copyright regulations.

Hence, an author’s does not need to include an explicit copyright notice to be protected under the law. Don’t copy anything from the Web page without first asking permission.

Software piracy

Imagine that you have copied a computer program. It works perfectly on your friend’s computer. Maybe, you are interested in making money by selling it. Such actions which violate the copyright law is known as software piracy. There are some sites and some domains available for the free copy of software and trial versions to use.

But, you are restricted to use the full version of commercial software, which if you use and sell will affect the author directly or indirectly. The following actions are illegal:

1.      Incorporating all or part of a General Public License (GPL) program in a commercial program that you offer for sale.

2.      Continuing to use a shareware program past the evaluation program’s expiration date, even though you didn’t pay the registration fee.

3.      Violating the terms of a software license, even if you have paid for the program. For example, many licenses forbid you to install and use more than one copy at a time, so you are guilty of an infringement.

4.      Making copies of site-licensed programs for your personal use at home.

5.      Giving or selling copies of commercial programs to others.

Adult sites and obscenity

Adult sites are those sites which contain pornography. They are full of nude pictures and explicitly sexual outrages. Some people access these sites during the office hours which is hampers the regular work of the office.