Cyber Crimes, Space and so Forth -a Concept of Cyber Laws

Cyber law is a generic term, which refers to all the legal and regulatory aspects of Internet and the World Wide Web. This cyber law governs a boundless, timeless, space less, medium which has emerged to environ the future business, known as “cyber medium or cyber space”. The electronic medium that is being discussed here is the “internet”. The popularity of internet raised many critical questions about the regulations and the governance of various aspects. Internet grew in a completely unplanned and unregulated manner and continuing grow rapidly. With the population of Internet multiplying about every 100 days; the internet is becoming the new chosen atmosphere of the world. As the internet users are increasing day to day, the scope for committing crimes also increases. Therefore a need for a Law that would govern this medium was seen.

Under the laws for cyber space certain acts have been identified and classified as cyber crimes. A cyber crime is an offence whereby the mode of committing the offence is a computer system and the means is the internet. The psychological factors behind the person committing such cyber crimes can identified as greed, revenge, frustration, grievance and mismanagement. The acts classified as offences under the cyber law are; Hacking, Cyber stalking, Denial of service attack, Virus dissemination, Software piracy, Phishing, & Child Pornography etc. These crimes are real and are affecting everyone, individuals, business organizations, nation states & the international communities. These cyber crimes may be committed against Individuals, Organization, Company, Group of Individuals and Society at large. As the times pass by evolution of almost every thing tales place, so did an evolution take place in the cyber crimes. With the emergence of “Cyber Terrorism” this was evident.

Cyber Terrorism can be said to be the act of controlling a victim’s computers, allied information technology, particularly through the cyber space (Internet), to cause physical, real-world harm or severe disturbance. As the Internet continues to expand, and computer systems continue to be allocating more responsibility and while becoming more & more complex and interdependent, disruption or terrorism via cyberspace may become a more grave danger.

In the ordinary course of time, when an offence is committed by an individual, the subsequent action is either police report of the offence or investigation. On the successful completion of the investigation the offence is adjudicated by the judiciary, same is the case with Cyber Crimes. There are some techniques prescribed for investigation of such cyber crimes and there are also adjudicating authorities or courts established in order to hear and dispose these cases of cyber crimes.

Investigations into cyber crimes can be done through Computer Forensics and Time Stamping. Computer forensics is the process of Identifying, Procuring, Analyzing, & Presenting Digital Evidence in a manner that is legally acceptable in the court of law. Computer forensics is used to conduct investigations into computer related incidents whether the incident is an external intrusion into your systems, internal frauds or staff breaching your security policy. The most important factor in the investigation of cyber crimes is to prove the “Time” of the occurrence of the crimes, as time stands to be most important factor in computer forensics it is very important. Under the concept of time stamping crimes are synchronized as events of an accurate clock. In the case of cyber crimes it is almost impossible to commit a crime without leaving a time trail.  The results of the time stamping are regarded as to be as undisputable evidence.  Time stamping speeds up the investigation and dissuades the cyber criminals.

Adjudication of offences under any law is very important in order to penalize the offender. Adjudication is the legal process by which the Judge reviews the evidence and the arguments, including legal reasoning set forth by parties or litigants to come to a decision or judgment which determines rights and obligations between the parties involved, or in other common sense adjudication is the normal court procedure. The courts in United States of America have already begun taking cognizance of various kinds of fraud and crimes being committed in the internet. The victims of such Cyber crimes have found no healing remedy, they can either claim for civil damages or wait for the culprits to be caught and be tried under provisions, made for such offences committed in cyberspace.

In India, with the Information Technology Act, 2000 being in force the establishment an adjudicating authority is clearly visible under the Section 46, Chapter IX. This provision states that the Central Government may establish one or more cyber regulation appallet tribunals / cyber appallet tribunals, in order to adjudicate upon the matters of cyber crimes. It is further stated that all matters in such context may be referred to the High Court only through appeal. The statutes like Information Technology Act, 2000 and Indian Penal Code, 1860 lay certain provisions classify certain acts done through internet as offences under the law.

Globalization has caused a tremendous increase in the IT sector, resulting in the increase of cyber crimes in each and every corner of the world including the developing countries like India, Japan etc. These nations have opted for their own measures against such internet related offences.  It is a very evident fact about the growth and evolution of laws through out the world, as the world grew larger so did the necessity of governing rules and regulations in the form of law were seen at a high priority. Today, same shall be the case with growing cyberspace and its allied difficulties.