Centre for Internet and Society

Indic Wiki Motion Chart

praskrishna — 2013-03-26T06:16:17Z

Indic Wiki Motion Chart

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Indic Wiki Calendar

praskrishna — 2013-04-22T10:24:41Z

Indic Wiki Calendar

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Indic Oriya Typing

praskrishna — 2012-12-07T07:35:12Z

Indic Oriya Typing

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Indic Languages

praskrishna — 2012-09-29T12:08:11Z

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Indic Language Statistical Report

praskrishna — 2013-01-21T04:02:46Z

Indic Language Statistical Report

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Indians Rank Second For Online Snooping

praskrishna — 2012-11-30T06:10:24Z

Indians rank second globally when it comes to seeking details of private individuals online, as per Google transparency report.

The blog post was published in Indolink on November 23, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

India recorded for 2,319 requests for the entire period of 2012, where various government agencies have been looking for individual user details contained in online records, as reported by Dailybhaskar.com. U.S. topped the list with 7,969 requests, while Brazil was on the third spot with 1,566 requests.

It was seen that in the first six months this year, India made 2,319 requests involving 3,467 users, while the U.S. made 7,969 requests in the same period. Globally, it was seen that there were 20,938 requests for user data in the period of January-June. The data includes an individual’s complete Gmail account, chat logs, Orkut profile and search terms among others. Google prepares this report every six months, and was started in July-December 2009.

The report also stated that the percentage of data requests fully or partially complied with by India stood at 64 percent.

The Director for policy at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Pranesh Prakash said "Though India is a large country with a significant number of internet users, this data is nonetheless an indicator of growing surveillance," as reported by Daily Bhaskar.com.Apart from snooping on user details, Indian authorities are also known to send requests for taking down certain web content, which is considered to be sensitive for national security or defamatory in general. A new trend also revealed that untrue court orders are being used as a key instrument for the same.

On one hand the nation is seeking to go net savvy, while on the other hand authorities are looking to stamp authority on freedom of a larger population.

If was also noted that there were 20 court orders and 64 requests from executive/police that resulted in 596 items being taken down from the web between January and June this year. Comparatively, there were only eight court orders and 22 executive/police requests in January-June 2010, resulting in 125 items being taken down.

Google said “In response to a court order, we removed 360 search results. The search results were linked to 360 web pages that had adult videos, which allegedly violated an individual’s personal privacy,” as reported by Business Standard.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/indolink-november-2012-indians-rank-second-for-online-shopping

Indians Join ‘Save the Internet’ Campaign

praskrishna — 2015-05-09T07:42:06Z

In India, hundreds of thousands have joined a public campaign to ensure equal access to the Internet as an impassioned debate engulfs the country on what is called “net neutrality.”

The article by Anjana Pasricha was published by Voice of America on April 15, 2015. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.

The controversy heated up after one of the country’s main telecom providers launched a new marketing platform, Airtel Zero, where Internet businesses could pay to have users browse their sites for free.

This triggered a nationwide backlash from those who fear that this could deny equal access to the Internet. They are demanding that the Internet remain a level playing field with all data getting equal treatment - whether it is a student’s blog or an online company with deep pockets.

Celebrities, professionals, entrepreneurs and students, are among the tens of thousands who have signed up for an online campaign “savetheinternet.”

Petitions are being sent at a furious pace to the telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which invited public comments last month on various proposals such as allowing telecom companies to charge for services like Skype and YouTube.

One of the persons behind the campaign to ensure net neutrality, Kiran Jonnalagadda, in Bangalore, has been taken aback by the overwhelming response.

“400,000 users have on their own copy, pasted an email from our website and mailed it to TRAI from their own computers. It is not an automated script. There is nothing is going on from our servers. People are doing it by themselves on their own computers. That is incredible. We did not think they would do it,” said Jonnalagadda.

The strident public criticism on the issue has already had an impact. One of the country’s biggest online retailers, Flipkart, said on Tuesday that it had scrapped discussions with Airtel Zero on giving users free access to its app.

Flipkart announced its decision after some angry supporters of net neutrality denounced the company saying it would get an unfair advantage over its competitors. Some users even threatened to boycott the online retailer.

Supporters of allowing telecoms to give preferential, free access to Internet sites say providers need the funds to expand infrastructure and net coverage in countries like India, where broadband access is still limited. Opponents say such practices allow for preferential treatment for some websites over others, creating a disadvantage for upstart websites that would inhibit innovation.

Pranesh Prakash at the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society supports net neutrality. However he said that under certain conditions, companies could pay for customers using their data.

“They anyway have to pay money for using data. Right now what some companies are offering to do is not only to pay money for their data use, but also for customers data use. That can be anti-competitive, for instance if there is in exclusive deal, or if the terms of the deal are not transparent. But just the fact that a company is offering to pay for its customers data does not by itself make it anti-competitive. For instance toll free numbers are not considered anti-competitive by anyone,” said Prakash.

The government says it will wait for a report from a six-member committee due in May before it takes a position on the issue. But net users hope the government is leaning toward net neutrality.

Earlier this week, Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, called the Internet “one of the finest creations of the human mind.”

“It is the property of the entire human race, not of any country or of any society. Net to become truly global must have integral link with the local and when we talk of digital inclusion, it is equally important it must be available to those who are underprivileged and on the margins,” said Prasad.

India is one of the world’s biggest Internet markets after the United States and China with an estimated 180 million users. It is not the only country to debate net neutrality - it has also been a subject of intense discussion in the United States and Europe.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/voice-of-america-april-15-2015-anjana-pasricha-indians-join-save-the-internet-campaign

Indians Get Particular about Online Marriage

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T06:48:58Z

The article quotes Nishant Shah's views on online behaviour of people seen elsewhere in the world.

From the overweight and transsexuals to people with HIV and those supposedly afflicted by negative planetary positions, the Internet dating game in India increasingly has a website for everyone.

And with Valentine's Day on Sunday, the specialist sites are seeing a rise in hits.

"There's always an increase in activity around this time of year," said Megha Singhal, who with her sister runs a portal for larger lonely hearts -- www.overweightshaadi.com.

"Valentine's Day is still a big deal here. Everyone wants a date," the 21-year-old economics student told AFP from New Delhi.

Marriage -- or "shaadi" in Hindi -- remains a cornerstone of society in conservative India, with hundreds of matchmaking sites concentrating on finding their members suitable life partners rather than casual dates.

Long-established portals like www.shaadi.com, www.bharatmatrimony.com and www.jeevansathi.com offer general searches. Would-be brides and grooms can be selected by age, caste, religion, language or where they live.

But Singhal and others say that niche matrimonial sites can often be more effective.

Yazdi Tantra, a computer consultant in Mumbai, runs www.theparsimatch.com, one of a number of websites for the dwindling community of followers of the ancient Zoroastrian faith.

"Essentially, Parsis like to marry within the community. It saves time rather than trawling through other multicultural sites to get a profile," he said.

Sanjeev Pahwa, head of the New Delhi-based firm Strikeone Advertising, said targeting niche groups made business sense as he realised smaller start-ups like his couldn't compete with the major players.

The result was www.bposhaadi.com, for call centre workers working unsociable hours, and www.govtshaadi.com, targeting state sector employees looking for love.

Another came about from the belief in Indian astrology that a Manglik -- a person born when Mars was in an inauspicious position in the skies -- is a bad match for marriage but that two Mangliks can cancel out its negative effects.

Now, www.manglikshaadi.com has more than 14,000 members, he said.

Since starting five years ago, Pahwa has introduced more sites, including for people with disabilities and the over 30s, who have preferred to further their careers before getting married.

Elsewhere, there are sites for hijras -- transsexuals and transvestites commonly known in India as eunuchs -- people with HIV and those who shun the officially banned, but still widely practised, dowry system.

Satya Naresh, who set up www.idontwantdowry.com, said the site is helping to break down traditional attitudes and a practice that can place an intolerable financial strain on families.

"We've been very successful in changing the mindset of people and hope it continues," he said from the southern city of Hyderabad.

For these Internet entrepreneurs, web access in India -- although still small at about 14 percent for broadband connections -- is good news for those looking for love.

"The Internet does make the access to a pool of suitable people much easier than matrimony in other times," said Singhal.

Nishant Shah, director of research at the Centre for Internet and Society, based in the IT hub of Bangalore, said the phenomenon reflected online behaviour already seen elsewhere in the world.

"As more and more people are going online they're going to replicate tight and personalised communities which are very local and bound by existing structures at the same time as trying to look more globally," he explained.

"The matrimonial sites are fairly indicative of that. We find people not going on to general websites but very narrow ones.

"It's not just matrimonial sites. Facebook, for example, looks like a very large community of users but when you look at friend networks you realise people connect in small and specialist networks.

"It reflects the old idea of 'birds of a feather stick together'."

For link to the original article

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/indians-online-marriage

Indians Call For More Stringent Data Protection Laws

praskrishna — 2017-07-18T13:36:49Z

The government is India is facing calls to establish better cybersecurity laws to protect consumers’ data after fears have crept up that Reliance Jio, the telecom startup in India, suffered a major data leak.

This report was published by PYMNTS on July 17, 2017. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

According to a report in Reuters announcing the news, Jio denied the data leak took place, saying the names, telephone numbers and email addresses of Jio users that showed up on Magicpak, a website, were unauthentic. Its parent Reliance Industries said customers’ data was safe and protected.

But at the same time that it was issuing reassurances, Jio filed a complaint claiming unlawful access to its computer systems, reported Reuters. That discrepancy has led Indians to call for better laws for data protection for consumers.

“It raises questions of security and accountability,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a research organization, in the report. “A rule to report breaches exists, but it is unenforceable. It says you’re not liable if you’re following reasonable security practices. What ‘reasonable’ means is not defined.”

Supporters of stronger data protection laws in India said that countries that have stronger cybersecurity laws on the books would have started an inquiry into what happened with Reliance Jio. They point to the data breach last week at Verizon. Verizon quickly responded with an explanation of what went down, how it occurred and how many customers’ data privacy it impacted.

“India is at a nascent stage. For good norms in Asia, look to Singapore. It’s been praised for not having cybersecurity issues by the UN,” Srinivas Kodali, an independent security researcher, said in the same Reuters report.

The report noted that in May there were two data privacy breaches of Indian companies with the records of 17 million Zomato customers being compromised. In another breach, as many as 135 million of India’s Aadhaar numbers had been stolen from government databases and placed online. Aadhaar numbers are similar to social security numbers.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/pymnts-july-17-2017-indians-call-for-more-stringent-data-protection-laws

Indian Women in Science Wiki edit-a-thon

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T06:17:56Z

A Wikipedia edit-a-thon is being held at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore on October 11, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. The event is being organized by IndiaBioScience in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team.

CIS-A2K will conduct the first three edit-a-thons.

In India, Science as a discipline is subject to many of the same gender issues as it is worldwide - women scientists are fewer in number than men, they occupy fewer positions of power, and face distinct issues by virtue of their gender and the accompanying societal pressures. Women Scientists in India also tend to be less visible than their male counterparts, and public awareness of Indian Women Scientists is low.

IndiaBioScience will be organising a series of public events to raise the profile of women scientists on one of the most-popular online encyclopaedias - Wikipedia. At these events, participants will be encouraged to create and complete profiles of Indian Women in Science.

To participate sign up below or click here (http://www.indiabioscience.org/content/women-science-wiki-edit-thon

Contact the IndiaBioScience Team for more details: www.indiabioscience.org & team@indiabioscience.org

At the venue, the events will begin with a short, hands-on introduction to Wiki editing. Participants can then go on to pick the scientist they would like to work on. There will be an interaction session with a guest Woman Scientist around lunch, with a discussion of issues commonly faced by women in science. In the afternoon session, participants can continue working on the Wiki pages, with a break for tea. Participants are requested to bring their laptops. We have a few desktops available at Saturday's venue for those who cannot do so.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/india-women-in-science-wiki-edit-a-thon

Indian Users’ Perspective On WIPO Negotiations On Treaty For Visually Impaired

praskrishna — 2013-02-18T09:07:06Z

South-East Asia is host to one-third of the world’s 39 million blind people. Over 20 million live in India alone. This week’s special session of the World Intellectual Property Organization aims to clean up the text of an international treaty to facilitate access to books for the blind and visually impaired community. It is thus of prime importance for India, and some there worry that issues such as commercial availability could undermine the treaty’s effectiveness.

This blog post by Catherine Saez was published in Intellectual Property Watch on February 16, 2013, Nirmita Narasimhan is quoted.

According to Nirmita Narasimhan, policy director with the Center for Internet and Society, barely five percent of published books in India are available in accessible formats. Visually impaired people struggle to get access to “education, news and entertainment, cultural materials, and employment.”

For instance, she told Intellectual Property Watch “even where there are seats reserved forl the blind in universities, there may not be enough applicants/candidates to fill those seats because of lack of educational resources.”

“Leisure reading and being up to date with the latest bestsellers is of course also a problem because these are unavailable at the time these reach the global market,” she said.

“Until last year, we did not have any fair use exception in our copyright law permitting conversion,” Narasimhan said. The new copyright amendment [pdf], which amended the Indian copyright Act of 1957, was adopted in May 2012 (IPW, Inside Views, 22 January 2013) but “has not yet translated into significant results in terms of accessible books,” Narasimhan said. The amendment allows conversion of books to accessible formats.

There are very limited resources in India, “both in terms of finances as well as manpower to carry out conversion activities, and a demand which far outstrips the supply, hence disability organisations struggle to keep up with the demand for accessible books,” she said, adding that “unlike organisations in other countries, organisations in India do not receive any government support for carrying out funding activities.”

Progress is slow and we still do not have complete access to global online collections such as Bookshare since there is some ambiguity regarding the definition of an ‘accessible format’ in our copyright act. Talking books are not explicitly mentioned in the Act,” she added. “Talking books” refer to books under a Digital Accessible Information SYstem (Daisy) format. The Copyright Amendment Bill of 2012 also does not address import and export, she said.

According to the Daisy Consortium, which includes 20 full members and over 40 associate members, a Daisy book is “a set of digital files” that includes “one or more digital audio files containing a human narration of part or all of the source text, a marked-up file containing some or all of the text (…), a synchronisation file to relate markings in the text file with time points in the audio file, and a navigation control file which enables the user to move smoothly between files while synchronisation between text and audio is maintained.“

“The Daisy Forum of India is an active network of over 85 organisations who are converting into Daisy, but the number of books with them is still significantly lower than those available in other countries,” she said.

“Technological solutions are still by and large unavailable in rural areas,” Narasimhan said. “Hence, while solutions like electronic text are useful in cities, audio or Braille would still be the primary means of reading for the blind in rural India.”

India is also working on a draft Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill. In particular, Article 51 on access to information and communication technology states that measures should be taken so that “all content in whichever medium whether audio, print or electronic shall be

made available to persons with disabilities in accessible format,” and that “persons with disabilities have access to electronic media by providing for audio description, sign language interpretation and close captioning.”

International Treaty of Utmost Importance

“Countries like India could benefit tremendously from access to accessible versions of books in libraries around the world,” according to Narasimhan. “It would dispense with the administrative mechanism of seeking copyright permissions, which would greatly ease the life of disability organisations engaged in conversions.”

A paper, posted on the CIS-India website on 23 January, by Rahul Cherian, founder of Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability Law and Policy, said next week’s session “is probably the last change to sort out the major outstanding issues in the text of the document before the diplomatic conference.”

“One of the most critical issues that remain outstanding is the desire that some government negotiators have to link the use of the treaty provisions or copyright exceptions to commercial unavailability of the work in accessible formats,” he wrote, underlining the “impossibility of verifying commercial availability with any degree of certainty.”

In particular, the linkage between commercial availability and the exceptions appear at two places in the treaty, he said: in Article C (National law limitations and exceptions on accessible format copies) and in Article D (Cross-Border exchange of accessible format copies).

The paper gives the example of the complexity of exception in relation to cross-border exchange. “Imagine that the United Kingdom introduces a provision in their copyright law allowing the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to export accessible format copies to people with visual impairment in Chennai but only after verifying that the accessible format copy cannot be otherwise obtained within a reasonable time and at a reasonable price.”

“Remember that ‘reasonable price’ in India means that the accessible format copy of the work is available at prices that are affordable in that market, taking into account the needs and income disparities of persons who have limited vision and those with print disabilities,” it states.

He questioned how the RNIB based in the UK could even begin to undertake this exercise which would entail several steps such as checking whether the accessible format copy is available in India, understanding the needs and income disparities of those with limited vision and print disabilities, and checking the cost of the accessible format copy and determine whether the cost of the accessible format copy is reasonable.

Linking commercial availability and exceptions as mentioned in Article C, Cherian said, “will lead to countries such as India being put under pressure from the European Union and the United States to amend our Copyright Act and linking our exceptions to commercial availability,” and he added, “the same applies to countries that want to introduce copyright exceptions after the Treaty.”

Rahul Cherian died unexpectedly on 7 February.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ip-watch-feb-16-2013-catherine-saez-indian-users-perspective-on-wipo-negotiations-on-treaty-for-visually-impaired

indian techies

praskrishna — 2011-12-22T05:21:37Z

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Indian Supreme Court Overturns Law Barring ‘Offensive Messages’ Online

praskrishna — 2015-03-25T16:18:29Z

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down legislation barring “offensive messages” online, saying it violated constitutional guarantees of free expression.

The article by Niharika Mandhana published by Wall Street Journal on March 24, 2015 quotes Sunil Abraham.

A two-judge panel voided a part of India’s Information Technology Act that made it a crime to share information through computers or other communications devices that could cause “annoyance, inconvenience” and “enmity, hatred or ill will.”

Announcing the ruling in a crowded courtroom in the Indian capital, Justice Rohinton Nariman said the law’s provisions were too vague and didn’t provide “clearly defined lines” for law-enforcement officials. “What is offensive to one person may not be offensive to another,” he said.

The court also ruled that Internet companies, such as Facebook and Google, could be required to remove or block access to online content only if ordered to do so by a court or by a notification from the government. Previously, they were expected to act when they had “actual knowledge” of allegedly illegal materials.

Free-speech activists had long argued against the broad language in the law, which was enacted in part as an effort to prevent the incitement of violence among different religious and ethnic groups in the world’s second-most-populous nation.

On Tuesday they applauded the decision.

“This provision was hugely problematic for anyone using the Internet in India and that is gone,” said Sunil Abraham, head of the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society. “The court has removed the additional, unconstitutional limits to free speech.”

India’s Information Technology minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said in a televised interview after the ruling that the government “supports free social media.”

“If the security establishment needs a response in cases of terrorism, extremism, communal violence, the government will take a view after wider consultations,” Mr. Prasad said. “But only with adequate safeguards.”

Enforcement of the law has sparked controversy for years. In 2012, a 21-year-old was detained after complaining on Facebook about the effective shutdown of Mumbai for the funeral of a right-wing Hindu leader. Another person was also detained for “liking” her comment.

That year, political cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was also charged under this law for his work lampooning Parliament. Mr. Trivedi said Tuesday that the court’s decision would “put a stop to years of misuse of the law by the government and politicians.”

“It sends a strong message that Indian law is with free speech,” Mr. Trivedi said.

According to a recent report by Facebook, the U.S. social media company blocked 5,832 pieces of content in the second half of 2014 on requests from Indian law-enforcement agencies and the government.

That was up from 4,960 pieces blocked from January to June last year. Facebook said it restricted access in India to a lot of “anti-religious content” and “hate speech that Indian officials reported could cause unrest and disharmony.”

J. Sai Deepak, a New Delhi-based lawyer involved in the case, said Tuesday’s decision was a significant victory for Internet companies in India. He said the law’s implementation—which earlier was “subject to the vagaries of the political winds of the state,” he said—would now be guided only by the free-speech rules laid down in the Indian constitution.

The order, however, rejected an argument by free-speech advocates that information shared on the Internet must be treated the same way as other kinds of speech, such as a live address or printed material. The court said lawmakers could create a separate law to deal with online speech because such content, unlike others, “travels like lightning and can reach millions of persons all over the world.”

But the current law, the court said, was too vague and included terms which “take into the net a very large amount of protected and innocent speech.” The law “is cast so widely that virtually any opinion on any subject would be covered by it,” the order said.

—Newley Purnell contributed to this article.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/wall-street-journal-niharika-mandhana-march-24-2015-indian-supreme-court-overturns-law-barring-hate-speech-online

Indian super-cops now patrol the www highway

praskrishna — 2011-08-19T06:48:48Z

There's discontent brewing in the Indian cyberspace. And it has to do with the government blocking content that it deems "objectionable". What has raised hackles of Internet freedom activists is a new set of rules that allow Internet service providers (ISPs) and blogging sites to remove "objectionable" content from the Web.

This Wednesday, in a written reply, minister of state for information and technology Sachin Pilot told the Lok Sabha that the recently notified rules under the IT Act to regulate the use of Internet, "don't give any power to the government to regulate the content"? Pilot added that the rules did not raise issues "pertaining to privacy and violation of freedom of speech and expression."

Are the rules likely to affect you and I? They may have already begun do so. Last fortnight, when surfers went on to popular file-sharing sites to download clips of a new Bollywood release, what they got instead was a screen with the message: This site has been blocked as per instructions of the Department of Telecom.

The fine print

The new rules demand that the intermediary notify users not to publish or use information that is derogatory, abusive, insulting or which violates intellectual property rights or impacts the sovereignty of the nation. In a country that has 81 million Internet users, this can never be easy.

The rules put the onus of intercepting, blocking and removing objectionable content on intermediaries — telecom service providers, search engines, social networking sites and online payment sites — turning them into super-cops of the Web. "Although the Act is an improvement on the previous one, the rules put too much onus on intermediaries," says Dr Subo Ray, President, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). "The intermediaries have become the judge, the jury and the executioner," says Ray.

In a nation where social mores are in a flux, interpretation of what is objectionable under the new rules is wide and subjective, says technology lawyer Rodney D Ryder. "Content deemed 'disparaging', 'harassing', 'blasphemous' or 'hateful' can be blocked. But who will decide what is disparaging?"

The worst bit about such censorship, says Nikhil Pahwa, editor of Medianama, a portal that discusses issues related to digital media, is its opacity. "It is a distress signal for civil liberties and India's version of Egypt's kill-switch. With the UID, the government would know who I am. With the help of telecom operators, they can track me within 50 metres and with my mobile number, snoop in on my conversations. On top of that, do we need Internet rules that don't have a provision of appeal?"

Ryder concurs: "The regulations do not even provide a way for content producers to defend their work or appeal a decision to remove content. This is against the principles of natural justice."

The rules are a case of deceptive legislative drafting says cyber lawyer Pawan Duggal, chairman of Assocham's cyber law committee. "The provisions hide more than what they disclose. Cosmetically, the new rules says that if you are an intermediary, then you shall not be liable for any third-party data, information or communication link made available or hosted by you. Provided, and this is crucial, you follow a number of stringent conditions."

Duggal says many intermediaries in India are not aware of these conditions. "An intermediary will not be liable for any third-party data made available or hosted by it, provided it complies with the law, exercises due diligence, does not abet, conspire or play an active role in a criminal activity and further, provided that once it is notified of any offending activity, removes or disables access of the said offending content expeditiously. If it fails to fulfil one of the conditions, it is open to criminal exposure and civil exposure upto unlimited damages by way of compensation."

Is it gagging net freedom?

In China and Saudi Arabia, governments routinely censor content and redirect search requests to error pages. In Vietnam, bloggers who criticise the government are sometimes arrested. And in Cuba, there is talk of creating "a national Internet". Still, any talk of comparing India with these restrictive regimes is alarmist and stupid, says Ray of IAMAI.

But over the past few years, the government has been gradually building censorship muscle over the Internet, say activists. In 2006, it blocked Typepad, the blog hosting service and a bulk SMS site.

A right to information plea filed by the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society reveals the government blocked 11 sites between 2008 and 2011 (see box). These range from sites hosting the predictable girl wallpapers and Kamasutra to blogs discussing the freedom of speech.

Yet, in his written reply to the Lok Sabha, Pilot insisted that the rules "do not give any power to the government to regulate the content".

If this sparks any discontent in you about privacy, freedom of speech and civil liberties, think twice before sharing the content on the Internet.

This article by Aasheesh Sharma was published in the Hindustan Times on August 6, 2011. The original can be read here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/indian-super-cops-patrol-www-highway

Indian student in Cornell University hacks into ICSE, ISC database

praskrishna — 2013-07-02T07:39:45Z

A 20-year-old Indian student from Cornell University hacked into the database of ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) school exam results, exposed glaring anomalies in the marking system and went on to merrily write about his exploits in an online post.

The article by Kim Arora was published in the Times of India on June 6, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Kolkata-born Debarghya Das, majoring in computer science, says that all he had to do was run a simple program that entered all roll numbers after defining a range to get access to all the results. "It is shocking they haven't implemented a more secure system," Das told TOI on phone from New York.

After the result's data was crunched, analysed and plotted in graphs, Das discovered an interesting incongruity in the marking system: there are 33 different scores unattained between the passing mark of 35 and the maximum of 100 by the nearly 1,50,000 who appeared for the ICSE (Class X) exam. According to Das' findings, not a single student got the following marks: 36, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93. Similarly, in the case of ISC (Class XII exam) a set of 24 marks between 40 and 100 were found to be unattained.

When contacted, chairperson of the CI SCE (Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations) Gerry Arathoon, refused to comment on both data security and the unattained marks. "I can't say anything until I have had a look at things myself," he said.

Das says that the missing marks indicate that perhaps they were tampered with. He offers mathematical and statistical arguments to defend his position in his online post. He says that the ISC anomaly appears to be a case of awarding "grace marks" and writes -- "Everything from 35 onwards, and most things from 23 onward seem blindly promoted to a pass mark."

	Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Center for Internet and Society, says one needn't even be a techie to execute such a hack. "You don't need real technical skills to do this. You just need to figure out the ranges and feed them in. It is an interesting revelation that the website does nothing to obfuscate the javascript for security, but one can still retrieve data without that information. Once you have the data, it requires two minutes of programming to get it in a spreadsheet," says Prakash. In his post, titled "Hacking into the Indian Education System", Das wrote that he was doing this to "demonstrate how few measures our education board takes to hide such sensitive information".

Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Center for Internet and Society, says one needn't even be a techie to execute such a hack. "You don't need real technical skills to do this. You just need to figure out the ranges and feed them in. It is an interesting revelation that the website does nothing to obfuscate the javascript for security, but one can still retrieve data without that information. Once you have the data, it requires two minutes of programming to get it in a spreadsheet," says Prakash. In his post, titled "Hacking into the Indian Education System", Das wrote that he was doing this to "demonstrate how few measures our education board takes to hide such sensitive information".

The student also told the TOI that it wasn't possible to change any values in marks and upload fudged data again, and that he made any significant progress in this direction only about 3-4 days after the results were announced. His online post says he also has the data for CBSE class XII. Though he hasn't yet made it public, he does admit it was harder to crack than CISCE, though not altogether difficult.

Schooled in Kolkata, Das is curren tly interning at Google, working on YouTube's captioning system. He is also working on a tongue-controlled game and has earlier been active in game and applet design. The idea to hack the results came to him fo llowing a desire to help two close friends who had recently taken the exams.

Das, nicknamed Deedy, told ToI that he worked on the ICSE and ISC results off and on for a week, but it essentially took about 4-5 hours to get all the data."It took me more time to write the blog post," says Das, referring to his 19-page post with all the graphs, data and explanations that is currently online.

For Das, there was only one other takeaway from the whole exercise. "Regardless of any tampering, it would be nice to see a transparent exam scheme. SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) publishes everything related to the exam results every year. It is inconceivable that a national level exam board doesn't do that," he says.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-kim-arora-june-6-2013-indian-student-in-cornell-university-hacks-icse-isc-databas