The Centre for Internet and Society
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'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency
https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted
<b>Cyber-attackers who identified themselves as the "Pakistan Cyber Army" have hacked the website of India's top police agency, officials said on Saturday. The website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was hacked by programmers who left a message saying that the attack was in revenge for similar Indian assaults on Pakistani sites, Press Trust of India said. The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: "Long Live Pakistan."</b>
<p>CBI authorities said they were working to restore the site, which offered information to the public.</p>
<p>The spokeswoman said she could not comment on Indian media reports that more than 200 other Indian sites had also been attacked by Pakistani hackers.</p>
<p>"We came to know the CBI site had been compromised Friday night," the spokeswoman told AFP, asking not to be named. "It will take us a couple of days to restore the site."</p>
<p>She said she could not immediately say who was responsible for the attack.</p>
<p>The CBI has "registered a case" and is investigating the attack, she said.</p>
<p>The message posted on the CBI site said the attack was "in response to the Pakistani websites hacked by 'Indian Cyber Army'," the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.</p>
<p>"Hacked hahaa funny," the message said. "Let us see what you investigating agency so called CBI can do" (sic).</p>
<p>Hackers had also infiltrated the server of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains most of the government's websites, PTI reported.</p>
<p>In August, a group also calling itself the "Pakistan Cyber Army" hacked into the website of independent Indian MP Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant liquor baron, who is also head of Kingfisher Airlines.</p>
<p>The group claims to have hacked a number of Indian websites in recent years, including India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, in retaliation for Indian hackers accessing Pakistan sites.</p>
<p>Indian IT specialists have long lamented what they say is a lack of awareness about Internet security across the country, including in the corridors of power.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said it would have been easy for attackers to get into the CBI public site as it was "not a particularly sensitive" one.</p>
<p>The Indian government "has a very low level of cyber awareness and cyber security. We don't take cyber security as seriously as the rest of the world," he said.</p>
<p>He added that the government needed to "make at least 10 times the current level of investment to get their standards to match the rest of the world."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, a government agency that tracks IT security issues, more than 3,600 Indian websites were hacked in the first six months of this year.</p>
<p>Read the original news <a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jFVJWh2e2-i7-ll6pAuGUOsETcbQ?docId=CNG.eb6f793d7e091dc5315bb6b6cbcea713.551">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted'>https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet Governance2011-04-02T01:26:57ZNews Item'IRCTC’s Aadhaar play can violate SC order and derail National Security'
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cio-july-1-2015-irctc-aadhaar-play-can-violate-sc-order-and-derail-national-security
<b>Your online railway bookings are going to become a wee bit more difficult if they aren’t already so. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog entry by Shubhra Rishi was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cio.in/feature/%27irctc%E2%80%99s-aadhaar-play-can-violate-sc-order-and-derail-national-security%27">published by CIO.IN</a> on July 1, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">That is, if the IRCTC makes Aadhaar card compulsory during the registration process for e-ticketing. The move, according to a recent announcement by IRCTC, will ensure that users registering on the IRCTC website are properly identified of their identity and address through the Aadhaar card number verification.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So in case, you already have an Aadhaar card, then you need not worry. For those who don't have it yet or are reluctant to apply for it, are in for a tough time.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to Sandip Dutta, public relations officer at IRCTC, the plan, although still in the <a href="http://aadhaarcarduid.org/railway-reservation-planning-to-be-done-using-aadhaar/">preliminary state</a>, is to make Aadhaar compulsory which will prevent touts from further exploiting the e-ticketing platform.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IRCTC which already has around three crore registered users, adds 15,000 new registrations every day. Just to give you the scale of an IRCTC website, a 15-minute <a href="http://www.cio.in/feature/how-irctc%E2%80%99s-new-servers-make-bookings-and-enquiries-easier">tatkal window has about 1,000,000 people</a> trying to log on to the IRCTC website. This means a new user won't be able to book a railway ticket on the IRCTC site until he owns an Aadhaar card.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also Read: <a href="http://www.cio.in/article/indian-cisos-don-t-trust-uid-their-data">Indian CISO don’t trust UID with their data</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"This is a complete overkill and will only result in harassment of an ordinary citizen," says Sunil Abraham, executive director at <a href="http://cis-india.org/">The Centre for Internet & Society</a>. "Aadhaar, he says, should be used to prevent politicians and bureaucrats from engaging in big-ticket fraud or whole-sale corruption. It should be used to make the state more accountable to citizens and not the other way around. It is unfortunate that techno-utopians are using biometric technology to fight retail corruption or small-ticket fraud.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If IRCTC makes Aadhaar mandatory for user registrations, they will be in direct violation of the Supreme Court's <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-supreme-court-turns-down-centres-plea-to-modify-interim-order-on-aadhar-cards-they-are-not-compulsory-1900570">interim order of September 23, 2013</a> where it has ordered that no person should suffer for not getting the Aadhaar card in spite of the authority making it mandatory, since government says it is voluntary.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/supreme-court-nulls-the-mandatory-status-of-aadhaar-card-scheme-in-india/1/424229.html">March 24, 2014 again, the Supreme Court reiterated its earlier order of 2013</a> and directed all government authorities and departments to modify their forms/circulars, etc., so as to not compulsorily require an Aadhaar number. In the same order the Supreme Court also restrained the UIDAI from transferring any biometric data to any agency without the consent of the person in writing as an interim measure.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">According to cyber law expert and Supreme Court Lawyer, Pavan Duggal, till the time Aadhaar has been brought to a legislative sanctity, no government agency must make it compulsory and if they do so, they will be in gross violation of the order and will be held for contempt of court. "<a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=100438">The National Identification Authority of India Bill</a> that intends to give statutory backing to UIDAI (introduced in Rajya Sabha in 2010) is yet to be passed by the Parliament. Aadhaar is also non-compliant with the Information Technology Act 2000," says Duggal. Aadhaar, he says, is the unwanted child that hasn't proven legitimacy yet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The illegitimacy, which continues to prevail due to several anomalies in the UIDAI’s Aadhaar allotment process. In March this year, about <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/newdelhi/aadhaar-registrations-in-delhi-outstrip-population/article1-1328023.aspx">20 million people enrolled in Delhi for an Aadhaar identification numbe</a>r, according to Census. However, the UIDAI generated about 17.7 million unique numbers in Delhi, about a million more than the city population.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In another incident, Aadhaar numbers were assigned to adult residents in 13 of the country's 36 states, and union territories surpassed their respective population as per 2011 census figures. However, the UIDAI blames that ‘gaps’ in census evaluation may have resulted in inaccuracy of the population data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There have also been bizarre instances in the past <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dogs-trees-and-chairs-have-Aadhaar-cards/articleshow/20359001.cms">where some Aadhaar cards displayed pictures of an empty chair</a>, a tree, and a dog instead of the actual applicant.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">So how does it aid unscrupulous elements in misusing the flaws of the Aadhaar card system?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To start with, Aadhaar captures biometrics of a user, which is neither permanent nor immovable, says Dr. Anupam Saraph, innovator, professor and an advisor in governance, informatics and strategic planning.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics">Biometrics</a> change during the life of a person, sometimes even within a year, or without warning. Biometrics can be easily stolen, replicated or misused as has been demonstrated by instances of fingerprints and iris scans of high profile targets being hacked. The enrollment agencies that have captured the biometric have the entire demographic and biometric database in their possession and as such it can be misused or stolen. Once the biometric fails or is stolen, all the functions that have crept to link access to the biometric are denied with little or no recourse to the victim," says Saraph.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Another benign scenario may be large scale fake bookings to make tickets pricier, the malignant scenario will be entire trains used to transfer armies of anti-nationals and terrorists. Therefore, the Railway Minister must rise to cancel any such plans," says Saraph, and the Home Minister and Defence Minister must immediately scrap the linkage of Aadhaar to any database, require that the entire UID is destroyed as was done in the UK. “This kind of compromise requires the initiation of a time-bound judicial probe by a retired CAG and Supreme Court Judge supported by the CBI to investigate the exposure of the country to serious threats to national security due to UID,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And therefore, the bigger question isn't whether Aadhaar should be made compulsory or not, but whether it is a foolproof method to validate someone's identity. If it isn’t, then why is IRCTC playing the Aadhaar card?</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cio-july-1-2015-irctc-aadhaar-play-can-violate-sc-order-and-derail-national-security'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cio-july-1-2015-irctc-aadhaar-play-can-violate-sc-order-and-derail-national-security</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernancePrivacy2015-07-07T15:10:08ZNews Item'India wants core internet infrastructure'
https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-april-24-2014-india-wants-core-internet-infrastructure
<b>India wants "core internet infrastructure" to be part of an international legal system that would accommodate governments, civil society and other stakeholders. In typical Indian diplomatic style, its position can be interpreted to mean everything and nothing. </b>
<hr />
<p>The article by Indrani Bagchi was <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/India-wants-core-internet-infrastructure/articleshow/34165412.cms">published in the Times of India</a> on April 24, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An MEA team led by Vinay Kwatra, joint secretary told the Net Mundial in Brazil on Thursday, "The elements of India's approach on internet governance respond to its growing complexity and rests in supporting the dynamism, security and openness of a single and un-fragmented cyberspace. We also support innovation, and robust private sector investments to augment internet's continuing growth and evolution."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Indian position is essentially an MEA position, because there has been little prior inter-agency consultation certainly in the government. In fact, while the MEA had decided upon its team almost a month ago, the Department of Information Technology only woke up last week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was only on Friday that the nodal ministry for IT-related issues even agreed to send a team to Brazil on Monday — the same team that the MEA was sending. If nothing else, sources said, this only highlighted the lack of seriousness within the Indian system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In Brazil, Kwatra said internet should have a democratic governing system, involving everyone, which would essentially mean creating a parallel international system. The internet is essentially owned and led by the US, controlled by the fact that the overwhelming number of root servers are situated in that country. But after the Edward Snowden leaks on</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">NSA surveillance, the US' intentions and practices have come under a cloud.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While India does not want the status quo to continue, there is no clarity whether India favours a multilateral or a multi-stakeholder system. India, like China, wants a strong state presence in the decision making process of internet governance, because "it is used for transactions of core economic, civil and defence assets at national level and in the process, countries are placing their core national security interests in this medium." On the other hand, it wants unfettered access to knowledge and technology as a nation-building and governance tool.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Additionally, India wants non-governmental stakeholders to be properly audited "there should also be a clear delineation of principles governing their participation - including their accountability, representativeness, transparency, and inclusiveness. Clearly, it makes it even more important that we define the multistakeholderism."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is a crying need for India to clearly define the future it expects to thrive in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sunil Abhraham of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore says India should take the lead in defining new internet rules, keeping its future in mind. "We could use patent pools and compulsory licensing to provide affordable and innovative digital hardware to the developing world. This would ensure that rights-holders, innovators, manufactures, consumers and government would all benefit ... We could explore flat-fee licensing models like a broadband copyright cess or levy to ensure that users get content at affordable rates and rights-holders get some royalty from all internet users in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This will go a long way in undermining the copyright enforcement based censorship regime that has been established by the US. When it comes to privacy - we could enact a world-class privacy law and establish an independent, autonomous and proactive privacy commissioner who will keep both private and state actors on a short lease. Then we need a scientific, targeted surveillance regime that is in compliance with human rights principles. This will make India simultaneously an IP and privacy haven and thereby attract huge investment from the private sector, and also earn the goodwill of global civil society and independent media." This is more than the Indian government has thought of.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While no binding decisions are expected from Brazil this week, the high profile event is expected to trigger a high level debate on possible reforms. India, say officials, need to hone its position to come up with concrete proposals. This is imperative, after the US made two crucial decisions on internet governance this year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In March the US announced by September 2015 it would give up oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned of Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit group based in California that assigns domain names. But the US is clear it will not hand over control to any organization that can be controlled by any other country. This week, the US' FCC has dealt a body blow to the concept of "net neutrality" (which essentially functions on the premise that access to the internet is the same for everyone) by allowing companies like Disney and Google to pay for premium internet speeds. Countries like China, Russia, Saudi Arabia (maybe even Iran) seek to control net access for their citizens as a measure of political control. Second, cyber offensives by countries who are ramping up capacity in these fields could take over internet governance structures if they are not crafted carefully enough. On the flip side, as Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society puts it, "The US censorship regime is really no better than China's. China censors political speech - US censors access to knowledge thanks to the intellectual property (IP) rightsholder lobby.."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If the US is relinquishing control over ICANN, the next global battle is likely to be over who takes over that mantle. Which, in turn, makes it important to get net governance right. At least China has a plan — it wants the UN to take control. India wants a bit of this and a bit of that, without actually giving it a shape, which makes it impossible for India to shape the future of the debate.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-april-24-2014-india-wants-core-internet-infrastructure'>https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-april-24-2014-india-wants-core-internet-infrastructure</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceNETmundial2014-05-05T10:29:30ZNews Item'I'm going to ruin you, dear'
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-august-3-2014-i-am-going-to-ruin-you-dear
<b>Revenge porn is sweeping across the developed world. And now it's being seen in India. The culprit, says Prasun Chaudhuri, is often a former friend, partner, relative or colleague.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Prasun Chaudhuri with additional reporting by Varuna Verma in Bangalore was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140803/jsp/7days/18682133.jsp">published in the Telegraph</a> on August 3, 2014. Rohini Lakshane gave her inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">How would you feel if you casually opened a mail and found the link to a pornographic site — and it turned out to contain pictures of yourself naked? That's what Kalpana did. She clicked on a link sent to her and, to her horror, found that the face of the girl who "was available for sex" was hers. Her stomach lurched when she saw that the pictures showed her own bedroom. The site also contained her personal and contact details.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kalpana was shattered. The subject line of the mail had said "I'm going to ruin you, dear". It had seemed like a prank. Only, it wasn't. It was a very real and malevolent attempt to destroy her reputation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 24-year-old Mumbai-based bank executive had become a victim of revenge porn — a new form of cybercrime in which ex-lovers or boyfriends upload intimate photos and videos of their former partners for the world to see. Mostly, the sexually explicit pictures are of women posted by jilted or spurned men.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kalpana's photos, it was later found, were posted by her recently divorced husband, Pranay. They were taken when the two lived together.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Revenge porn is a trend sweeping across the developed world — from the US and Japan to countries in Europe. And now it's being seen in India, fuelled by the growing access to the Internet and camera-wielding mobile phones — all that is needed for taking and posting offensive pictures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Now that you have gadgets you tend to capture every moment of your life in pictures or videos," Calcutta-based psychiatrist J.R. Ram points out. "Not only that, you want to share these images through networking apps in your mobile phone or the Internet — without ever thinking of the consequences."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) figures — released on July 1, 2014 — show a 63.7 per cent rise in cyber offences from 2012 to 2013. During this period, the category "transmission of obscene content in electronic form" reflects a quantum jump —104.2 per cent — with 1,203 cases registered and 737 people arrested. "The data show cyber offences against women have increased sharply," NCRB director-general R.R. Verma says. "But we do not have any specific data on revenge crimes."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">More and more such cases, however, are now coming to light. Kalpana lodged a complaint with the Navgarh police station in Mumbai. Ashish was arrested under a number of sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sneha, a 22-year-old college student from Udupi in Karnataka, also went to the police with the complaint that her ex-boyfriend had put up her photographs and videos on the Internet. M.B. Boralingaiah, superintendent of police, Manipal district, says the boy was arrested and sent to judicial custody.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"There has been an exponential rise in the number of cases of cyber revenge being reported to the police," Boralingaiah says. "This could also be because of increasing awareness of cyber laws, which prompts more people to approach the police." The Karnataka police are now setting up cyber crime police stations at regional levels across the state. Currently, only one police station, in Bangalore, deals with such crimes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The profile of the criminal in revenge porn, Boralingaiah adds, is different from that of the average criminal plotting a scam using the Internet. In all the cases that have been reported, the accused is a former friend, partner, relative or colleague with no criminal history. They are also educated, intelligent and technologically savvy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And that is why, despite suspicions, it is not always easy to catch the offender. The police say they have to first track down the origin of the pornographic site where the pictures are posted. "When we receive a complaint we try to locate the IP address (the unique identifier for the computer)," says Siddhartha Chakraborty, in charge of Cyber Police Station, Lalbazar, Calcutta. "But these crooks are clever enough to use some fake IP address of a distant country."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Once the police zero in on the IP address, it asks the web hosts to remove the offensive images, which they normally do. "But the procedure can take weeks or even months," Chakraborty adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Debarati Halder, a lawyer and cyber victim counsellor based at Tirunelvelli, Tamil Nadu, says she comes across 10-15 cases of revenge porn every month across the country, mostly involving college students. Often, the victims themselves take pictures while taking a shower or in their inner wear and share them with their boyfriends.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many young women, Halder says, see such acts as symbols of independence or defiance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Taking 'sexy' images of themselves offers them a false sense of liberty, bypassing the repression imposed upon them in the real world," she says. "They feel relatively uninhibited in cyberspace and tend to experiment with their looks and sexuality, but are unable to determine where to draw the line."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The young are not greatly concerned with privacy and security on the Internet, Canada-based Internet safety expert <a href="http://www.terrycutler.com" target="_blank">Terry Cutler</a> stresses. "They don't understand that once you send out an inappropriate photo or video, you no longer control it."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There are, according to some estimates, at least 3,000 voyeuristic websites where such pictures can be posted. The visuals are often copied and replicated across multiple porn sites, making it virtually impossible for the authorities to wipe off the digital prints. "Often these clips are available on mirror sites, web archives and caches. Video footage can also go viral on social networks and porn buffs even share these images offline," Chakraborty warns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But people seldom think that the intimate pictures that they shoot with their lovers may one day become public. "When you're in love you trust your partner. You don't expect him to use these pictures to humiliate you when things fall apart," says Antara, a 32-year-old IT analyst in a government agency who has been a victim of revenge porn. She says that her husband, to seek a quick divorce, uploaded intimate pictures on porn sites to show that she was a woman of "bad character".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also worrying is that a large number of women are victims of non-consensual and amateur pornography. Abir Atarthy, a Calcutta-based cyber-security expert, recently solved a case in which a college student found her pictures, shot in her bedroom, circulating on a social networking site.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"She was shocked because she not taken those pictures, nor had anybody else," Atarthy says. A thorough check revealed that a boy whose advances she had spurned had installed a hidden spy program in her laptop. "The program — capable of switching on the webcam even if the machine was offline — had been taking her snaps from her private life and sending the visuals to the youth whenever she connected to the Internet," he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rohini Lakshané, a researcher at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, describes such non-consensual acts as sexually violent crimes. "I don't like to use the term 'revenge porn', for it's an act of violence against women," she says. "Sometimes women are even raped and coerced into sex, filmed, threatened and blackmailed over the release of the footage online," Lakshané says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The intention is to humiliate the woman and make her life miserable is the equivalent of throwing acid on her face, holds Dr Subhrangshu Aditya, a student counsellor at Jadavpur University, Calcutta. "These men can't accept rejection and it's their way to settle scores."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The victim, the experts say, doesn't just feel betrayed but often falls into depression — not just because of the ex-partner's action but because she sees herself as a partner in the crime, for the pictures uploaded may have been shot with her consent. "Their guardians also blame her for this and avoid reporting the matter to the police apprehending a bigger scandal," Halder adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The lawyer urges victims of such crimes to always approach the police. "Indian women have a strong legal recourse against perpetrators of revenge porn," she says. The amended 354 [C] of the Criminal Law (Amended) Act 2013, also known as the "voyeurism section", criminalises capturing and sharing images of a woman in private space. Section 66(E) of the IT Act criminalises the publication and transmission of images of an individual's private parts without his or her consent.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"These are watertight laws, strong enough to book an offender," she says, adding that the law also protects a victim's identity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Across the world, laws are now being framed to punish cyber porn offenders. In January, Israel voted to define posting of images without consent as sexual harassment, punishable by up to five years in jail. Many states in the US already have laws against revenge porn and Britain may bring in one soon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But perhaps the best way to prevent such crimes is by safeguarding privacy — at home and in the virtual world (see box). Cyber security expert Cutler sums it up aptly: "Just think this before you click the send button: If I were to post the visual on the Internet, would I care if it landed on the front page of a newspaper or the 8pm news?"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Some names have been changed to protect identities</i></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">How to Safeguard Your Privacy?</h2>
<ul>
<li>Get acquainted with the privacy settings of the social networks, dating and matrimonial websites you use</li>
<li>Do not upload any single close-shot picture on the Internet; this can be morphed and misused</li>
<li>Never film yourself during sexually intimate acts; even if you delete the pictures and videos these can be recovered from your device</li>
<li>Watch out for weird webcam activity; malicious software can easily infect your computer or phone and control the webcam</li>
<li>Remove your memory card from your mobile or format the hard disc of your computer before giving the device to service centres</li>
<li>Don't give your device to others and always lock your applications (especially picture galleries) in your mobile</li>
<li>Install and update antivirus and antimalware in your device</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-august-3-2014-i-am-going-to-ruin-you-dear'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-telegraph-august-3-2014-i-am-going-to-ruin-you-dear</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernanceAccess to KnowledgePrivacy2014-09-09T09:55:47ZNews Item'Hope for such swift crackdowns for everyone'
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-july-6-2018-hope-for-such-swift-crackdowns-for-everyone
<b>The prompt arrest has impressed cybercrime experts, but some are sceptical whether this case will serve as a deterrent for trolls or spell hope for citizens at the receiving end of online abuse. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/hope-for-such-swift-crackdowns-for-everyone/articleshow/64876887.cms">published in the Times of India</a> on July 6, 2018.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"I don't think this serves as sufficient deterrent for the everyday user. The victim here was a high-profile individual and action was taken after specific instructions from the Union home ministry towards both the police and Twitter," said Pranav MB of the Centre for Internet and Society, a non-profit whose focus areas include digital privacy and cybersecurity. <br /> <br /> Pavan Duggal, chairman of the International Commission of Cyber Security Law, too felt the "high-profile stature" of the complainant means this could be an example of "customised justice" and not "generic justice". "The police invariably give step-motherly treatment to the common man whose issues are low priority to them," he said. <br /> <br />Duggal stressed on the need to adopt a "holistic approach" to deter anonymous trolls as a matter of "de facto routine". "We need to come up with strong legal provisions to deal with trolls," he said. <br /> <br />Such steps are becoming imperative given that a recent study by a global cybersecurity firm showed that eight out of 10 persons in India reported some form of online abuse. Another study by a Delhi NGO detailed how vocal women often have to deal with violent threats and <a class="key_underline" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/sexual-remarks">sexual remarks</a>. After the arrest, Priyanka Chaturvedi herself pointed out that "they like to target women who have a different opinion" and stressed the need to send a strong message. <br /> <br /> "Threatening the <a class="key_underline" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/rape">rape</a> of a child is the lowest thing. It's disgusting," said women's rights lawyer Flavia Agnes. Pointing out the vicious trolling of foreign minister Sushma Swaraj over her ministry's clearance to the passport of a Hindu-Muslim couple, Agnes said: "This has been happening again and again and it is getting out of hand. Arresting is one thing but we need to put an end to this menace." <br /> <br /> The swift police action has impressed Mumbai cybercrime investigator Ritesh Bhatia. "It is not too difficult to catch trolls using fake ID these days since <a class="key_underline" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/social-media">social media</a> platforms are ready to provide the police with user logs that help track their IP address. I am glad Twitter responded quickly," said Bhatia. "I also hope that such speedy action is taken for all those who are threatened and abused, irrespective of their profession, status and political affiliations."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-july-6-2018-hope-for-such-swift-crackdowns-for-everyone'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-times-of-india-july-6-2018-hope-for-such-swift-crackdowns-for-everyone</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet Governance2018-07-07T08:52:39ZNews Item'Full belief in fake texts shows cops not trusted'
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-18-2018-full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted
<b>Nilotpal Basu and Abhijeet Nath, an audio engineer and digital artiste, were beaten to death in Assam's Karbi Anglong last week based on rumours that they were kidnappers.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted/articleshow/64627080.cms">Times of India</a> on June 18, 2018. Pranesh Prakash was quoted. Inputs from Kim Arora.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A manipulated <a class="key_underline" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/whatsapp">WhatsApp</a> video is said to be the source of the panic. While it is just the medium and not the reason behind the killings, WhatsApp, with its 250-million users in India, allows rumours to travel farther than ever before. "In many non-urban areas, such WhatsApp videos are the first form in which people encounter the internet on their phones. They don't always go online and verify them," says Jency Jacob, who runs the fact checking outlet Boom. This gullibility can't be explained just by class or education, he says. "Technology makes it easy to believe what you want to believe and spread it," says Jacob.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The spread of internet gives wings to rumours in pockets where kidnappings are a real fear. The states where lynchings have been reported are also among those with high figures for child abductions. Technology has helped rumours travel greater distances with greater impunity, says Pranesh Prakash, fellow at Centre for Internet and Society, recalling that child abduction rumours led to a lynching in Tamil Nadu in 2015 too, but this time, "such rumours have spread all over South India". And as the Karbi Anglong killings show, to Assam as well.<br /><br />WhatsApp being an encrypted platform, police cannot trace the source of the rumourmongering. WhatsApp did not respond to TOI's queries on tracing origins of hate messages, but a spokesperson shared a statement saying they "block automated messages" and are educating people about spotting fake news and hoaxes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In many cases, law enforcement has failed at a more basic level. Child abduction is a disturbing rumour, designed to provoke an emotional reaction, but other anxieties are at work too. "Rumours tend to escalate when there is a lack of official information, and clearly many feel what happens to them and their children does not get attention at higher levels," says sociologist Dipankar Gupta. It also points to a collapse in the state's credibility, he says. So, Gupta says, "there is no seeking of justice, only reprisal."</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-18-2018-full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-june-18-2018-full-belief-in-fake-texts-shows-cops-not-trusted</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminSocial MediaWhatsAppInternet Governance2018-06-26T01:21:04ZNews Item'Free Speech and Media in South Asia: Human Rights Concerns in a Globalizing World'
https://cis-india.org/news/university-of-oxford-october-25-2013-free-speech-and-media-in-south-asia
<b>A seminar organized by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Governance, National Law University, Delhi. Chinmayi Arun is one of the speakers.</b>
<hr />
<p class="bodya" style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/index.php/details/3543-free-speech-and-media-in-south-asia-human-rights-concerns-in-a-globalizing-world.html">published by Oxford University Press here</a></p>
<hr />
<p class="bodya" style="text-align: justify; "><b>Speakers:</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Salil Tripathi, English PEN</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Defending Freedom of Expression in India</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Emrys Shoemaker, London School of Economics</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Mobile Communication and Internet Regulation in Pakistan: Mapping Social Implications</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chinmayi Arun, National Law University, Delhi</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Privacy and Surveillance</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kumaravadivel Guruparan, University College London</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Digital Media as Part of the Sri Lankan State's 'Counter-insurgency' Programme</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Chair: Nicole Stremlau, PCMLP</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This panel discussion will explore contemporary issues that envelop both the digital and the traditional media in South Asia. It will look at the effects of surveillance, prior restraints on speech, intermediaries and other key factors on the public sphere. It will also consider, in this context, the relationship of the traditional media with the Internet. This discussion will take place in the backdrop of evolving democratic engagement in India, and the constitutional jurisprudence that attempts to keep pace with it and with developments in communication technology. It will offer comparative perspectives from other countries grappling with similar concerns.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/university-of-oxford-october-25-2013-free-speech-and-media-in-south-asia'>https://cis-india.org/news/university-of-oxford-october-25-2013-free-speech-and-media-in-south-asia</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionInternet Governance2013-11-08T05:33:22ZNews Item'Ethical Hacker' Saket Modi Calls for Stronger Cyber Security Discussions
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/saket-modi-calls-for-stronger-cyber-security-discussions
<b>Twenty-two year old Saket Modi is the CEO and co-founder of Lucideus, a leading cyber security company in India which claims to have worked with 4 out of 5 top global e-commerce companies, 4 out of 10 top IT companies in the world, and 3 out of 5 top banks of the Asia Pacific. </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>This research was undertaken as part of the 'SAFEGUARDS' project that CIS is undertaking with Privacy International and IDRC</i></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conference on July 13, titled “<a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cii-conference-on-act" class="external-link">ACT – Achieving Cyber-Security Together</a>,” Modi as the youngest speaker on the agenda delivered an impromptu talk which lambasted the weaknesses of modern cyber security discussions, enlightened the audience on modern capabilities and challenges of leading cyber security groups, and ultimately received a standing ovation from the crowd. As a later speaker commented, Modi’s controversial opinions and practitioner insight had "set the auditorium ablaze for the remainder of the evening". Since then the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has had the pleasure of interviewing Saket Modi over Skype.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is quite easy to find accounts of Saket Modi's introduction into hacking just by typing his name in the search engine. Faced with the pressure of failing, a teenage Saket discovered how to hack into his high school Chemistry teacher’s test and answer database. After successfully obtaining the answers, and revealing his wrong doings to his teacher, the young man grew intrigued by the possibilities of hacking. "I thought, if I could do this in a couple hours, four hours, then what might I be able to do in four days, four weeks, four months?"</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nowadays, Modi describes himself and his Lucideus team as "ethical hackers", a term recently espoused by hacker groups in the public eye. As opposed to "hacktivists", who utilize hacking methods (including attacks) to achieve or bring awareness to political issues, ethical hackers claim to exclusively use their computer skills to support defenses. At first, incorporation of <i>ethics</i> into a for-profit organization’s game plan may seem confusing, as it leaves room for key questions, like how does one determine which clients constitute ethical business? When asked, however, Modi clarifies by explaining how the ethics are not manifest in the entities Lucideus supports, but instead inherent in the choice of building defensive networks as opposed to using their skills for attack or debilitation. Nevertheless, considerations remain as to whether supporting the cyber security of some entities can lead to the insecurity of others, for example, strengthening the agencies which work in covert cyber espionage. On this point, Modi seems more ambivalent, saying "it depends on a case by case basis". But he still believes cyber security is a right that should be enjoyed by all, "entitled to [you] the moment you set foot on the internet".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As an experienced professional in the field who often gives input on major cyber policy decisions, Modi emphasizes the necessity of youth engagement in cyber security practice and policy. He calls his age bracket the “web generation,” those who have “grown with technology.” According to Modi, no one over 50 or 60 years of age can properly meet the current challenges of the cyber security realm. It is "a sad thing" that those older leaders carry the most power in policy making, and that they often have problems with both understanding and acceptability of modern technological capabilities. For the public, businesses, and also government, there are misconceptions about the importance of cyber security and the extent of modern cyber threats, threats which Modi and his company claim to combat regularly. "About 90 per cent of the crimes that take place in cyber space are because of lack of knowledge, rather than the expertise of the hacker,” he explains. Modi mentions a few basic misconceptions, as simple as, "if I have an anti-virus, my system is secured" or "if you have HTTPS certificate and SSL connection, your system is secured". “These are like wearing an elbow guard while playing cricket,” Modi tells. “If the ball comes at the elbow then you are protected, but what about the rest of the body?”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This highlights another problem evident in India’s current cyber security scene, the problem of lacking “quality institutes to produce good cyber security experts.” For example, Modi takes offence at there not being “a single institute which is providing cyber security at the undergraduate level [in India].” He alludes to the recently unveiled National Cyber Security Policy, specifically the call for five lakh cyber security experts in upcoming years. He calls this “a big figure,” but agrees that there needs to be a lot more awareness throughout the nation. “You really have to change a lot of things,” he says, “in order to get the right things in the right place here in India.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When considering citizen privacy in relation to cyber security, and the relationship between the two (be it direct or inverse), Saket Modi says the important factor is the governing body, because the issue ultimately resolves to trust. Citizens must trust the “right people with the right qualifications” to store and protect their sensitive data, and to respect privacy. Modi is no novice to the importance of personal data protection, and his company works with a plethora of extremely sensitive information relating to both their clients and their clients’ clients data, so it operates with due care lest it create a “wikileaks part two.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On internationalization and cyber security, he views the connection between the two as natural, intrinsic. “Cyberspace has added a new dimension to humanity,” says Modi, and tells how former constructs of physical constraints and linear bounds no longer apply. International cooperation is especially pertinent, according to Modi, because the greatest challenge for catching today’s criminal hackers is their international anonymity, “the ability to jump from one country to the other in a matter of milliseconds.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With the extent of the challenges facing cyber defense specialists, and with the somewhat disorderly current state of Indian cyber security, it is curious to see that Saket Modi has devoted himself to the "ethical" side of hacking. Why hasn’t he or the rest of the Lucideus team resorted to offensive hacking, since Modi claims the majority of cyber attacks of the world who are committed by people also fall between the ages of 15 and 24? Apparently, the answer is simple. “We believe in the need for ethical hacking,” he defends. “We believe in the purpose of making the internet safer.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/saket-modi-calls-for-stronger-cyber-security-discussions'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/saket-modi-calls-for-stronger-cyber-security-discussions</a>
</p>
No publisherkoveyCyber SecurityInternet GovernancePrivacy2013-08-05T13:11:08ZBlog Entry'Delink ICANN from US jurisdiction'
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-november-12-2016-delink-icann-from-us-jurisdiction
<b>Eight Indian civil society organisations involved with internet governance have called for complete delinking of ICANN from US jurisdiction, saying an important global public infrastructure being subject to a single country’s control is unacceptable.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/580590/delink-icann-us-jurisdiction.html">published by Deccan Herald</a> on November 12.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable.<br /><br />The demand from Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society and IT for Change as well as Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Centre among others came against the backdrop of ICANN’s meeting in Hyderabad that ended on Wednesday. <br /><br />The other organisations involved in the campaign are Free Software Movement of India (Hyderabad), Society for Knowledge Commons, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Delhi Science Forum and Third World Network (all in New Delhi).<br /><br />“Urgent steps (should) be taken to transit ICANN from its current US jurisdiction. Only then can ICANN become a truly global organisation . We would like to make it clear that our objection is not directed particularly against the US, we are simply against an important global public infrastructure being subject to a single country’s jurisdiction,” a joint statement said.<br /><br />Though the US has given up its role of signing entries to the Internet’s root zone file, which represents the addressing system for the global Internet, the groups said, the organisation that manages ICANN continues to be under US jurisdiction and hence subject to its courts, legislature and executive agencies.<br /><br />“Keeping such an important global public infrastructure under US jurisdiction is expected to become a very problematic means of extending US laws and policies across the world,” the statement said.<br /><br />Explaining the issue, it said country domain names like .br and .ph remain subject to US jurisdiction.<br /><br />“Iran’s .ir was recently sought to be seized by some US private parties because of alleged Iranian support to terrorism. Although the plea was turned down, another court in another case may decide otherwise. Other countries cannot feel comfortable to have at the core of the Internet’s addressing system an organisation that can be dictated by one government,” the statement said.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-november-12-2016-delink-icann-from-us-jurisdiction'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-november-12-2016-delink-icann-from-us-jurisdiction</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaICANNInternet Governance2016-11-15T14:16:36ZNews Item'Attempts to censor the web ill-advised'
https://cis-india.org/news/attempts-to-censor-the-web-ill-advised
<b>Amid concerted government attempts to censor the internet and the recent blocking of file-sharing websites due to a court order based on a petition by producers of a Tamil film, speakers at a discussion on Saturday felt that there was a fear of freedom of expression among those affected by it, primarily the powerful.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-03/goa/32005718_1_internet-access-censorship-free-speech">Article by Krish Fernandes published in the Times of India on June 3, 2012</a></p>
<p>At the discussion on 'freedom of expression and privacy: Proposition' held at Goa University, senior journalist Paranjoy Guha Thakurta felt the increasing attempts at online censorship were a consequence of the government being unable to formulate coherent responses to the widening of the limits to freedom of expression on the internet.</p>
<p>He was of the view that all stakeholders should be consulted before any legislation in this regard.</p>
<p>Vickram Crishna of Privacy International spoke about "the fear of freedom of expression". While stating that the internet access had jumped due to the increased usage of smartphones, he observed that "there were concerted moves to make these things (censorship) happen in India".</p>
<p>"What use is access, if we don't have freedom of expression?" Crishna questioned.</p>
<p>Geeta Seshu of The Hoot was of the opinion that the world was also seeing the rise of powerful web players such as search engines and social networks with no obligations to permit free speech.</p>
<p>Chinmayi Arun of the National University of Juridical Sciences echoed this view. She felt freedom of speech and expression were vulnerable because they receive very little protection from non-state factors. She felt surveillance may soon become as serious a threat to free speech as censorship.</p>
<p>Advocate Apar Gupta felt there are better safeguards against banning books, while web content bans see almost no safeguards.</p>
<p>Touching on the ban on file-sharing sites, Lawrence Liang of Alternative Law Forum felt private bodies such as ISPs were being given powers of the state.</p>
<p>Anja Kovacs of Internet Democracy Project was critical of the government instructing internet service providing companies to setup servers in the country. The internet as we know it will stop to exist if we have server requirements in all countries, she said.</p>
<p>Frederick Norohna of publishing house Goa 1556, Siddhart Narrain and Danish Sheikh of the Alternative Law Forum, Paromita Vohra of Devi Pictures and Werner Souza also spoke on the occasion.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/attempts-to-censor-the-web-ill-advised'>https://cis-india.org/news/attempts-to-censor-the-web-ill-advised</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaInternet GovernancePrivacy2012-06-17T07:11:39ZNews Item'Anonymous' hackers to protest Indian Internet laws
https://cis-india.org/news/anonymous-hackers-to-protest-indian-internet-laws
<b>Global hacking movement Anonymous has called for protesters to take to the streets in 16 cities around India on Saturday over what it considers growing government censorship of the Internet, writes Pratap Chakravarty. </b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gsnDdnLf9f_PmycvKCR-5aHsJiNw?docId=CNG.56f38ef15f6205d33c4a9b392db46ad0.551">This was published in AFP on June 8, 2012</a></p>
<p>The call for demonstrations by the Indian arm of the group follows a
March 29 court order issued in the southern city of Chennai demanding 15
Indian Internet providers block access to file-sharing websites such as
Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>The order has resulted in access being denied to a host of websites
that carry pirated films and music among other legal content, including <a class="external-link" href="http://www.isohunt.com/">www.isohunt.com</a> and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pastebin.com/">www.pastebin.com</a>.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the Anonymous forum fired an opening shot by attacking
the website of state-run telecom provider MTNL, pasting the logo of the
group -- the mask of 17th century revolutionary Guy Fawkes -- on <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mtnl.net.in">www.mtnl.net.in</a>.</p>
<p>In an open letter the same day, the group accused the government of
trying to create a "Great Indian Firewall" to establish control on the
web and issuing a "declaration of war from yourself... to us."</p>
<p>Internet users and supporters have been asked to join peaceful
rallies in cities including the capital New Delhi and the tech hub of
Bangalore, with detailed instructions issued online to participants.</p>
<p>Tech website <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pluggd.in/">www.pluggd.in</a>
reported the demonstrators have been asked to wear Guy Fawkes' masks,
download a recorded message to play to police, and are to chant "United
as one! Divided as zero! We are Anonymous! We are legion!"</p>
<p>Concerns about Internet freedom in India go beyond the court order in
Chennai, however, and stem from an update to India's Information
Technology Act that was given by the IT and communications ministry in
April last year.</p>
<p>The new rules regulating Internet companies -- providers, websites
and search engines -- instruct them that they must remove "disparaging"
or "blasphemous" content within 36 hours if they receive a complaint by
an "affected person".</p>
<p>Groups such as the Center for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based
research and advocacy group, have waged a year-long campaign for
amendments to the rules, which were quietly released in April.</p>
<p>Industry groups have also objected, saying they are unclear on the
changes which are in any case impossible to implement when it comes to
acting on individual complaints about specific content.</p>
<p>"A lot of education is required in this field," secretary of the
Internet Service Providers Association of India S.P. Jairath told AFP.</p>
<p>The government has also become embroiled in a row with social
networks after Telecoms Minister Kapil Sibal held a series of meetings
with IT giants Google, Yahoo! and Facebook last year to discuss the
pre-screening of content.</p>
<p>The minister was said to have shown Internet executives examples of
obscene images found online that risked offending Muslims or defamed
politicians, including his boss, the head of the ruling Congress party,
Sonia Gandhi.</p>
<p>Since these meetings, 19 Internet firms including Google, Yahoo! and
Facebook have been targeted in criminal and civil cases lodged in lower
courts, holding them responsible for content posted by users of their
platforms.</p>
<p>Anonymous is a secretive "hacker-activist" network and is thought to
be a loosely knit collective with no clearly defined leadership
structure.</p>
<p>It has claimed dozens of online attacks on sites ranging from the
Vatican to Los Angeles Police Canine Association, but is increasingly
the target of law enforcement agencies who have arrested dozens of
members.</p>
<hr />
<p>The above was published in the following places as well:</p>
<ol><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/anonymous-hackers-call-for-protests-across-india-today-against-internet-censorship-229238">NDTV</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://post.jagran.com/anonymous-to-protest-internet-policing-1339243820">Jagran Post</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-06-09/internet/32140515_1_internet-firms-websites-internet-companies">The Times of India</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2012/06/09185541/8216Anonymous8217-activi.html">LiveMint</a>, June 9, 2012</li><li><a class="external-link" href="http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-06-09/news/32140719_1_government-websites-anonymous-facebook-page">Economic Times</a>, June 9, 2012<br /></li></ol>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/anonymous-hackers-to-protest-indian-internet-laws'>https://cis-india.org/news/anonymous-hackers-to-protest-indian-internet-laws</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaFreedom of Speech and ExpressionPublic AccountabilityInternet GovernanceCensorship2012-06-18T04:55:51ZNews Item'Aadhaar' Of Your Existence Or Card Of Controversy?
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-may-3-2017-aadhaar-of-your-existence-or-card-of-controversy
<b> recent report estimates that details of 13 crore Aadhaar card holders have been leaked from four government websites. These include bank account details, income levels, addresses, even caste and religion details.</b>
<p>This was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaY4WHrs-OQ">telecasted by NDTV</a> on May 3, 2017. Amber Sinha was a panelist.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the Supreme Court questioned the government about this, the centre admitted for the first time that the leaks had taken place but passed the onus on to state governments. It also argued that no technology was a 100 per cent foolproof but that couldn't be the basis for a constitutional challenge. Those who have petitioned against making Aadhar mandatory for filing income tax say no other democratic country has such a requirement and allege that it shows the sinisterness of the government.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Video</h3>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xaY4WHrs-OQ" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-may-3-2017-aadhaar-of-your-existence-or-card-of-controversy'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-may-3-2017-aadhaar-of-your-existence-or-card-of-controversy</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaVideoAadhaarInternet GovernancePrivacy2017-05-20T12:24:20ZNews Item#NetNeutrality, Data Protection Laws among topics at ITechLaw Conference
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/netneutrality-data-protection-laws-among-topics-at-itechlaw-conference
<b>The who’s-who of the technology law sector convened at the ITechLaw India International Conference held from January 27-29 in Bangalore.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last three days saw panel discussions being held on a varied set of topics related to technology law. The debates were led by a number of Indian and international legal professionals from law firms, companies and policy houses.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On Day 2, some of the panel discussions included Commercialization of Data, Aggregator Model – Licensing and Regulatory Issues Faced by Shared Economy Models, Digital Underworld, and Legal Challenges faced in New Media and Entertainment, among others.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The speakers present at these sessions included lawyers like <span><a href="http://barandbench.com/former-mmb-legal-partner-talha-salaria-sets-own-firm-lawyers-work-says-time-right/">Talha Salaria</a></span>, Founder of Lawyers at Work; JSA Partner Sajai Singh; Trilegal Partner <span><a href="http://barandbench.com/lawyers-tend-to-be-the-last-to-adapt-to-technological-changes-trilegals-rahul-matthan/">Rahul Matthan</a></span>; MCM Law Partner Samuel Mani, apart from a host of In-House counsel from Intel, Amazon, IBM, Cognizant et al.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The highlight of Day 3 was a debate on Net Neutrality; Deepali Liberhan from Facebook, Pranesh Prakash from Centre for Internet and Society and <span><a href="http://wp.me/p6ZY6N-1so" target="_blank">Rohan George from Samvad Partners</a></span> were among the panelists.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For more info, <a class="external-link" href="http://barandbench.com/itechlaw-net-neutrality/">click here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/netneutrality-data-protection-laws-among-topics-at-itechlaw-conference'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/netneutrality-data-protection-laws-among-topics-at-itechlaw-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaNet NeutralityInternet Governance2016-01-30T09:21:20ZNews Item#NAMAprivacy: The economics and business models of IoT and other issues
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-october-18-2017-namaprivacy-economics-and-business-models-of-iot
<b>On 5th October, MediaNama held a #NAMAprivacy conference in Bangalore focused on Privacy in the context of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and the issue of consent, supported by Google, Amazon, Mozilla, ISOC, E2E Networks and Info Edge, with community partners HasGeek and Takshashila Institution.</b>
<p>Link to the original published by Medianama on October 18, 2017 <a class="external-link" href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-economics-and-business-models-of-iot/">here</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Part 1 of the notes from the discussion on IoT are <a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot/">here</a>. Part 2:</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The session on IoT shifted gears and the participants spoke more about the economics and business IoT. Participants expressed concern that data could be linked to very private aspects of their lives and build business models around them. For example, data from fitness trackers can be linked to a user’s insurance premiums. Or sensors on a car that monitors a user’s driving behavior and link motor insurance.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I work for Zoomcar, and these are devices which our lives depend and are collecting and reporting data. And that data can be used against you. So it is very hard to know what is fair and what is unfair. Someone mentioned insurance, I feel it is useful to collect a lot of data and decide on insurance based on your driving behaviour and we have had markers for that. But is it fair to the user? The same kind of questions crops up elsewhere like in the US when it comes to healthcare,” Vinayak Hegde said.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176814 aligncenter" height="499" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/vinayak-hegde-namaprivacy-e1508340779342.jpg?resize=750%2C499&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An audience member pointed out to that in such a scenario, privacy can help businesses rather than inhibit them and cited a research study in UC Berkely. “If I use a health tracking device, some of those devices can be valuable for health insurance companies and using that data, they might increase the premiums. But I don’t know actually who might sell my data to someone,” he explained.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“<b>Because I don’t know which tracking devices sell my data, I would like not to own the devices itself. So that itself harms the entire health tracker industry itself.</b> He (the researcher) defines privacy as contextual integrity. So a health tracking device is supposed to help me track my health and not supposed to be used by insurance people to determine my premium. If the regulation mandates the contextual integrity of that, it helps that particular industry to avoid those feedback loops,” he explained.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Are fitness trackers in the hardware or services business?</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Kiran Jonnalagadda of HasGeek</b> added to the point on fitness trackers. He said that all of IoT is not in the business of hardware and that they are in the services business. “I had an unusual experience for the past one week, I was out in an area with no Internet connection. But I have two fitness trackers. I bought them mostly because I’m curious about how these companies operate and what they’re doing. And the differences between them are the way they think about things. <b>Now both of these are capable of counting steps without an Internet connection…. But they cannot do anything to show the step count on my phone which it connects to until the data is sent to the Internet and brought back.</b> So my phone would keep telling me that I am not moving and tell me the move but the watch is saying that I am doing 20,000 steps a day and that I am trekking a lot,” he explained.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“For whatever reason, these companies have decided to operate in this manner <b>where validation of data happens on the cloud and not on the device. You only get the most rudimentary data from your device and your phone is just a conduit and not a processing centre at all,” Jonnalagadda said. </b></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176815 aligncenter" height="501" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/kiran-namaprivacy-2-e1508340895481.jpg?resize=750%2C501&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He explained both the devices were in the device sales business and has not asked money from them for enabling this sort of Internet-based processing of data. “It calls into question, what is the model here. One could bring the conspiracy theory that they’re selling my data and therefore they don’t worry about collecting data from me. <b>The second is to say: be a little bit more charitable and they recognize that if they piss me off, I won’t buy their device again. And then just assume that a device has a lifetime of just 2-3 years and if you keep a person happy for 2-3 years, they will buy the device from you again.</b> What’s interesting is ultimately not about devices and that it is about services. And this is what I want to say about IoT that it is not about hardware at all it is entirely about services. <b>Without services, the entire business model of IoT breaks down. You do not get software updates, you get vulnerabilities, you get </b>broken<b> design, things have stopped working and no one supports you.” </b></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">The economics of processing data locally on a device</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thejesh GN, co-founder of DataMeet, questioned the need for data to be processed on the Internet and asked whether the data will be better protected and have better privacy if it were processed locally. “Considering the fact that we have such powerful phones which are affordable, and can do a lot of things without the Internet. I mean the biggest concept we had in IoT was that we didn’t have CPU or memory and processing power. Given that and the availability of EDGE devices, how long will we have economic cases where privacy can be sold as part of IoT. The processing happens 99% of the times locally without Internet and requires the Internet only when there is messaging. This could be true for your fitness trackers that can be connected to your phone. Your phone has all the capabilities to do all the analysis and doesn’t need to go to the server,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176816 aligncenter" height="333" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/thejesh-namaprivacy-e1508340996548.jpg?resize=500%2C333&ssl=1" width="500" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash of the CIS countered him and said that the economics for processing data works out cheaper for the companies.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“One on local processing, this I think is a perennial problem and it really is a question of economics versus principles. <b>Free software is losing out the battle against using other people’s computers for computing—cloud computing—because of economics. So, you no longer own the software that you purchase and even the hardware, very often, with IOT might not actually be yours. It might come with a license, it might come with data that is tied to the company that is actually providing you the device.</b> So the economics of this are for me clear: it’s much cheaper to do it on other computers than to do it locally,” Prakash explained.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He made a case for asserting for individual user’s rights to privacy in this kind of scenario. “It is a question of principles. Should we allow for that or should we assert for consumer protection laws and assert other manners of laws to say that ‘no, people who are purchasing devices’ ought to have greater control of the devices and the data that they produce,” he added.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Group privacy</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The audience also suggested that privacy laws should not just look at protecting the rights of individuals but should look at protecting the rights of groups as well. They raised concerns that even in a group and if the data has been anonymized, it still can be weaponized and cause harms.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“For example, if there are 10-15 of us in this room and given our detailed medical histories, I can find a correlation between some of that. And then I can use that data in some other form when I run a test to see if I am vulnerable to something or use it as a way to discriminate further down the line. As a group, privacy matters a lot because when we talk about devices, we are talking about individuals. <b>Maybe you can target via ethnicity or by age or by class and that can also be weaponized,</b>” an audience member suggested.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vinayak Hegde gave an example of how weather data captured by IoT can cause harms to a society at large. “If I’m using the weather sensor data and because of global warming, some places like Florida and south of India are going to be extremely hot, I can use surge pricing for a person’s electricity. <b>Again I am not getting targeted as an individual, but as a group, I am being targeted. And sensors are closing that loop really fast.” </b>he explained.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Srinivas P</b>, <b>head of security at Infosys, </b>gave another example where gyroscopes in a phone could target a family. “Some companies in the US use gyroscope in a phone to surreptitiously monitor TV viewing habits. The mobile phone gets activated and over a period of time, they can tweak the advertisements. It is an interesting example, because in TV, when you watch at home, you cannot pinpoint TV a user, because it is shared by a family. <b>This is because the guy who is watching the maximum amount of TV, their data gets circulated and the ads will be tailored to them. The person who does not watch that much amount of TV gets baffled to see advertisements that are not relevant to them.</b> So when you want to process data, you want to assume that, this TV belongs to a user. The TV belongs to a group. And what if the viewing habits are so different, that once your privacy is violated, you don’t want your other family member to know what you are watching,” he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-large wp-image-176767 aligncenter" height="366" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/NAMA-Data-Protection-Bangalore-58.jpg?resize=550%2C366&ssl=1" width="550" /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Perception of permissions for sensors</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rohini Lakshane of CIS raised an important point during the discussion. The users have different perceptions about the sensors that are embedded in smartphones. She pointed out that users are generally unaware that accelerometers are sensors and capture data and most apps do not ask permissions for the same. An accelerometer is a device used to measure acceleration forces. It is usually used in devices to measure movement and vibrations in devices such as fitness trackers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176817 aligncenter" height="501" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Rohini-namaprivacy-e1508341268504.jpg?resize=750%2C501&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“A researcher surveyed a control group and asked them if their GPS data was taken and their camera was made accessible, whether they would be comfortable with it? They were hugely uncomfortable.<b> The question came to the accelerometer on the phone and the respondents said that ‘we are not all that afraid’. The accelerometer only counts the acceleration. So in that app which counts how many steps we have taken in a day, it uses the accelerometer and there is no permission required for it.</b> The accelerometer is still on the phone and is still generating the data and you don’t see it because you don’t have an interface directly with it,” she commented.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">*</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>#NAMAprivacy Bangalore:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Will artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning kill privacy? [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-artificial-intelligence-privacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Regulating Artificial Intelligence algorithms [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-regulating-artificial-intelligence-algorithms/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Data standards for IoT and home automation systems [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot/">read</a>]</li>
<li>The economics and business models of IoT and other issues [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-economics-and-business-models-of-iot/">read</a>]</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>#NAMAprivacy Delhi:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Blockchains and the role of differential privacy [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-blockchains-role-differential-privacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Setting up purpose limitation for data collected by companies [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-setting-purpose-limitation-data-collected-companies/">read</a>]</li>
<li>The role of app ecosystems and nature of permissions in data collection [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-role-app-ecosystems-nature-permissions-data-collection/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Rights-based approach vs rules-based approach to data collection [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-rights-based-approach-vs-rules-based-approach-data-collection/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Data colonisation and regulating cross border data flows [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-data-colonisation-and-regulating-cross-border-data-flows/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Challenges with consent; the Right to Privacy judgment [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-consent-challenges-privacy-india-namaprivacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Consent and the need for a data protection regulator [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-privacy-india-consent-data-protection-regulator-namaprivacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Making consent work in India [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-privacy-india-consent-namaprivacy/">read</a>]</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-october-18-2017-namaprivacy-economics-and-business-models-of-iot'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-october-18-2017-namaprivacy-economics-and-business-models-of-iot</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminIoTInternet Governance2017-11-08T02:09:51ZNews Item#NAMAprivacy: Data standards for IoT and home automation systems
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-october-18-2017-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot
<b>On 5th October, MediaNama held a #NAMAprivacy conference in Bangalore focused on Privacy in the context of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and the issue of consent, supported by Google, Amazon, Mozilla, ISOC, E2E Networks and Info Edge, with community partners HasGeek and Takshashila Institution. Part 1 of the notes from the discussion on IoT:</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Link to the original published by Medianama on October 18 <a class="external-link" href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot/">here</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second session of the #NAMAprivacy in Bangalore dealt with the data privacy in the Internet of Things (IoT) framework. All three panelists for the session – <b>Kiran Jonnalagadda from HasGeek, Vinayak Hegde, a big data consultant working with ZoomCar and Rohini Lakshane a policy researcher from CIS</b> – said that they were scared about the spread of IoT at the moment. This led to a discussion on the standards which will apply to IoT, still nascent at this stage, and how it could include privacy as well.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176794 aligncenter" height="501" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/IOT-panel-Namaprivacy-e1508321963437.jpg?resize=750%2C501&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Hedge, a volunteer with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which was instrumental in developing internet protocols and standards such as DNS, TCP/IP and HTTP, said that IETF took a political stand recently when it came to privacy. “One of the discussions in the IETF was whether security is really important? For a long time, the pendulum swung the other way and said that it’s important and that it’s not big enough a trade-off until the bomb dropped with the Snowden revelations. <b>The IETF has always avoided taking any political stance. But for the first time, they did take a political position and they published a request for comments which said: “Pervasive monitoring is an attack on the Internet” and that has become a guiding standard for developing the standards,</b>” he explained.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He added that this led the development of new standards which took privacy into consideration by default.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“The repercussions has been pervasive across all the layers of the stack whether it is DNS and the development of DNS Sec. The next version of HTTP, does not actually mandate encryption but if you look at all the implementation on the browser side, all of them without exception have incorporated encryption,” he added.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176747 aligncenter" height="500" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/NAMA-Data-Protection-Bangalore-93-e1508322824147.jpg?resize=750%2C500&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rohini added that discussion around the upcoming 5G standard, where large-scale IoT will be deployed, also included increased emphasis on privacy. “It is essentially a lot of devices connected to the Internet and talking to each other and the user. The standards for security and privacy for 5G are being built and some of them are in the process of discussion. Different standard-setting bodies have been working on them and there is a race of sorts for setting them up by stakeholders, technology companies, etc to get their tech into the standard,” she said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“<b>The good thing about those is that they will have time to get security and privacy. Here, I would like to mention <a href="https://ict-rerum.eu/">RERUM</a> which is formed from a mix of letters which stands for Reliable, Resilient, and Secure IoT for smart cities being piloted in the EU. </b>It essentially believes that security should include reliability and privacy by design. This pilot project was thought to allow IoT applications to consider security and privacy mechanisms early in the design, so that they could balance reliability. Because once a standard is out or a mechanism is out, and you implement something as large as a smart city, it is very difficult to retrofit these considerations,” she explained.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176796 aligncenter" height="499" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Rohini-Lakshane-CIS-Namaprivacy-e1508322694320.jpg?resize=750%2C499&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Privacy issues in home automation and IoT</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rohini pointed out a report which illustrates the staggering amount of data collection which will be generated by home automation. “I was looking for figures, and I found an FTC report published in 2015 where one IoT company revealed in a workshop that it <b>provides home automation to less than 10,000 households but all of them put together account for 150 million data points per day.</b> So that’s one data point for every six seconds per household. So this is IoT for home automation and there is IoT for health and fitness, medical devices, IoT for personal safety, public transport, environment, connected cars, etc.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this sort of situation, the data collected could be used for harms that users did not account for.</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“I received some data a couple of years back and the data was from a water flowmeter. It was fitted to a villa in Hoskote and the idea was simple where you could measure the water consumption in the villa and track the consumption. So when I received the data, I figured out by just looking at the water consumption, you can see how many people are in the house, when they get up at night, when they go out, when they are out of station. All of this data can be misused. Data is collected specifically for water consumption and find if there are any leakages in the house. But it could be used for other purposes,” <b>Arvind P from Devopedia</b> said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176800 aligncenter" height="499" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Arvind-Devopedia-Namaprivcay-e1508323377344.jpg?resize=750%2C499&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Pranesh Prakash, policy director at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)</b>, also provided an example of a Twitter handle called “should I be robbed now” where it correlates a user’s vacation pictures says that they could be robbed. “What we need to remember is that a lot of correlation analysis is not just about the analysis but it is also about the use and misuse of it. A lot of that use and misuse is non-transparent. Not a single company tells you how they use your data, but do take rights on taking your data,” he added.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176801 aligncenter" height="501" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Pranesh-Prakash-Namaprivacy-e1508324108535.jpg?resize=750%2C501&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Vinayak Hedge also added that the governments are using similar methods of data tracking to catch bitcoin miners in China and Venezuela from smart meters.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“In China, there are all these bitcoin miners. I was reading this story in Venezuela, where bitcoin mining is outlawed. <b>The way they’re catching these bitcoin miners is by looking at their electricity consumption. Bitcoin mining uses a huge amount of power and computing capacity.</b> And people have come out with ingenious ways of getting around it. They will draw power from their neighbours or maybe from an industrial setting. This could be a good example for a privacy-infringing activity.”</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Pseudonymization</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Srinivas P, head of security at Infosys</b>, pointed out that a possible solution to provide privacy in home automation systems could be the concept of pseudonymity. <b>Pseudonymization</b> is a procedure by which the most identifying fields within a data record are replaced by one or more artificial identifiers or pseudonyms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“There are a number of home automation systems which are similar to NEST, which is extensively used in Silicon Valley homes, that connect to various systems. For example, when you are approaching home, it will know when to switch on your heating system or AC based on the weather. And it also has information on who stays in the house and what room and what time they sleep. And in a the car, it gives a full real-time profile about the situation at home. It can be a threat if it is hacked. This is a very common threat that is being talked about and how to introduce pseudo-anonymity. When we use these identifiers, and when the connectivity happens, how do we do so that the name and user are not there? Pseudonymity can be introduced so that it becomes difficult for the hacker to decipher who this guy is,” Srinivas added.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Ambient data collection</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">With IoT, it has never been able to capture ambient data. <b>Ambient data</b> <b>is information that lies in areas not generally accessible to the user.</b> An example for this is how users get traffic data from Internet companies. Kiran Jonnalagadda explained how this works:</p>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>“When you look at traffic data on a street map, where is that data coming from? <b>It’s not coming from the fact that there is an app on the phone constantly transmitting data from the phone. It’s coming from the fact that cell phone towers record who is coming to them and you know if the cell phone tower is facing the road, and it has so many connections on it, you know that traffic is at a certain level in that area</b>. Now as a user of the map, you are talking to a company which produces this map and it is not a telecom company. Someone who is using a phone is only dealing with a telecom company and how does this data transfer happen and how much user data is being passed on to the last mile user who is actually holding the phone.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img class="size-full wp-image-176802 aligncenter" height="501" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Kiran-Namaprivacy-e1508324684657.jpg?resize=750%2C501&ssl=1" width="750" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jonnalagadda stressed on the need for people to ask who is aggregating this ambient data.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Now obviously, when you look at the map, you don’t get to see, who is around you. And that would be a clear privacy violation and you only get to see the fact that traffic is at a certain level of density around the street around you. But at what point is the aggregation of data happening from an individually identifiable phone to just a red line or a green line indicating the traffic in an area. We also need to ask who is doing this aggregation. Is it happening on the telecom level? Is it happening on the map person level and what kind of algorithms are required that a particular phone on a cell phone network represents a moving vehicle or a pedestrian? Can a cell phone company do that or does a map company do that? If you start digging and see at what point is your data being anonymized and who is responsible for anonmyzing it and you think that this is the entity that is supposed to be doing it, we start realizing that it is a lot more complicated and a lot more pervasive than we thought it would be,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>#NAMAprivacy Bangalore:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Will artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning kill privacy? [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-artificial-intelligence-privacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Regulating Artificial Intelligence algorithms [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-regulating-artificial-intelligence-algorithms/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Data standards for IoT and home automation systems [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot/">read</a>]</li>
<li>The economics and business models of IoT and other issues [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/10/223-namaprivacy-economics-and-business-models-of-iot/">read</a>]</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>#NAMAprivacy Delhi:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Blockchains and the role of differential privacy [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-blockchains-role-differential-privacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Setting up purpose limitation for data collected by companies [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-setting-purpose-limitation-data-collected-companies/">read</a>]</li>
<li>The role of app ecosystems and nature of permissions in data collection [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-role-app-ecosystems-nature-permissions-data-collection/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Rights-based approach vs rules-based approach to data collection [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-rights-based-approach-vs-rules-based-approach-data-collection/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Data colonisation and regulating cross border data flows [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-namaprivacy-data-colonisation-and-regulating-cross-border-data-flows/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Challenges with consent; the Right to Privacy judgment [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-consent-challenges-privacy-india-namaprivacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Consent and the need for a data protection regulator [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-privacy-india-consent-data-protection-regulator-namaprivacy/">read</a>]</li>
<li>Making consent work in India [<a href="https://www.medianama.com/2017/09/223-privacy-india-consent-namaprivacy/">read</a>]</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-october-18-2017-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-october-18-2017-namaprivacy-data-standards-for-iot</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminInternet GovernanceBig Data2017-11-08T02:15:52ZNews Item