ASCL Blog

The world has taken another step towards combating the ever-increasing threat of cyber crimes against youngsters.

New York State, USA, has now proposed a bill to fight cyber bullying.

The bill has been forwarded by New York State Assemblyman, Charles Lavine, in light of the constant threat of cyber bullying facing youngsters online.

It is felt that this was a necessary step considering the almost epidemic state of student suicides occurring due to cyber-bullying.

Children online are very often victimized and harassed even to the point of committing suicide because of how they look or how they behave, or in many cases, for their perceived sexual orientation.

The proposed bill will punish cyber bullies and also those who participate in such activities indirectly.

This bill will create the crimes of cyber-assault and cyber-impersonation in New York State. The new crime of cyber-assault will punish those who go online to hurt others. Cyber impersonation will punish those who assume a false identity to commit these acts.

A 17-year-old student from Dhanbad has been arrested for sending a threatening email to Anil Ambani, chairman of the Reliance ADA Group.

The Mumbai Police Crime Branch’s Cyber Crime Investigation Cell made the arrest.

The teenaged student believed that India had not given an adequate response to Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks. He misguidedly believed that if he posed as a Pakistani and threatened a prominent Indian, the Government would retaliate against Pakistan.

Anil Ambani received the email threats on 15th January 2011. The Reliance ADA group immediately lodged a complaint and a case was registered. Investigators found that the IP from which the email had originated in Dhanbad. A team was sent there and the youngster arrested.

The email had been sent from his personal computer and he has now been charged under the relevant sections of the IT Act and also with criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code.

At least five students of the Wellington High School, Wellington, Kansas in USA will now face criminal charges for illegally logging into their school system and improving their grades.

Rick Weiss, the school Superintendent, said that they were alerted to the felony due to rumours doing the rounds in school about some students who had been able to change their grades. This prompted the teachers to go back to their papers to check the original grades versus the grades on the school computers. The two sets of grades did not match.

The police department has clarified that this act will be treated as a serious felony and not just a misdemeanour. These students first stole the school passwords, then logged in and changed the grades.

The youngsters involved may very well be asked to leave school. They also face the chances of not being able to graduate.

While the school continues to investigate to see how many other students could have been involved, police have served search warrants and seized computers as evidence in the computer crimes case.

The district attorney will most likely get the case by the last week of January 2011.

This case underlines the need to teach youngsters the difference between right and wrong in the cyber world. They need to be told that working harder is any day easier than getting involved in such criminal acts. They don’t just need to be cyber literate (which most of them are) but also cyber smart.