Articles

Powers of Government under the Information Technology Act, 2000
Internet Censorship is today‘s hot topic with the passage of statements by our Honorable Ministers. But the billion dollars question is ―Can online activities of individuals be censored/monitored in India?‖


Reasonable Security Practices under Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008
Organizations are required to take “reasonable security practices and procedures” to protect personal data or information of its customers. The ICT Ministry with the recent clarification has also settled the confusion which existed regarding the application of the Rules.


Law relating to Cyberterrorism
Before looking into the issue of Cyberterrorism it is important to understand that it should not be confused with “Internet and terrorism” i.e. Presence of terrorist groups on the internet.


Law relating to Child Pornography in India
Law relating to Child Pornography in India Child pornography means portrayal of children in all forms of media incl. images, films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child. Due to the free availability of information on the Internet, a major risk that a child may be exposed to is inappropriate material, sexual, hateful, or violent in nature, or encourages activities that are dangerous or illegal.


Law relating to Cyber Pornography in India
Pornography or obscenity is very sensitive issue all over the world yet there is no settled definition of the word under any law. What is nude art or sexually explicit thing for one person may be obscene or porn for another. Hence, it is very difficult to define “What is porn?”


Patent Law and Computer technology
Patent Inventions are protected by Patents. It is a legal monopoly granted to the owner of new invention, for a limited period of time. It can be granted for product as well as process.


Trademark Law and Cyberspace
A Trademark is a mark used by an individual or business organization which represents trade or business and which is capable of distinguishing goods or services from that of others.


Copyright and Cyberspace
[This concept is explained using simple fictional illustrations involving Revati, who has created easyPDF, a computer program for converting documents into PDF (Portable Document Format)] According to Section 14 of the Copyright Act, "Copyright" means the exclusive right to do (or authorize the doing of) any of the following:-


Cybercrimeopedia: New Rules under Information Technology Act
Rules under sections 6A, 43A and 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (the IT Act) have recently been notified. The Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011 has now come into force. The amended Information Technology Act has brought in the requirement for almost all entities to undergo an ISO 27001 audits.


The Information Technology Rules, 2011
For personal privacy we have no control or “law” to keep check on what we share, but for professional privacy especially of a digital data we have a law called “The Information Technology Act, 2000” (IT Act). Sec. 43 and 43A of the IT Act focuses of “data privacy”.


Law relating to Unauthorized Access
One of the most publicized risks to information systems is that of unauthorised access, often referred to as hacking. For some, hacking is seen as something that happens to other people typically large or high profile organisations. But this is not the case, as use of the Internet grows, so too does the number of attacks....


Data Protection and Corporate Liability
In the recent years India has emerged as one of the preferred destinations for offshore business in outsourcing, financial, educational, legal, banking, healthcare, marketing and telecommunication services. The factors that have turned India into one of the hotspots for offshore outsourcing are the educated and unemployed masses, enterprising nature of Indians who have excellent spoken English skills and relatively cheap labour.


Botnet attacks and the Law
A botnet (a contraction of the term “RoBOT NETwork”) is a computer network made up of a vast number of compromised computers that have been infected with malicious code, and can be remotely-controlled through commands sent via the Internet. Typically, users whose computers have been conscripted into a botnet are unaware that their computers have been compromised. The computer so affected is called as “Zombie”.


Electronic contracts & the Indian law
Chapter IV of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (amendment of 2008) contains Sections 10, 11, 12 and 13 which talks about Legal Recognition to Electronic Contracts, Attribution, Acknowledgment and Dispatch of Electronic Records.


Electronic Contracts (Part-1)
Contracts have become so common in daily life that most of the time we do not even realize that we have entered into one. Right from hiring an auto to buying airline tickets online, innumerable things in our daily lives are governed by contracts.


Cyber Squatting
Idea of "Cybersquating" was originated at a time when most businesses were not savvy about the commercial opportunities on the Internet. Some criminals registered the well-known companies names as domain names with intent of selling them back to the companies when they finally woke up.


CLOUD AND LAW
The major legal challenge emerging from cloud computing is the issue of extradition and jurisdiction. To understand the extent and jurisdiction of the Information Technology Act, we must examine sections 1(2) and 75 of the Act.


Open Source Licenses
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a California (USA) based not for profit organization that spearheads the open source movement around the world.


Understanding Software License
Licenses are far more prevalent in the “intangible” world as compared to the “real” world. Suppose you buy a car. Once you pay the price of the car to the dealer, you can do almost anything with the car. You can sell it, rent it, make modifications to it and even destroy it!


Source Code Theft & the Law
Computer source code is the most important asset of software companies. Simply put, source code is the programming instructions that are compiled into the executable files that are sold by software development companies.


Some real life scenarios
Continued from last issue, we are analyzing some of the common cyber related crimes from a legal perspective.


Some real life scenarios
In this and next few issues we’ll analyzes some of the common cyber related crimes from a legal perspective.


Need for Cyber Law
The first question that a student of cyber law will ask is whether there is a need for a separate field of law to cover cyberspace. Isn’t conventional law adequate to cover cyberspace? Let us consider cases where so called conventional crimes are carried out using computers or the Internet as a tool. Consider cases of spread of pornographic material, criminal threats delivered via email, websites that defame someone or spread racial hatred etc. In all these cases, the computer is merely incidental to the crime. Distributing pamphlets promoting racial enmity is in essence similar to putting up a website promoting such ill feelings.


What is Cyber Law?
Simply put, law encompasses the rules of conduct: (1) that have been approved by the government, and (2) which are in force over a certain territory, and (3) which must be obeyed by all persons on that territory. Violation of these rules will lead to government action such as imprisonment or fine or an order to pay compensation. The term cyber or cyberspace has today come to signify everything related to computers, the Internet, websites, data, emails, networks, software, data storage devices (such as hard disks, USB disks etc) and even electronic devices such as cell phones, ATM machines etc. Thus a simplified definition of cyber law is that it is the “law governing cyber space”.