Legal issues of Internet
and cyberspace are very difficult to manage. There are many
challenges that nations around the world are facing in this regard
and the same can be managed only by establishing an international
techno
legal framework. From conflict
of laws in cyberspace to civil
liberties protection in cyberspace, governments around the
world have to manage many sensitive, crucial and constitutional
norms. This situation is further made complicated due to absence of
international treaties on cyber
law and cyber
security (pdf).
It is common knowledge
that there is a cyber tussle between United States and China for
long. While US claims that China is the cyber
villain yet China maintains that it is a victim and not a
villain. Till the time we are capable of ascertaining the real force
behind a cyber attack, we cannot prove the guilt of an organisation,
nations, individual or corporation. Granting of legal immunity to
state supported hackers has further complicated this international
fight against cyber attacks.
Recently the US Supreme
Court approved amendments
in the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
This would give a long
arm jurisdiction to US law enforcement agencies to meddle
with the sovereignty and laws of other nations. For instance, the
trans border hacking and search activities of FBI would violate civil
liberties and cyber laws of different nations. These types
of rules and regulations must be avoided by all nations, including
India.
Who are behind a cyber
attack or cyber crimes is a very crucial aspect to decide to punish
the guilty. Of course, this requires tremendous cyber forensics and
cyber crime investigation capabilities. Cyber crimes and cyber
attacks are increasing world over. The semi anonymous nature of
Internet has also encouraged these criminal activities. Besides there
are many methods to conceal the identity of an accused and mixing
within the crowd is one such method. In many cases the offender hides
himself among law abiding and legitimate Internet users. Many times
even the identity of such law abiding users is stolen to commit the
crime or launch a cyber attack. Even worst, many computers are
compromised and made part of the botnet that are used for all sorts
of illegal activities over the Internet.
When an accused commits a
cyber crime by mixing among the legitimate and law abiding crowd, it
becomes imperative to ascertain, with great certainty, that a
particular culpable act has been committed by a particular person
alone. We at Perry4Law
Organisation (P4LO) believe that “authorship
attribution” is an important aspect of “determining
the culpability” of an offender where the means to commit the
offence are common and accessible to many people simultaneously. Data
mining and profiling of the accused to “attribute culpability” to
him/her alone is an emerging area of cyber crime investigation and
India must pay more attention to this branch.
