Awareness on Cyber Laws and Cyber Crimes @ Porvorim VPP Free Legal Aid Cell

Understanding the importance of the incidence of cyber crimes among the youth, Porvorim VPP Free Legal Aid Cell designed a legal literacy program on the topic and executed it on 9th February 2016 at Vidhya Prabhodini School Hall, Porvorim, Goa. Mr. Joelson Fernandes was the  resource person.

Mr. Joelson Fernandes has extensive experience in imparting education in the field of digital forensics and cyber-crimes investigation and has addressed various schools and colleges across Goa in tune with the company CSR program to educate Goa about various cyber-crimes and preventive measures for the same.

Prof. Sonal Sardessai was present for the function and the VPP legal aid cell student in charge Miss Mehandi Naik Desai was also present on the desk. Miss Malvika Maulingkar was the comperer for the function.

Topics discussed:

The speaker initially raised a few questions like:

• What do they understand by the word cyber?
• How many of them have access to the internet in their day to day life?
• How many of them have an e-mail id?
• How many of them have a bank account?
• How many have and use a smart phone?

The speaker then went on to discuss about the “Types of Cyber crimes”

1. Hacking: he explained that it means an unauthorized control/access over a computer system. An act of hacking can completely destroy the entire data as well as other computer programs. Hackers usually hack telecommunication and mobile networks
2. Harassment via e-mail: while explaining this he told about the various instances of social media abuse through social networking sites like facebook, twitter, etc. he said the reason behind this is that through our profiles on these sites we inform the whole world about our whereabouts.

He gave us illustrations through some recent cases he handled:

1. In one of the case a girl was given an assignment to make random friends on ‘Orkut’. She did so. On her birthday one of her friends sent her an e-mail wish. The moment she opened the mail the virus attacked her system. Unaware about this she continued with her daily activities. Due to that virus her webcam would began recording and the friend later on went to post these same video’s on the networking site.
2. The second instance was one of a navy officer who would post his pictures on a networking site and due to this thee terrorist became aware of his location.

3. Cracking: it’s a situation where strangers break into your computer system without your knowledge and consent and tampers with your precious confidential matters.

He told a case where an employee on being fired by the boss created a virus which he e-mailed to his boss who on opening it   lost all the precious data.

4. Cyber stalking: this means an expressed or implied threat that creates fear through the use of computer technologies like internet, e-mail, texts, webcam, videos, etc.

He told of a case where a person when he returned from his travel found his house robbed as he had mentioned about his vacations in his account.

5. E-mail spoofing: A spoofed email can be said to be one which represents its origin. It shows the origin different form which it actually originates.

Information about certain viruses and preventive measures were given. Mr. Fernandes also informed about websites from where songs or video’s should not be downloaded sites which offer free games are also not safe to be opned.

Miss Yuga Adarkar proposed the vote of thanks