CYBER CRIME

With the increasing use of the internet for communication and other purposes, comes a very big threat to security. This threat is known as cyber crimes. Cyber crimes are crimes committed with the use of the internet. These crimes may go on to include forgery, blackmail, fraud, theft and so on.

Examples of some early crimes :

1. In 1986 Riggs was first convicted for his unauthorized use of a computer and was sentenced to a mere 15 days of community service and placed on probation for 18 months. In 1990 Riggs was indicted again for making unauthorized access to computers, during which he stole proprietary information from a telephone company.

2. In March 1997, a young hacker disabled the telephone service at the Worcester, Massachusetts airport for six hours, which disabled the air-traffic control system and other critical services. This same hacker also copied patients' records from a computer in a pharmacy on four separate occasions in January, February, and March 1997. This hacker was the first juvenile to be prosecuted by the U.S. Government for computer crime.

3. Last year in India, a teenager had met some people on ORKUT ( a social space like facebook). His conversations show that he became friends with them and was supposed to meet them at a particular place. The teenager was found murdered and robbed. Every one was shocked with this incident. Our school introduced a new rule - that no student was permitted to have an orkut id or use orkut.


One of the most common cyber crime is piracy of music and movies. Music and Movie piracy refers to the unlawful downloading of copyrighted material via the internet. Downloading music and movies has become so easy with the introduction of p2p networking and softwares like limewire, torrents, etc. This has made it more difficult for the authorities to deal with these problems.


In July 2001, a cyber-attack called “Code-Red” infected more than 350,000 Microsoft IIS servers and brought down several web application infrastructures. In January 2003, another cyber-attack called “Slammer” disrupted services of nearly 75,000 computers. Figures 1 and 2 show the increasing number of cyber-crime incidents that are taking place on the Internet today, which are costing billions of dollars of business-losses.


NUMBER OF CYBER CRIME INCIDENTS REPORTED EVERY YEAR.



Cyber-crime incidents experienced in 2005 by type of incident and percentage of surveyed
organizations (survey published by the Australian High Tech Crime Centre)

Is the "medium is the message" ?

Marshll Mcluhan coined the phrase "the medium is the message". This means that the medium influences how the message is perceived. In his book - 'Understanding Media', McLuhan describes the "content" of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. He believed that the content might have little effect on the society. For example, if a television broadcasts children shows or violent shows, the effect of television (and not the shows) on society would be identical and profound. He pointed to the light bulb as a clear demonstration of the concept of “the medium is the message”. A light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to see during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence."Likewise, the message of a newscast about a heinous crime may be less about the individual news story itself — the content.

Marshall Mcluhan's theories are not universally accepted. There are some theories that go against his way of thinking.
For instance, Consider a physical recording medium like a CD or DVD. By itself it's an empty vessel. The "message" is the information contained within that medium, whether it be music, a film, software, or some other information. The message is what provides the value -- the actual recording medium is often not very important. You may pay $20 for a CD that contains music, or you may pay $300 for a CD that contains certain software. But the physical CD's are essentially identical except for the information they contain. This price difference isn't due to a difference in the medium but rather due to a difference in the message.
For example, in most cases your job title represents the medium of your career. Career media include being an attorney, a salesperson, or a computer programmer. Think of your career medium as the vessel through which you work. Much like a recordable CD, your career medium is an empty container waiting to be filled. If you identify yourself as an attorney or a salesperson or a computer programmer, that doesn't give you any sense of the value your work provides. Those professions are conduits for providing value, but they contain very little value in and of themselves.It isn't hard to recognize that the primary value comes not from the medium of your career (i.e. your particular job) but rather from the message of your career. The message is what you bring to your career. It's what fills the otherwise empty container.

Taliban

Since their rise in 1994, the Taliban have been a source of conflicting opinions. Their opponents have accused them of being created by Pakistan with the support of Saudi Arabia and the US oil company, UNOCAL, to secure trade routes to the Central Asia. Their supporters, on the other hand, hold that the Taliban are a religious and moral force that arose on their own from villages to save Afghans from the terror, lawlessness and corruption of Mujahideen era and to re-unite Afghanistan. The reality, however, seems somewhere in the middle. It is true that the immediate cause of the rise of Taliban was the fighting among Mujahideen groups that had virtually divided Afghanistan in separate fiefdoms resulting in carpet destruction of Kabul, killings of thousands of civilians, and general lawlessness.

Rise of taliban :

The cycle of violence, destruction, and chaos of the Mujahideen era created the condition for the rise of the puritanical Taliban. There are several versions of how a small group of taliban, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar took control of areas around Qandahar in 1994.

According to the most widely circulated account amongst the residents of Qandahar, a group of "madrasee" (belonging or originating from a Madrasa) taliban, headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar arrived in Afghanistan with the intent to re-establish law and order and to re-organize themselves. They took residence in a school near Dand in Qandahar. On September 20, 1994, an Afghan family on its way to Herat from Qandahar, was looted, its male members molested, and its female members were raped by gangs manning one of the so-called "check points" along the route. One of the victims escapes and reaches the newly established Taliban compound. The story goes that Mullah Omar and his followers rushed to the scene, capturing the perpetrators, executing them on the spot and then collecting and burying the bodies of the victims. They began consolidating their position and procuring weapons by winning the allegiance of several local military commanders.

Common Goals And Policies Of The Taliban :

The initial goals of the Taliban were to disarm the country, end lawlessness and enforce the Islamic law or the Sharia on a united Afghanistan.

Taliban's strict social policies and their anomalous interpretation of Islam have had detrimental effects on Afghans and have alienated them from the rest of the world. The Taliban initially banned all girls' schools, although more recently they have opened a handful of schools for girls under the age of 12. Women have to be covered from head to toe and be accompanied by a male relative when they go out on the streets. Taxi drivers have been admonished not to give ride to women unless they are covered fully. And women caught violating these rules have been beaten. Because of these policies, they have been accused of engaging in "gender apartheid."

In addition to their restrictions on women, men are required to grow untrimmed beards (considered to be Sunnah, something practiced and thus imitated from the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)) and pray five times a day( one of the five pillars of Islam). They have also cut the hands of thieves and stoned to death those who are convicted for adultery (as outlined, they maintain, by Islamic law). They have also banned kite flying, chicken fights, keeping pigeons and gambling (since they believe that this will lead to moral corruption). The Taliban continue to justify their policies by stressing that they continue to face a costly war and the country's infrastructure is totally destroyed to accommodate the needs of all. However, the Taliban's strict policies have made the lives of ordinary Afghans harder in what are already hard times.

The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory is a very well known t.v. show about these two nerds (Sheldon & Leonard) and their various humorous interactions with this very pretty girl (Penny) living next door.
This is a link to one of their interactions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8P0YmgQTbA&feature=related

The clip starts with Sheldon boasting about his calculations to Penny. According to him, forming a relationship is based on science basically. " Similarity" is what he is looking for - someone with the same beliefs or likings. However, Penny is completely different from him because she is completely ignorant about science and is more casual in her approach. Another point of difference is that Sheldon lives a very systematic life and calculated life. This can be seen when he talks about his seat. "Physical appearance" plays an insignificant role in his perception of a person. He is not attracted to Penny. Leonard, on the other hand is more casual and is attracted to Penny. For him science plays an insignificant role when building a relationship. He wants to impress Penny by boasting about his accomplishments as a scientist. He has a tendency to form relationships with those who are different from him combined with physical appearance of that person. He is open to differences unlike Sheldon.
In this clip we can see how the two geeks have their separate ways of building relationships and how different they are from Penny. Later in the series, Sheldon and Penny mostly dislike each other. Leonard and Penny maintain a healthy friendly relation.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire by Danny Boyle (director) is a movie which shows how an 18 year old orphan (Jamal Malik, main character) from the slums of Mumbai is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" ( tv show). However, when the show breaks for the night the police suspect him on account of cheating ; how could a street kid know all the answers ? To prove his innocence Jamal tells the police his story from when he was a child. . Each chapter of Jamal's layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes.He tells the police his story of his life in slums where he and his brother grew up,vicious encounters with the local gangs and of Latika ,the girl he loved. As the new day dawns Jamal has to answer one more question to win the 20 million but theres just one problem, he doesnt know the answer to the last question.Even then he guessed and got it right. A question is asked at the beggining of the movie..

(Q) Jamal Malik an 18 year old ,uneducated orphan from the slums wins 20 million rupees ?

(A) He Cheated

(B) He got lucky

(C) He's a Genius

(D) It is written

They answer the question at the end of the movie , It Is Written.

According to me the movie potrayed his life and the game show and how it connected very well. The movie had two sides - one where Jamal's life in the slum is potrayed and the other is that how that life made him a millionaire.I thought the director achieved to blend the two sides very well.