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Kerala
By Anand Parthasarathy
Smith who was arrested in December 1999, pleaded guilty to two charges of sending a damaging computer programme and of computer theft. On Friday, he may get a similar sentence on the second charge, says the Associated Press. By today's standards, "Melissa" was a benign virus — but by spreading like a worm and generating chain e-mails, it slowed down thousands of computers worldwide and caused an estimated $ 80 million worth of damage. While the "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act'' has been in force in the U.S. since 1986, convictions for cyber crime have been few and far between: the first came in 1990, when a Cornell University student, Robert Morris Jr., was caught after releasing the infamous "Morris Worm'' in 1988. He was sentenced to 3 years on probation and a $ 10,000 fine — and is today a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Since then, only a handful have been successfully prosecuted, any where in the world, for virus-related crime: — In 1995, a U.K. Court sentenced Christopher Pile, otherwise known as the "Black Baron'' to 18 months in jail, under that country's "Computer Misuse Act'' — In the Netherlands, Jan de Wit, author of the "Anna Kournikova'' virus, which came disguised as pin-up pictures of the tennis star, got away lightly: he was sentenced to 150 hours of community service. — According to Reuters, Taiwanese police charged a person in September 2000 with authoring the "Chernobyl'' virus but the case is not known to have ended. Also awaiting trial are four youngsters in Israel, on charges of having let loose the "Goner'' worm.
Indian experience
In August 2000, India, which enacted an Information Technology Act, became one of the "Digital Dozen'' — 12 nations who had enacted special laws to deal with Cyber crime. However, harnessing the provisions of the Act — specifically Section 66 which deals with hacking, deleting or altering information in a computer — has proved to be rather tricky. The Delhi Police arrested two men under the new IT Act, in February 2001 on a charge of hacking — but it transpired that they had blocked the website of a client for alleged non-payment of uploading fees. Lawyers argued that this could not be construed as hacking. In August 2001, the Mumbai Police arrested two men of hacking the website of the Cyber Crime Cell — but the trail led to a possible larger crime of credit card number theft. Kerala's first arrest under the IT Act came less than a week ago, when a 20 year old youth was arrested in Pathanamthitta, for allegedly sending defamatory emails with obscene pictures created by doctoring photos of the family of a Pentecostal pastor. With considerable ambiguity about what constitutes a cyber crime, the Police were forced to create a specialized cadre, trained to understand the nuances of Internet-related crimes. In August last year, the country's first Cyber Crime Police Station was opened in Bangalore. And earlier this year, the Tamil Nadu ,Police ran a 3-week crash course on cyber crime, for officers of the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police. They have the knowhow now — and the legal muscle — but to date, no Indian has been linked to the release of a major international virus.
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