Cyberlaw in Iran

The number of Internet users in Iran is increasing very fast .(Iran is in the eleventh step for the most Internet users in the world.)As we know computer is like a knife with two edges, therefore the number of computer crime goes up too. In this situation criticises complained about lack of laws for computer crimes and disability of traditional laws so they forced Parliament to enact some laws specifically for cyberspace that happened two years ago in about 25 wavers(2008).For instance punishment for any unlawful data collection is

- Imprisonment between 91 days to one year OR

- Fine between 5 to 20 million Rials OR

- both

and another computer crime is changing or modifying data which its punishment is as follow:

- Imprisonment between one to five years OR

- Fine between 20 to 100 million Rials OR

- both

Inside a global cybercrime ring

BOSTON, March 24 — Hundreds of computer geeks, most of them students putting themselves through college, crammed into three floors of an office building in an industrial section of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, churning out code at a frenzied pace. They were creating some of the world’s most pernicious, and profitable, computer viruses.
As business boomed, the firm added a human resources department, hired an internal IT staff and built a call centre to dissuade its victims from seeking credit card refunds. Employees were treated to catered holiday parties and picnics with paintball competitions.
Top performers got bonuses as young workers turned a blind eye to the harm the software was doing. “When you are just 20, you don’t think a lot about ethics,” said Maxim, a former Innovative Marketing programmer who now works for a Kiev bank and asked that only his first name be used for this story. “I had a good salary and I know that most employees also had pretty good salaries.”
A researcher with anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc who spent months studying the company’s operations estimates that the business generated revenue of about US$180 million (RM612 million) in 2008, selling programmes in at least two dozen countries. “They turned compromised machines into cash,” said the researcher, Dirk Kollberg.
The company built its wealth pioneering scareware — programmes that pretend to scan a computer for viruses, and then tell the user that their machine is infected. The goal is to persuade the victim to voluntarily hand over their credit card information, paying US$50 to US$80 to “clean” their PC. Scareware, also known as rogueware or fake antivirus software, has become one of the fastest-growing, and most prevalent, types of internet fraud. Software maker Panda Security estimates that each month some 35 million PCs worldwide, or 3.5 per cent of all computers, are infected with these malicious programmes, putting more than US$400 million a year in the hands of cybercriminals.
Groups like Innovative Marketing build the viruses and collect the money but leave the work of distributing their merchandise to outside hackers. Once infected, the machines become virtually impossible to operate. The scareware also removes legitimate anti-virus software from vendors including Symantec Corp, McAfee and Trend Micro Inc, leaving PCs vulnerable to other attacks. When victims pay the fee, the virus appears to vanish, but in some cases the machine is then infiltrated by other malicious programmes. Hackers often sell the victim’s credit card credentials to the highest bidder.

It is really hard to believe.Mostly an anti virus producer go through our mind as a life boat. What a bad feeling when we realize exactly that boat is the cause of our sinking.The same feeling make me sad when I read this news. Now I am thinking about how can realize our enemies from our friends? But it is business and we know that many people use this kind of way to create money and antivirus manufacturers are not alone in this way.On the other hand it means some times cybercrime can occur even by legal manufacturers and under the law shed.Hope law can capture them too.

Reference:

http://the malaysianinsider.com/

Facebook Privacy Regulation Issues

BRUSSELS, April 23 — Over the past six years, social networking has been the Internet’s stand-out phenomenon, linking up more than one billion people eager to exchange videos, pictures or last-minute birthday wishes.The sites, led by Face book with more than 400 million users, rely in large part on people’s willingness to share a wealth of personal information with an ever-expanding network of “friends,” either ones they actually know and see from time to time, or those they have met virtually through the Internet.
Members’ eagerness to add contacts has given the sites a powerful global reach, attracting users from seven to 70 years old, from skateboarders to investment bankers, and with them a deep and potentially rich vein of targeted advertising revenue.
But at the same time it has concentrated vast amounts of data — telephone numbers and addresses, people’s simple likes and dislikes — on the servers of a small number of companies,....

As a matter of fact, no body can deny the popularity of Facebook and other social networks in the world but the main concentration is about controlling and limiting the data collection by social networks and forcing them to respect privacy regulations. Governments- Big Brothers -have more roles in order to enforce them for privacy setting limitation and also increasing people awareness about their rights and understanding all risks assossited with exposing personal data . This challenges becomes more important when children create their own Face book page who are not aware of its risk completely.

Reference:

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/

Financial and Cybercrime most prevalent economic crime in Malaysia

The title above is on my classmate's blog(mehdiebadi1.blogspot.com). Addition to my friend's suggestion which is so interesting and I am agree with him, I have two other ideas.

1- One day could named specially for cyber law in the world to increase people's attention about computer and Internet crimes. For instance TV, radio and newspaper speak about nature and environment in Earth Day. More TV programs are built and more articles in magazines and newspapers are written in order to make more people's attention to green products and protecting earth.If we have the same day for cyber law or something like it , the same may happen for it and TV and radio programs will speak much more about computer crime and cyber law.Teachers may explain to students in the class about what is cyberspace and how they can protect them self from cyber criminals.

2-Behind any medicine there is a label which tell us how we can use it, the ingredients of it and how we keep it away from children and so on. But we never see the same label in computer or laptop manual. Every one who have a computer or laptop should know how to protect his or her digital files, email, and so on from cyber criminals .This is one of manufacturer's social responsibility .

FBI's Most-Wanted Cyber Crooks

From identity theft to computer intrusion, five criminals on FBI's most-wanted share two similarities: They are all international cyber criminals.
Canadian national William Charles Rath is wanted for allegedly plotting to defraud a satellite provider out of millions of dollars from 1996 to 1999. Allegedly, Rath organized, sold and manufactured illegal DirecTV access cards throughout North America, enabling individuals to receive satellite programming without having to pay for the service. Rath allegedly used a network of individuals to distribute IST throughout North America, and created a business called Cottonwood Limited in the Turks and Caicos Islands to manage some of the proceeds from the sale of IST.

Romania-born Claudiu Virgil Turlea is wanted for his involvement in a criminal enterprise organization believed responsible for a series of fraud schemes totaling $4.3 million. In one scheme, members of the organization allegedly hacked into bank accounts of U.S. businesses through fraudulently acquired log-in information and wire-transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars into bank accounts controlled by him and his co-conspirators.
According to the FBI, Turlea is a known member of a Romanian organized crime syndicate and may be found in Canada, trying to recruit people to assist with cyber crimes.

I always think investigation about cyber crime would be more difficult than offline crime as finding a cue in cyberspace could not be easy. I do not know my assumption is true or it comes from lack of my computer knowledge. Any way, in my opinion establishing an international organization especially for cybercrime investigation in order to finding and arresting frauds sooner and faster is a good and effective way because these guys are not the only cyber criminals in the world and it seems as the internet accessibility increase around the world, the number of these kinds of crime would go up.

Knowing more about Alex Randall

Do you know who started the world first e-commerce?and when?

Alex Randall and Cameron Hall are founders of Boston Computer Exchange in 1982.Boston Computer Exchange called also BCE or BoCoEx interchangeably.Randall had a degree in General System Research and Hall was economist.This company was a marketplace and used by people who decided to sell their second hand computers.Initially Boston Computer Exchanged used a paper databased but soon its founders(Randall & his wife -Hall) decided to establish a computerized marketplace for trade and after that time this company were named as the world first e-commerce company.

Reference:

http://www.ecommerce-land.com/

E-commerce Payment and Trust Issues

As I mentioned in latest post, one major barrior to stop and discourage people to use credit card and online buying is trust.When anyone wants to purchase an object via internet first he or she may ask himself or herself " If I do it online does seller recieve the money? If I insert my acount number does any one else may see it? How can I make sure sellers will not deny my payment? How I can be sure the purchased item will send to me? Is there any place or court that I can complain about buying online if any problem occurs? Is there any law which can support me? '. These kind of questions always come to mind of buyers and suffer them because of their lake of knowledge about Cyberlaw.

The statistics below can show some important issues that online users concern .

Security of credit caed transactions 86%

Purchasing privacy 75%

Censorship 72%

Hate group Web sites 47%

Depiction of violence 38%

Pornography 30%

Reference:

http://www.lycos.com/

Latest Cybercrime news - 16 April 2010

Gonzalez accomplice gets five years for hacking TJX - Computerworld:

"IDG News Service - Ending a chapter in one of the worst hacking cases in U.S. history, a federal judge handed down a five-year sentence Thursday to a 25-year-old man who helped steal tens of millions of credit card numbers.
Damon Patrick Toey had already pleaded guilty to charges that he sold batches of stolen credit card data, called dumps, on behalf of convicted hacker Albert Gonzalez and helped him infiltrate the systems of a number of companies. Gonzalez was sentenced last month to 20 years in prison, the longest sentence ever handed down in the U.S. for a computer crime.
Operating out of a Miami condominium owned by Gonzalez, Toey worked in a hacking ring that broke into systems belonging to a number of U.S. retailers, as well as Heartland Payment Systems, a major processor of U.S. credit card transactions.
Toey was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Young in federal court in Boston. After serving his five-year sentence, he will undergo three years of supervised release. He must also pay a $100,000 fine. Gonzalez led a crew of hackers who broke into networks by hacking wireless access points and then later used SQL injection attacks to access corporate databases via the Web. They broke into companies that included TJX, Office Max, Barnes & Noble and Dave & Buster's, ultimately selling millions of credit card numbers to Russian criminals and using some of the data to make unauthorized ATM withdrawals. Toey is the last of six U.S. men to be sentenced in connection with the hacking. The group's offshore accomplices have not been arrested".



In my opinion, news like that , increase the fear of consumers about e-commerce and on line transaction. One main reason for unsuccessful online trade is trust especially in emerging countries(I will explain about it later).However, this kind of news showed us this may happen even in developed countries.On the other hand $100,000 fund and five years sentence can not reform the major impact of this kind of crime and phenomen that may have on the online payment and transaction.

Referece:


http://www.cybercrime.gov/

Now it is the time to speak about disadvantages of e-commerce. Obviously,not all aspects of using Internet for doing business are desired.However, benefits of Internet for e-marketers lure them without thinking or searching about drawbacks of electronic commerce.Traditional business has own risk but doing business in cyberspace and using Internet for selling and buying products increase this risk much more.
Risky payment, lack of enforceable remedies, privacy and trust issues and other unfair activities are the most fundumental barriers that must be considered for electronic commerce.

Introduction

Electronic commerce which is mostly called e-commerce is doing business over the electronic systems such as internet.After 1970 when the first use of electronic data interchange(EDI) was established , e-commerce has had great growth.Although electronic commerce has many advanteges, always keep in your mind some disadvanteges and drawbacks of it.Doing bussiness in global market,24 hours a day business transaction, decreasing cost of transacton and increasing market share and profibility are those main adventages that always come to mind firstly.

References:

Georgios I.Zekos,Department of international Economics,Democritos University of Thrace,Amvrosia-Komotini,Greece

Advanteges and Disadvanteges of Electronic Commerce, http://www.buzzle.com/