Cyber Laws Introduced Asian Countries - Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia introduced Cyber Crime Bills/Acts this month.The Basis of the Sri Lankan Computer Crimes Bill is to criminalise attempts at unauthorised access to a computer, computer programme, data or information. Similarly, Thailaind's approved Cyber Crime Bill, gives officials power to crack down effectively on hacking and internet-related crimes through harsher punishments. Whereas, US brought in three new enactments to regulate Cyber Space, this included US sentate passing a new anti-spyware legislation I-SPY Act, Cyber Security Enhancement and Cyber Security Bill. Legislations: Cyber security Bill - USA (The US Senate has approved a cyber security bill that would require companies to promptly notify consumers if their personal information is compromised.) I-SPY ACT - USA (Second piece of US anti-spyware legislation given go-ahead.) Cyber-Security Enhancement Act of 2007 - USA (To better assure cyber-security, and for other purposes) Germany adopts anti-hacker law - critics say it breeds insecurity Germany has passed a new law that adds more "anti-hacker" provisions to the German criminal code. Sri Lanka enacts Computer Crimes Bill (Computer Crimes Bill introducing legislation which gives more power to law enforcement agencies when fighting computer crimes.) Thailand gets new cyber crime law (The chief immediate effect of the new bill will be to outlaw any attempt to get around government censors to access any of the tens of thousands of sites censored for moral or political purposes, or "to damage the country.) Indoneisa bring in Cybercrime Act Draft - "RUU Tindak Pidana di Bidang Teknologi Informasi" (Contributed by member from indonesia - nerve_gas) Featured Article: Cyber crime against women in India by Ms. Debarati Halder Cyber crime is a global phenomenon. With the advent of technology, cyber crime and victimization of women are on the high and it poses as a major threat to the security of a person as a whole. Even though India is one of the very few countries to enact IT Act 2000 to combat cyber crimes, issues regarding women still remain untouched in this Act. The said Act has termed certain offences as hacking, publishing of obscene materials in the net, tampering the data as punishable offences. But the grave threat to the security of women in general is not covered fully by this Act. Read More

India 1. HC issues notice to Centre to block web contents The Karnataka High Court issued notices to the Centre and some ISPs on a PIL seeking a direction to the government to take necessary steps to block web contents on the internet which "offended and denigrated Indian values". Read Story | Discuss 2. Indian Courts go digital Soon the districts courts in Delhi will be entering the digital era with a short message service or SMS system. Read Story | Discuss 3. Losses due to cyber crime can be as high as $40 billion Expert feels that only a tiny proportion of cyber crime incidents are actually reported world over. Individual users are more exposed to computer crime than ever, due to the growth in identity theft. Read Story | Discuss 4. Two youths, cafe owner held for cyber crime at Mohali The cyber crime cell of Mohali Police, headed by DSP Hargobind Singh, today checked two cyber cafes at Mohali and arrested owner of one of the cyber cafes along with two youth, who were allegedly viewing porn sites in the cafe cabins. Read Story | Discuss 5. NGO falls prey to online cheats A prominent NGO in the city has been cheated of $2000, which they sent as advance payment to a South Africa-based company. The SA company had promised to send them an inheritance of $15,500,000 for the good job they were doing. Read Story | Discuss 6. TRAI for removing glitches in internet services In a move to permit among other things net telephony calls using personal computers, the TRAI has sent its recommendation to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Read Story | Discuss USA 1. Hackers Successfully Hijack Google AdWords Google recently admitted that hackers successfully hijacked AdWords, which allowed cyber criminals to use affected links to redirect users to web sites that contained malicious software. Google immediately shut down the offending links once they were discovered. Read Story | Discuss 2. Senators demand more regulations on Net pharmacies This month, US Senators endorsed new laws that will target rogue online pharmacies, who sell online without govt approved prescriptions. Read Story | Discuss 3. Military bans cyber access US soldiers serving overseas will be banned from using popular websites such as YouTube and MySpace to keep in touch with family and friends. Read Story | Discuss 4. New York man caught in cyber sting A New York man arrested in Brookline last month is facing three felony charges for allegedly soliciting a child online. Read Story | Discuss 5. 'Cyber con man' gets 27 months for scam selling items on eBay An O'Fallon, Ill., man who ripped off eBay customers by selling them electronics that didn't exist was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison and could be charged soon for a similar scam. Read Story | Discuss 6. State leads way against cyber crimes on kids It is hard to imagine not having the Internet to help through the daily tasks of life. Paying bills, communicating with others and shopping from catalogues are all made easier with a click of a mouse. Read Story | Discuss 7. Lawmakers Want Sex Offenders To Register E-mail Connecticut and more than a dozen other states are considering whether to require convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses as part of efforts to combat online sexual predators. Read Story | Discuss 8. Tuning Up Uncle Sam's Cyber Crime Laws Lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Monday introduced a bill that seeks to modernize the nation's computer crime laws and give prosecutors more leeway and resources in going after cyber crooks. Read Story | Discuss Europe 1. Google resumes linking to Belgian newspaper sites Google and Belgian newspaper group Copiepresse have come to an agreement on a minor part of their dispute over copyright, but have not agreed on the major point of difference between them. Read Story | Discuss 2. Europe considers new identity theft laws The European Commission is to consider new identity fraud legislation in order to boost the fight against cyber crime. The new policy will include a push for better communication between law enforcement agencies and improved information exchanges between public and private bodies in an attempt to combat the fraudsters. Read Story | Discuss 3. Moscow had a hand in Estonia riots, cyber-attacks Estonian experts and officials on Friday repeated accusations that Russia instigated last month's violence in the Estonian capital, when a Soviet war memorial was removed from the city centre. Read Story | Discuss 4. ISPs urged to provide police with emergency contacts Internet service providers (ISPs) should provide 24-hour emergency contacts for police and security services, according to the ISP industry body the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA). Read Story | Discuss 5. Students could face legal action for cyber bullying Students could face legal action for defamation and harassment if they insult teaching professionals on social networking sites. The threat comes as more and more teachers and lecturers are being undermined by sites such as RateMyTeachers.co.uk... Read Story | Discuss 6. An Explosion in Cyber crime Sets off Alarms in Europe A video circulates on the Internet linking several individuals accused of the largest terrorist attack in Europe, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, to the incident. The video shows pictures of an alleged planner and several of the suspected executers of the attack. Read Story | Discuss Other Countries 1. South Korea Bans Virtual 'Unfair' Asset Trading In an apparently vaguely worded and of questionable enforceability announcement, the South Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that - starting next week - "the government will prohibit the trading of cyber items by 'unfair' and 'illegal' ways from next week to 'promote' the healthy growth of the game industry." Read Story | Discuss 2. Hong Kong Looks to Protect Copyright in the Digital Age In the development of a governmental policy to "strengthen copyright protection" in the digital age, the government of Hong Kong recently solicited public views to augment their own work on the issue. Read Story | Discuss 3. Google Forced to Address Censorship in Thailand For about two months, the government of Thailand has been blocking access to YouTube, Google's video-sharing website. The government claimed that numerous videos broke the law regulating defamatory speech against their King. Many questions arise from this demand of compliance to Google... Read Story | Discuss 4. Ethiopia accused of 'cyber-censorship' An Internet watchdog has accused Ethiopia of blocking scores of anti-government websites and millions of blogs. The OpenNet Initiative said the country was stopping citizens from viewing opposition-linked sites and blogs hosted by Blogger, an online journal community owned by Google. Read Story | Discuss 5. NZ second most favoured target for cyber-vandalism Turkish hackers target Aussie websites: Many of the cyber vandalism attacks reported in Australia appear to stem from individuals or groups based in Turkey, a report has found. Read Story | Discuss 6. Cyber bullying on the increase POLICE have revealed they receive complaints about cyber bullying almost every day as the State Government yesterday admitted the problem was increasing. Read Story | Discuss 7. MySpace wants anti-cyber predator system UAE’s Telecom Regulatory Authority has established the United Arab Emirates Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT) and a cyber security coordination centre to detect, prevent and respond to cyber crime in the country. Read Story | Discuss Security 1. Cyber Security Bill Targets Botnets Cyber Security Enhancement Act seeks criminal penalties for botnet attacks used to aid identity theft, denial-of-service attacks, and the spread of spam and spyware. Read Story | Discuss 2. Cyber attacks force Estonian bank to close website Estonia's second-biggest bank, Swedish-owned SEB Eesti Uhispank, was forced Tuesday to block access from abroad to its online banking service after it came under "massive cyber-attack", an official said. Read Story | Discuss 3. Cyber-mobsters drop DoS attacks The practice of holding websites hostage under the threat of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks is declining, according to security researchers at Symantec. Read Story | Discuss 4. Global net censorship 'growing' The level of state-led censorship of the net is growing around the world, a study of so-called internet filtering by the Open Net Initiative suggests. The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers found 25 of 41 countries surveyed showed evidence of content filtering. Read Story | Discuss 5. Identifying Hoaxes and Urban Legends Chain letters are familiar to anyone with an email account, whether they are sent by strangers or well-intentioned friends or family members. Try to verify the information before following any instructions or passing the message along. Read Story | Discuss Trademarks & Patents 1. American attempt to patent yoga puts Indians in a twist For millions around the world yoga is a source of relaxation and spiritual sustenance. Not so for the Indian Government, which has worked itself into a furious twist over efforts by American entrepreneurs – including an Indian-born celebrity “yogi” – to patent the ancient practice. Read Story | Discuss 2. Microsoft vs. Linux vs. Patent Office Microsoft's top lawyer says open source software violates exactly 235 entries in the firm's vast patent portfolio. The figures released to Fortune as part of Microsoft's long-running campaign to seed doubts over the legality of Linux and other open source efforts. Read Story | Discuss 3. Apple Beware: Microsoft Awarded Web Phone Patent Could Apple's iPhone be at the mercy of a patent just granted to Microsoft? Could be, judging by U.S. Patent 7,225,409, "Graphical User Interface For A Screen Telephone," which was awarded to Microsoft. More potential worries for Apple: The patent isn't just for a phone, but for the underlying software, and the patent document even includes a helpful flowchart. Read Story | Discuss 4. Judge approves US$1.53bn verdict against Microsoft Microsoft said it plans to challenge the ruling, which found its Media Player software violated digital speech patents.. A federal judge has approved a jury's decision to award Alcatel-Lucent SA US$1.53 billion in damages after finding that software company Microsoft violated its patents. Read Story | Discuss 5. Judge doubts Intel can defeat Intelmark trade mark The Court of Appeal has said that Intel should fail in its bid to erase the trade mark of a telemarketing company. The Court has referred questions to the European Court of Justice but made clear that the chip giant deserves to lose. Read Story | Discuss 6. Software piracy extradition the first of many It took three years of legal debate before Hew Raymond Griffiths, an Australian resident and British citizen, was surrendered to the U.S. for his involvement in the international software piracy group Drink or Die (DoD). Read Story | Discuss 7. U.S. puts 12 nations on watch for piracy including India China, Russia and 10 other nations were targeted by the Bush administration for failing to sufficiently protect American producers of music, movies and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy. Read Story | Discuss 8. Software piracy rates steady but losses grow in 2006: study The rate of software piracy worldwide held at 35 per cent in 2006, but rose slightly in Canada and elsewhere, offsetting gains by software makers, a new study suggests. Read Story | Discuss 9. MySpace to curb copyright violation The clampdown on video copyright abuse continued Monday as social network giant MySpace announced measures to curb the use of copyrighted videos on member pages. Read Story | Discuss 10. DRM group vows to fight bloggers Bloggers "crossed the line" when they posted a software key that could break the encryption on some HD-DVDs, the AACS copy protection body has said. Thousands of websites published the key, which had been uncovered in a bid to circumvent digital rights management (DRM) technology on HD-DVD discs. Read Story | Discuss