CYBER-CRIME AGAINST WOMEN1 ABSTRACT

With the advent of technology2, 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. The new cyber crime of cyberviolence against women, including cyber stalking, e-mail harassment and using internet to publish obscene information to exploit or embarrass women is taking alarming proportions. Studies have shown that about 60 per cent of all websites have sexual content. 25 per cent of them solicit their visitors. Nearly 13 per cent of surfers go to these sites voluntarily, the rest are lured pictorially. The increasing popularity of chat rooms and vulnerability of personal data to criminal access makes women soft targets for a range of culpable crimes. Cyber stalking has become one of the most popular about internet crime in the modern world. Although there is no universally accepted definition of cyber stalking, the term is used in this report to refer to the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person. Stalking generally involves harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a woman, appearing at her home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property. Most stalking laws require that the perpetrator make a credible threat of violence against the victim; others include threats against the victim's immediate family, and still others require only that the alleged stalker's course of conduct constitute an implied threat. While some conduct involving annoying or menacing behavior might fall short of illegal stalking, such behavior may be a prelude to stalking and violence and should be treated seriously. According to the National Violence against Women Survey, 60 percent of cyber stalking victims are women. And earlier this year, a poll by DontDateHimGirl.com found that 40 percent of women have experienced dating violence via social media former dates posted disturbing status updates about them on Face book, or sent harassing text messages or hurtful tweets about them on Twitter. The biggest problem of cyber crime lies in the modus operandi and the motive of the cyber criminal. The police, judiciary and the investigative agencies need
1 2

SUBHRA DAS,2ND YEAR,batch-2012-2017,KIIT SCHOOL OF LAW R. Nagalakshmi , Cyber Crime Against Women, Treasurer,TNFWL http://tnfwl.com/pdf/news_letter/CYBER_CRIME_AGAINST_WOMEN.pdf

to stay abreast with the latest developments in web-based applications so that they can quickly identify the actual perpetrator. Governments can take legislative measures that ensure human rights; especially womens rights are protected online just as they are physical spaces. India is considered as one of the very few countries to enact IT Act 2000 to combat cybercrimes; This Act is widely cover commercial and economic crimes which is clear from the preamble of the IT Act but it is observed that there is no specific provision to protect security of women. However there are few provisions to cover some of the crimes against women in cyber space under IT Act. The model adopted in USA may be proved a step forward in this direction.

KEY WORDS: Cyber, Crime, Stalking, Women, Victims, Stalkers, Harassment

INTRODUCTION
The online harassments of women3 exemplifies 21st century behavior that profoundly harms women yet to often remains overlooked and even trivialized. This harassment includes rape, threats, doctor photograph portraying women being strangled, posting of womens home address alongside suggestion that they are interested in anonymous sex, technological attacks that shut down blocks and websites. It impedes womens full participation in online life, often driving them offline, and undermines their autonomy, identity, dignity, and well being. But the public and law enforcement routinely marginalize womens experiences, demeaning the harassment harmless teasing that women should expect, and tolerate, given the internets Wild West norms of behavior. The trivialization of phenomena that profoundly affects womens freedom is nothing new. No term even existed to describe sexual harassment of women in the work place until the 1970s. The refusal to recognize harms uniquely influencing women has an important social meaning-

Danielle Keats Citron, Law's Expressive Value in Combating Cyber Gender Harassment ( Dec. 3, 2009), available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/40379876?&Search=yes&searchText=stalking&searchText=cybe r&searchText=women&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dc yber%2Bstalking%2Bagainst%2Bwomen%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&prev Search=&item=1&ttl=54&returnArticleService=showFullText

it conveys the message that abusive behavior towards women is acceptable and should be tolerated. The harassment of women online is a pernicious and wide spread problem. It can be severe, involving threats of sexual violence, doctored photographs of women, being suffocated, postings of womens home address alongside the suggestion that they should be raped and technological attacks that shut down feminist blogs and websites. Cyber harassment is uniquely gendered phenomenon- the majority of targeted individual are women, and the abuse of female victims invokes threatening and demeaning terms. Such harassments have profound effects on targeted women. It discourages them from writing and earning a living online. It interferes with their professional life. It raises their vulnerability to offline sexual violence. It brands them as incompetent workers and inferior sexual objects. The harassment causes considerable emotional distress. Some women have committed suicide. The transcendental jurisdiction of Internet causes the major threat to the society4 in the form of cybercrime. The main victim of this transgression can be considered women and children. The study shows that we have 52 million active internet users in India which reached at 71 million in the year 2009. Among them working women net users are 8 percent and 7 percent nonworking women in the year 2009 and 37 percent usage of all users accessing internet through cyber cafe.12 It is very common phenomenon that the important information of the net surfer is being disclosed easily by the owners of cyber caf and then it is used for illegal purposes. Although acquaintance with technology is positive aspect that can be considered important for the development of any country but at the same time it is becoming the source to increase the crime rate with technology against the weaker section of the society.

HISTORY
Exploitation of women is not at all a new concept. If someone thinks in the contradictory way, than they are mistaken. Women were even exploited at the time of Kauravas and Pandavas

Shobhna Jeet, Cyber Crime Against Women In India: IT Act, 2000, Dept. of Law in Central University of Haryana, Mahendragarh http://www.elixirpublishers.com/articles/1351168842_47%20(2012)%208891-8895.pdf

and they are even exploited today. The only thing which has changed a bit is the way of exploitation. Some historians believe that the history of violence against women is tied to the history of women being viewed as property and a gender role assigned to be subservient to men and also other women. Two most convincing examples of women exploitation are present in our two famous Indian epics i.e., Ramayana and Mahabharata. In Ramayana, just because one of the washer man pointed against Lord Ramas decision of accepting Sita back to his life, knowing the fact that he stayed at his enemys house, Ram made Sita pass the agnipariksha to check whether she is pure or not. Here, the point which is to be raised is that not only Sita, but even Ram was away from her for the same span of time, so why only Sita gave this exam of purity and not Ram? Just because Sita was a woman and the society was a male dominating society? Again in Mahabharata, as we all know, the great Pandavas kept Draupadi as their pledge in the game of gambling even without informing her. Was Draupadi their private property to be pledged? The only reason was because she was a woman and they thought that she is weak and a puppet which can be controlled in any way they want to. Basically, the main motive of taking these examples are to show that women are being harassed and exploited from ages and ages. Today, there are various ways by which women are exploited. The new trend is related to Cyber Crime. But this is also not a very new concept.

The first recorded cyber crime took place in the year 1820. In 1820, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, a textile manufacturer in France, produced the loom. This device allowed the repetition of a series of steps in the weaving of special fabrics. This resulted in a fear amongst Jacquard's employees that their traditional employment and livelihood were being threatened. They committed acts of sabotage to discourage Jacquard from further use of the new technology. This is the first recorded cyber crime. The concept of cyber socializing dates back to mid 1970s, when e-mail was invented. Along with commercial interactions & personal conversations, chatting gained tremendous popularity by the 1990s. The traditional internet chat rooms can be divided into two categories Chat rooms for normal interactions

 Chat rooms for used solely for sexual purposes in which users can log on and enjoy either a sex chat (i.e. with a single partner) or a group sex chat (i.e. with more than two users) Adult internet use as a sexual as well as non sexual form of entertainment (Morahan Martin, 2000) started getting popularity challenges from the SNWs (Social Networking Websites) on which communication became more transparent. Popularity of social networking reached its highest peak with the ushering in of the new millennium in 2000. At this time United States saw the evolution of modern ideologies of liberalization due to web 2.0 developments in transparent internet communications via different mediums such as blogs open discussion forums interactive websites & especially SNWs. This led to the inevitable global growth of sexual harassment (Moraham Martin 2000) in cyber space. In the United States, one out of every 12 women (8.2 million) and one out of every 45 men (2 million) have been stalked at some time in their lives. One percent of all women and 0.4 percent of all men were stalked during the preceding 12 months. Women are far more likely to be the victims of stalking than men - nearly four out of five stalking victims are women. Men are far more likely to be stalkers - 87 percent of the stalkers identified by victims in the survey were men. Women are twice as likely as men to be victims of stalking by strangers and eight times as likely to be victims of stalking by intimates.

REASONS FOR THE GROWTH OF VICTIMIZATION OF WOMEN IN CYBER SOCIALIZATION5

EASY AVAILABILITY OF VICTIMS (WOMENS) PERSONAL INFORMATIONSNWs are created to let other people know the existence of the profile owner. Hence users give away their vital information such as residential address, marital status, age, phone numbers, likes, dislikes and so forth. Even through many SNWs provide options for using pseudo names and publication of such information as only optional many first- time registrants, including women float their personal information on the web through these SNWs without actually

K. JAISHANKAR, CYBER CRIMINOLOGY 311-314 (USA 2011)

knowing the dangerous effect of doing this. This gives harassment a huge victimizes the targets. IGNORANCE AND NEGLIGENCE OF THE USERSHalder and Jaishankar (2008) have pointed out that women are prone to all sorts of cyber crimes such as hacking , stalking, morphing , cyber cheating , cyber defamation and cyber sexual abuse. social networking website have become breeding grounds for such crime. The social networking websites presently give wide options to protect oneself from being harassed in various modes such as setting up security measures, locking personal albums and messages boards blocking the harasser, preventing non-members from seeing ones personal information and hiding ones profile from an internet search. Some women had verbal disagreements between group mates and suspected that their profiles were cloned or even hacked by such people. Only two of the respondents had any idea that they have a legal right to preserve their privacy on the social networking website and almost all of them had experienced either major or minor harassments on social networking websites. SCHEMING WAYS TO HIDE ONES REAL IDENTITY UNDER CAMOUFLAGED PROFILESThe ever expanding freedom of speech and expression in the U.S. has fostered the right to be anonymous on social networking website. Even so the social networking website s allow a user to change his or her pseudo name and address regularly. Although this step was taken by the SNWs for the benefit of the members so that members could change their physical and geographical location and at same time save themselves from perpetrators this has encouraged the perpetrators to commit a crime and hide under a new identity. These hide and seek (Jaishankar, 2008) games by the perpetrators put women members of social networking websites at increased risk. LACKADAISICAL RESPONSE OF THE SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITE In most cases cyber socializing becomes dangerous because of the SNWs nonchalant response. Most social networking websites have an option to report any abuse of their service. This includes reporting of cyber harassments, cyber bullying , cyber threats and cyber pornography. But in most of the cases social networking websites have their own policies to threat the post as defamatory or harassing. It is not worthy that most of the social networking websites declare in their privacy policies that they will not take any responsibility for any sorts of harassment

caused to users by other users. However they do provide safety tips in the menu bar and warn the users that their profile may be removed if it is reported that said profile is harassing others , creating a hate campaign soliciting pornography and so forth. It is unfortunate that these guidelines are not followed properly. LACK OF UNIFORM LAWS, CONVENTIONS AND RULESThe most common forms of abuse on the social networking website s are not universally recognized by any uniform law , convention or rules. Moreover, most of the social networking websites are registered under U.S. laws and they are immune from being sued as defamatory media by Section 230 of Communication Decency Act of 1996. There are some major laws such as Computer Misuse Act of 1990 , Police and Justice Act of 2006, Sexual offenses Act of 2003 , the prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act of 2005, The Protection from Harassment Act of 1997, and the Malicious Communication Act of 1998- that are widely used to prevent atrocities against women on the Internet. In Indias Information Technology Act (the original Statute from 2000 as well as the amended 2008 version), the laws does not recognize many of the offenses that occur from online socializing offenses such as cyber bullying, cyber harassment, profile cloning and so forth. Thus the lack of universal laws to regulate social networking website s and the lack of legal recognition of offenses against women in cyberspace encourage the growth of online victimization of women.

CYBER STALKING
Cyber stalkers, like their non virtual counterparts, tend to have poor interpersonal skills, mental health issues, and a life time history of interpersonal rejection 6( Schell and Lanteigne, 2000). motivated by a desire to exert control over their targets, the majority of cyber stalkers are men and the majority of targets are women . Cyber stalking often begins when the target either rejects advances to begin a relationship or tries to end a previous relationship ( U.S. Attorney General, 1999). Though no clear-cut number regarding the prevalence of cyber stalking is available, the Cyber Angels, a not- for- profit organisation assisting the victims of cyber crimes, estimates that there are more than 60,000 internet stalkers and more than 450,000 targets worldwide (Cyber Angels, 2001).

BERNADETTE H. SCHELL & CLEMENS MARTIN, CYBERCRIME : CYBERCRIMES AGAINST PERSONS 39 (2004)

Since 1990, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia have passed legislation to stop stalkers in their tracks. Some states, such as Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, and New York have added language into their antiharassment legislation specifically dealing with electronic transmission of threatening communications. In April 1999, the first successful prosecution under California's cyber stalking law occurred. Prosecutors obtained a guilty plea from a 50-year old former security guard who has used the internet to encourage the sexual assault of 28-year-old woman who rejected his romantic advances. The charges were one count of stalking and three counts of solicitation of sexual assault. The security guard terrorized this woman by impersonating her in various internet chat rooms and online BBs (bulletin boards), where he posted her telephone number, address and messages saying that she fantasized about being assaulted. On at least six occasions, sometimes in middle of the night, men knocked on the target's door saying they were there to fulfil her fantasies (National Centre of Crime, 2001) In addition to the laws, a number of other cyber stalking resources exist online to help targets to manage their situations and to get protection and prevention advice. These include Cyber Angels, Get Net Wise, International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists, national Centre for Victims of Crime, National Cybercrime Training Partnership, Privacy Rights Clear-in-house, and Search Group, Inc. ( Posey ,2003). Though cyber stalking does not involve any physical contact,7 yet, stalking through the Internet has found favour among the offenders for certain advantages available like, ease of communication, access to personal information and anonymity. Offline and online cyber stalking have certain differences, which make the latter more dangerous. In specific, in online cyber stalking the cyber stalker can be geographically located anywhere. In few instances, the cyber stalker does not even directly harass his victim. Rather, he would prompt the other users to send messages to the victim under misconceived notion.

DR. R.K. CHAUBEY, AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERCRIME AND CYBER LAW 357-358 (2009)

DIFEFRENT KINDS OF CYBERSTALKING8 E-MAIL STALKINGIn many ways, stalking via e-mail represents the closest replication of traditional stalking patterns. Given that the most common forms of stalking behavior are telephoning and sending e-mail by stalkers is not surprising. As a medium, e-mail incorporates the immediacy of a phone call and introduces the degree of separation entailed in a letter. It might be argued that email stalking is actually less invasive than phone calls because the victim can undermine the interaction by deleting, without opening, any suspicious or unsolicited messages. This argument does, however deny the social meaning of e-mail communication. As with telephone stalking, e-mail communication. As with telephone stalking ,email harassment constitutes an uninvited and arguable threatening incursion into private space. As with stalking in the physical world, E-mail stalking can result from an attempt to initiate a relationship, repair a relationship, or threaten and traumatise a person. For example, in a case prosecuted in Australia, a woman received E-mail correspondence that began politely, but then became more threatening once she sought to end the communications. She ultimately received death threats from the offender and threats to "have her pack-raped, videotaped and uploaded in the internet". In another case brought to court in North America, a university student harassed 5 female students after buying information about them via the net. The student sent over 100 messages including death threats, graphic sexual descriptions and references to their daily activities. Similarly, in California, a university student was charged in connection with an e-mail he sent in 1996 to 59 predominantly Asian student. As message signed and send by "Asian Hater". INTERNET STALKINGE-mail stalking may be analogous to traditional stalking in some instances; it is not restricted to this format. Stalkers can more comprehensively use the Internet in order to slander and endanger their victims. In such cases, the cyber stalking takes on a public, rather than a private dimension. In one example, a female university lecturer was stalked for some years. Her exboyfriend would visit her usual chat sites, and then follow her from site, recording where she went. He also posed false information about her in various chat sites, including both those the habited and pornography sites that she visited. Finally, he hunted down and distributed semipornographic photographs of her as a young girl across the net. In another example, a woman
8

DR. R.K. CHAUBEY, Supra note 7, at 359-363.

was stalked for a period of six months. Her harasser posted notes in a chat room that threatened to kill and rape her, and posted doctored pornographic pictures of her on the net together with personal details.9 Perhaps the most disturbing example of this merging of the cyber world with the physical world involved a young male who hunted down a female ex- classmate, who, he believed, had humiliated him at school. The young man maintained a web site for a period nearly for 2 years dedicated to describing the girl, providing updates on her, and outlining his plans for her.. He discovered her social security number, licence-plate number, and place of employment. He then detailed the plans to kill the girl on a web site. Only 41 minutes after his final website update, he drove to the girl's place of work and shot her as she got into her car.10 COMPUTER STALKING11A cyber stalker can communicate directly with their target as soon as the target computer connects in any way to the Internet. The stalker can assume control of the victims computer and the only defensive option for the victim is to disconnect and relinquish their current Internet address. The situation is like discovering that anytime you pick up the phone, a stalker is on-line and in control of your phone. The only way to avoid the stalker is to disconnect the phone completely, and then reconnect with an entirely new number. Only one specific example of this technique was used in stalking. A woman received a message stating Im going to get you, the interloper then opened the womans CD-ROM drive in order to prove he had control of her computer (Karp 2000). More recent versions of this technology claim to enable real-time keystroke logging (the recording of every keystroke) and view the computer desktop in real time (Spring 1999). It is not difficult to hypothesize that such mechanisms would appear as highly desirable tools of control and surveillance for those engaging in cyber stalking (Ogilvie, 2000).

REASONS BEHIND CYBER STALKING129

Dean K. 2000, "The Epidemic of Cyber stalking"' Wored News:http://www.weired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35728,00.html. 10 Romei, S., "Net Firms Led Killer to Victim", The Australian, 4-5 December 1999, pp. 1922. 11 http://www.erces.com/journal/articles/archives/volume2/v03/v02.htm

 HARESSMENTHarassment is the most common reason of cyberstalking; this should not surprise anyone, especially women, since sexual harassment is also a very common experience offline. The internet reflects real life and consists of real people. Its not a separate, regulated or sanctified world. The very nature of anonymous communications also makes it easier to be a stalker on the internet than a stalker offline. FASCINATIONThis could begin from an online romance, where one person halts the romance and the rejected lover cannot accept the end of the relationship. It could also be an online romance that moves to real life, only to break up once the persons really meet. Then one person again cannot accept the 'No'. Sometimes, the fascination stalking can even start from real life and then move over to cyber space. One of the problems with fascination stalking is that since it often starts as a real romance, much personal information is shared between two persons involved. This makes it easy for the cyber stalker to harass their victim. Some users online enjoy flirting as a pass time, and so may well set up fascinations for their own enjoyment, games that they may later regret having played. Sometimes and fascination can also be a fixation by a stranger on another user for no valid reason. Since these fascinations stalkers live in a dream world, it is not always necessary for the target to have done anything to attract her (or his) attention in the first place. Fascination stalkers are usually jealous and possessive people. Death threats via e-mail or through live chat messages are manifestation of fascination stalking. REVENGEThere could be many reasons for this revenge stalking, this could be an argument that has gone out of hand, leading eventually to a hate and revenge relationship. Revenge vendettas often the result of something one may have said or done online which may have offended someone. Disputes often begin with arguments where one user may have been rude to another user. Sometimes, revenge cyber stalking is for no reason at all (out of the blue) the victim will not know why he or she have been targeted nor what they have done and they may not even know who it is who is doing this to them and even the cyber stalker does not know them. In fact they have not been individually targeted at all. They have been chosen as a random target by someone who does not know them. This stalker may be using the net to let out his frustration online.

12

DR. R.K. CHAUBEY, Supra note 7, at 366.

LEGAL ISSUESStalking laws can defer markedly not only across countries but also across jurisdiction. Although the extensive lists of behavior that may comprise stalking are captured in most stalking laws, other key elements differ. For example, in the United States, most jurisdictions concentrate on the intention of the perpetrator (including but not limited to threats) the arousal of victim fear, and that the perpetrators action constitute a pattern of behavior. (Beatty, 2003). In Australia the focus has typically been on the intentions of the perpetrators to arouse fear or cause harm and that the behavior has been repeated. In the state of Queens land, however, there is no requirement of internet, but rather a requirement that the behaviour would reasonably cause apprehension, fear or detriment to a stalked person.(Criminal Code [Stalking] Amendment Act 1999). Meanwhile, in England and Wales stalking falls under the umbrella of crime of harassment, which proscribes behavior that a person knows or ought to know would lead to the harassment of another (Protection from Harassment Act, 1997). While the associated problems of stalking laws have been reviewed elsewhere (e.g., Dennison & Thomson, 2005), there are essentially four key issues central to defining stalking that arising out of existing laws. The first issue pertains to the intention of the perpetrators to arouse fear or cause harm to the victim. Subjective reports of intention by the perpetrators are likely to be unreliable because a perpetrator may site (and indeed have) various other motives for the behavior, such as trying to prove their love or seeking an explanation for a break-up (Finch, 2001;Goode, 1995). In courts, the presence or absence of intend is decided upon by a judge or a jury using an objective standards, typically based on the behaviors of the perpetrators and what a reasonable person ought to have known( Brown, Farrier,& Weisbrot, 1996). Unfortunately, when defining stalking, for research on unconvinced perpetrators, a researcher is reliant on the self reported intentions of the perpetrators. Therefore use of a definition that includes intent is likely to dramatically reduce the sample of potential perpetrators. The second issue is that of victim fear, such as whether the behavior did or would be likely to, arouse apprehension or fear in the victim. Using victim fear in a definition of stalking is potentially problematic because the behavior that engenders fear in a person is likely to vary according to their particular psychological constitution (Dennison & Thomson, 2005). Furthermore, there is some evidence that thresh holds for fear differ according to gender (e.g. , Davis & Frieze, 2000; Dennison, 2007; Tjaden, Thoennes & Allison, 2000). Additionally,

victims may experience a range of emotional and physical reactions to stalking, which may not necessarily include fear ( Dietz & Martin, 2007). Therefore whether and how victim fear should be incorporated in a definition of stalking is an issue for researchers. Reliance on perpetrator account may again be unnecessarily restrictive on sample selection, because they tend to have little insight into the effect of their intrusions on the victim (Davis, Ace, & Andra, 2000; Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Palarea, Cohen & Rohling, 2002; Sinclair & Frieze, 2005). The final two issues are inter related, and comprise the element of repetition and persistence. Virtually all stalking laws require that behavior is repeated, persistent or constitute a pattern. Repetition and persistence do not necessarily have the same meaning. Repetition implies a frequency to the behavior, such that it occurred two or more times. In stalking research, persistence is often used to describe repetition, but it is also used to imply some degree of duration of the behavior. While stalking laws do not require that the unwanted behavior took place over a certain time period, the use of the term persistent in some jurisdictions (example Protection From Harassment Act,1997) requires interpretation both from a legal and research stand point.

LEGAL POSITION IN INDIA13India is one of the few countries that have adopted the Information Technology Act, 2000. It has been lauded as a good beginning, but it is also seen as a bumpy start. The IT Act defines, among other things, what constitutes tampering with a computer source, hacking of computer document system and publishing of obscene information. Unlike in a real world crime, a cyber crime is generally not preceded by a motive, the time zones can be different and a crime cannot be pinpointed to a particular hour. The crime could originate in one continent and target victims in other parts of the world. Investigators find the data can be easily destroyed while clinching evidence is difficult to collect from huge web logs, network and hard disk contents. Often, only strong circumstantial evidence is available. Section 50314 of the Indian Penal Code provides that whoever threatens another with any injury to hid person , reputation or property, or to the person or reputation of anyone in whom

13 14

DR. R.K. CHAUBEY, Supra note 7, at 376-377. Section 503 IPC: Whoever threatens another with any injury to his person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person , or to cause that person to do an act which he is not

that person is interested, with intent to cause alarm to that person, or to cause that person to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which he is not legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat, such person commits criminal intimidation. Cyber stalking in effect is committing criminal intimidation with the help of computers. The offender might be causing alarm by sending messages via the internet to the victim threatening injury to him, his property or reputation. The computer is merely used as a tool for committing the effects or rather improving upon the act of committing the offence and to be able to more effectively treating his victim. The anonymity over the internet gives the offender suitable shield to commit the offence without being easily detected. However, the end-result being the same cyber stalking is merely criminal intimidation under section 503 of the IPC. Whereas section 50915 makes intention to insult the modesty of a woman, the essential ingredient of the offence. If a man intending to outrage the modesty of a woman exposes his person indecently or uses obscene words intending that she would hear them or exhibits to her obscene drawing, he commits this offence. The gravity of Cyberstalking came into focus in India when Delhi police was asked by Mrs. Ritu Kohli to file a complaint against an unknown person who was using Mrs. Kohli's name to chat over the Internet for four consecutive days. While chatting on the Net, the unknown person was posing as Mrs. Kohli, was giving her address to one who would respond and was using obscene language. He would also encourage others to telephone .Mrs Kohli by giving her telephone number. Because of this mischief, Mrs. Kohli received 40 calls in three days mostly at odd hours, which shattered personal life and mental peace of the victim. The police machinery swung into action. After making thorough investigation, the IP addresses were traced which led to the arrest of Manish Kathuria who pleaded guilty. The accused was arrested under section 509 of the IPC and was afterwards released on bail (the case was registered before coming into force of the IT Act 2000)

legally bound to do, or to omit to do any act which that person is legally entitled to do, as the means of avoiding the execution of such threat, commits criminal intimidation. 15 Sec 509 IPC: Whoever, intending to insult the modesty of any women, utters any words, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that any such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such women, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.

In New Delhi in 2001 a software engineer was arrested for sending obscene e-mails to colleagues. A thirty year old woman who worked with an embassy in Chanakypuri was stalked for months by a man who sent her morphed pictures of herself. The cyber crime cell of Delhi received a complaint from a senior executive of an airlines company stating that he has been flooded with e-mails of morphed pictures of his wife showing her nude. These e-mails were also sent to all colleagues of the complaint. The accused allegedly also threatened to put up these mails on sex websites along with the woman's telephone number and address. Every time the accused sent a mail, he apparently created a new e-mail account. The police suspect the involvement of any disgruntled employee working in the office of the complaint. This suspicion stems from the fact that the accused had access to the photographs of complaint's wife which were morphed.16

IT ACT, 2000 Section 72Penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy.- Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person who, in pursuance of any of the powers conferred under this Act, rules or regulations made there under, has secured access to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the consent of the person concerned discloses such electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees, or with both.

Section 72.1Offence of breach of confidentiality and privacy:Section 72 of the IT Act of 2000 offers some protection for breaches of confidentiality and privacy. Non-consensual disclosure of confidential information is punishable by imprisionment for up to 2 years, or a maximum fine of approx. one lakh rupees. However the penalty can be
16

Times of India, 16 Nov. 2004.

imposed only against , functionaries authorised under the IT Act to secure access to any electronic resources. To attract the penalty, five requisites must be fulfilled, that (a) any person under the powers conferred under the IT Act , rules and regulations made there under ;(b) secures access to any electronic record , book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material; (c) without the consent of the person concerned ; (d) discloses such electronic record , book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material; (e) to any other person. The section is seen as a limitation on the plenary powers of search and seizure enjoyed by functionaries.

Section 72APunishment for Disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract.- Save as otherwise provided in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person including an intermediary who, while providing services under the terms of lawful contract, has secured access to any material containing personal information about another person, with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain discloses, without the consent of the person concerned, or in breach of a lawful contract, such material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with a fine which may extend to five lakh rupees, or with both.

IN UNITED STATES The Violence Against Women Act, passed in 2000, in United States, made Cyberstalking a part of the federal interstate stalking statute. Still, there remains a lack of legislation at the federal level to specifically address Cyberstalking, leaving the majority of legislative prohibitions against Cyberstalking at the state level. Section 226 1 A of title 18 of the United States code which was amended by section 114 of the Violence Against Women & Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 , has redefined stalking in the following ways:To accommodate the needs of digital stalking, various U.S. states have made their own stalking laws. But none have defined cyber stalking or drawn its legal boundaries. The term has been used as a synonym for cyber harassment in many U.S. State Laws. For instance the

Michigam criminal code [stalking: section 28.643(8). Definitions Sec. 411h (1993)] included in its definition of harassment conduct directed towards a victim that includes repeated or continuing uncongested contact that would cause a reasonable individual to suffer emotional distress and that actually causes the victim to suffer emotional distress. Because the term cyber harassment has not been legally defined anywhere, the term has been very broadly applied to include various online disturbances. However after Megan Taylor Meiers suicide17, the term cyber bullying has attracted proper legal attention in the United States and has been well- defined.18 Still whether the definition and the law can be stretched to cover bullying incidents inflicted upon adult women remains a debatable issue. It is unfortunate that the cyber bullying is still considered a behavioral fault in many countries such as India and that no legal definitions are available to prevent such behavior. It is deplorable that the majority of cyber offenses targeting individual users of SNWs including women have remained topics relegated to theoretical discussions & have failed to attract any legal prescription. New types of online offenses are emerging every day but most of these offenses are generalized under a broad concept that often overlooks the inherent nature for other cyber offenses such as cyber stalking or even cyber defamation. According to emerging research on the nature of cyber crimes each of these three terms differs from the other. Due to less or complete lack of awareness of the digital or cyber version of traditional offenses (i.e. offenses that were once committed only in the physical world, such as stalking), SNWs are becoming hubs of criminal activity cyber offenders use to target individual Internet Users.

THE US DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME IN UNITED STATES SUGGESTS FOR THE VICTIMS TO:19 1. Victims who are under the age of 18 should tell their parents or another adult they trust about any harassments and/or threats.
17

Megan Taylor was an American teenager who became a victim of cyber bullying and committed suicide. Megan committed suicide after an internet hoax went terribly wrong. Cyber Bullying played a key part in her mental state. [http://hubpages.com/hub/TrollsAmong-US-2] 18 The U.S. Congress passed the Megan Meir cyber bullying Prevention Act of 2008 to prevent the bullying of children in cyberspace. 19 http://www.erces.com/journal/articles/archives/volume2/v03/v02.htm

2. Experts suggest that in cases where the offender is known, victims should send the stalker a clear written warning. Specifically, victims should communicate that the contact is unwanted, and ask the perpetrator to cease sending communications of any kind. Victims should do this only once. Then, no matter the response, victims should under no circumstances ever communicate with the stalker again. 3. Victims should save copies of this communication in both electronic and hard copy for If the harassment continues, the victim may wish to file a complaint with the stalker's Internet service provider, as well as with their own service provider. 4. As soon as individuals suspect they are victims of online harassment or cyber stalking, they should start collecting all evidence and document all contact made by the stalker. Save all e-mail, postings, or other communications in both electronic and hard-copy form. If possible, save all of the header information from e-mails and newsgroup postings. Record the dates and times of any contact with the stalker. 5. Victims may also want to start a log of each communication explaining the situation in more detail. Victims may want to document how the harassment is affecting their lives and what steps they have taken to stop the harassment. 6. Victims may want to file a report with local law enforcement or contact their local prosecutor's office to see what charges, if any, can be pursued. Victims should save copies of police reports and record all contact with law enforcement officials and the prosecutor's office. 7. Victims who are being continually harassed may want to consider changing their e-mail address, Internet service provider, a home phone number, and should examine the possibility of using encryption software or privacy protection programs. Any local computer store can offer a variety of protective software, options and suggestions. Victims may also want to learn how to use the filtering capabilities of email programs to block e-mails from certain addresses. 8. Furthermore, victims should contact online directory listings such as www.four11.com, www.switchboard.com, and www.whowhere.com to request removal from their directory. 9. Finally, under no circumstances should victims agree to meet with the perpetrator face to face to "work it out," or "talk." No contact should ever be made with the stalker. Meeting a stalker in person can be very dangerous (The National Centre for Victims of Crime, 2003).

CONCLUSIONThe Internet is becoming more of an entire family communication centre, which is opening up many more victims to be stalked20. The thing to remember is that a stalker is someone that wants to be in control. A stalker is not going to pick a victim that is equal to them. This keeps the victim submissive. The main targets are the "new to the Internet", females, children, emotionally unstable, etc. Someone new to being online is pretty easy to pick out of a crowd. They don't know the chat room lingo, by their profile info, lack of Internet knowledge, etc. Also the type of channel or chat room you enter may give it away that you are new. (Newbie Chats, Getting Started Tour, etc.) These are things stalkers pick up on pretty quickly. According Aftab (2004), 83% are female, but men are also stalked. Being dominated by men, so many more males than females online, and their quest for female companionship may be hard sought. This may leave them with a hurt male ego and being jilted he may want revenge (Aftab 2004). The US Justice Department estimates there could be hundreds of thousands of victims. Our lack of knowledge also means that the harm suffered by victims of cyber stalking is often overlooked. Cyber stalking can involve behaviours that range from posting offensive messages to a victim, to physical attacks (Bocjj and McFarlane, 2002b). Sadly, some writers have suggested that cyber stalking is of little genuine concern and that those interested in the field are merely promoting hysteria. Petherick (1999), for example, seems to suggest that victims of cyber stalking suffer relatively little harm: "The effects of [cyber] stalking upon an individual may include behavioural, psychological and social aspects. Specific risks to the victim include a loss of personal safety, the loss of a job, sleeplessness, and a change in work or social habits." However, Bocjj, Griffiths and McFarlane (2002) describe several cases of cyber stalking that eventually resulted in some extremely serious outcomes, including murder. Most of the cyber crimes remain unreported due to the hesitation and shyness of the victim and her fear of defamation of familys name. Many times she believes that she herself is responsible for the crime done to her. The women are more susceptible to the danger of cyber crime as the perpetrators identity remains anonymous and he may constantly threaten and blackmail the victim with different names and identities. Although the women net surfers are
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very less in number as mentioned but the other groups targeting them above India, women still do not go to the police to complain against sexual harassment, whether it is in the real world or the virtual world they prefer to shun off the matter as they feel that it may disturb their family life. The biggest problem of cyber crime lies in the modus aperandi and the motive of the cyber criminal. Jurisdiction across the globe is now beginning to take legal actions against stalking behavior, recognising it as a public problem which merits attention. The effects of stalking upon an individual may include behavioral, psychological and social aspects. Specific lists to the victims include the loss of personal safety, job, sleeplessness and a change in work and social habits. These effects have the potential to produce a large drain on both criminal justice resources and the health care system, and it is therefore in the best interest of the authority to take a strict action when cases are presented to them. In India though Cyberstalking against women is still not as common as in foreign countries but still it is taking a good speed. The first case on Cyberstalking against women in India was reported by Reetu Kohli (Delhi). The case has been registered under section 509, IPC which reads as follows: Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman. Whoever, intending to insult the modesty of any woman, utters any word, makes any sound or gesture, or exhibits any object, intending that such word or sound shall be heard, or that such gesture or object shall be seen, by such woman, or intrudes upon the privacy of such woman, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine or with both. IT Act, 2000 has still not got any particular section which specifically speaks about Cyberstalking. So IT Act, 2000 should be amended as soon as possible as use of internet and crimes related to it are increasing in a geometric ratio.