Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Don’t drop your guard in the digital world



Going by the page on a social networking site, Randhir Prakash was a 28-year-old Delhi resident, single, a Gemini, with a Masters in Business, owned a budding outsourcing business and a self-professed lover of the works of Shakespeare. The description was what swept Pallavi Mehta, a daughter of a Gujarat-based business tycoon, off her feet. It took her all of 15 days to decide that Prakash was her soulmate and 10 more to marry him. Little did she know that Prakash was an ex-convict who had lured her into marriage just for her money.

Today, Mehta has managed to get out of the torturous relationship and is back with her parents trying to forget the past. Unfortunately, Mehta isn’t the only one who has been taken for a ride in the virtual world, the new playground for miscreants.

Technology, a boon to boost connectivity and response, has a flip side which is often exploited by all manner of criminals including sexual offenders, confidence tricksters and plain robbers. Whether it’s an internet chatroom or the cellphone or even a gaming zone, the virtual world allows a person to weave an illusionary identity, which becomes the digital counterpart of the real person.

Online avenues such as blogs, and networking sites have become the counterparts of clubs or places to socialise. You find people on them bragging to friends about their accomplishments, pouring out their life’s philosophies and trying to hunt for soulmates. But what people tend to forget is caution is as important here as in real life.

In gaming parlours, it’s a common scenario for unsuspecting teens to make friends over a game. The mere familiarity that comes into play while strategising to beat a gaming opponent can form the basis of a real-life friendship with a complete stranger.

Then there have been instances when goons have befriended surfers either on chatrooms or blogs to track the movement of their parents. “They basically befriended kids of rich parents to find out when they would go on a holiday in order to plan a robbery,” says Raghu Raman of Mahindra Securities, who tracks online crime.

The ubiquitous mobile phone is yet another tool for potential misuse. Police have tracked hackers using Bluetooth — a technology that lets you connect to similar Bluetooth-enabled devices such as mobiles in the near vicinity — to steal data such as bank account passwords.

There have been instances where hackers have found ways to eavesdrop on conversations to use the information for personal gain. The internet itself has been a breeding ground for online crimes such as phishing, hacking and such where criminals are using technology to embezzle billions across the world.

Finally, everything boils down to how cautious you are while making friends or dropping guard, say analysts. Trusting people in the digital world is exactly like making friends offline. Would you like to be pally with a child molester? Would an ex-convict make a great friend? Caution is the key word. Just like you do a background check on people in real life, make sure you are as aware in your digital world.

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