Online activities are as vulnerable to crime as real life situations are. Law makers, Law enforcement and individuals need to know how to protect themselves. Though Cyber crime used to exist way before the innovation of computer, the only difference involves the tools used to commit the crime.
Some Main types of Cyber Crime are under:
- Assault by Threat: Threatening a person with fear for their lives or the lives of their families through Internet e.g. Email, videos or other networks like Mobile Phones etc.
- Cyber theft: Using a computer to steal. This includes activities related to DNS cache poisoning, identity theft, fraud embezzlement and unlawful appropriation, espionage etc.
- Cyber terrorism: Premeditated, usually politically-motivated violence committed against civilians through the use of, or with the help of, computer technology.
- Cyber laundering: electronic transfer of illegally-obtained monies with the goal of hiding its source and possibly its destination.
Though Pakistan is new member of cyber world i.e. Mobile Networks and Broadband connections and only few people know about cyber crime but in fact there is no such law to prevent cyber crimes right now.
One such law called Cyber Crime prevention bill was passed by Pakistan Federal Cabinet on Jan 17, 2007. The proposed law titled as “Prevention of electronic crimes bill” offered penalties ranging from six month of imprisonment to capital punishment for 17 types of cyber crimes including cyber terrorism, hacking of websites and criminal access to secure data.
But this proposed law was unable to get tabled in Parliament and in fact implemented as an ordinance by former President Musharraf on Jan, 07, 2008.
According to Ordinance, the accused could be fined one lack to five lack Rupees or three to ten years imprisonment or both.
Ordinance was later endorsed twice by PPP government for renewal, until it lapsed in November 2009 and was never taken care of then.
As age of any Presidential ordinance is only six weeks from the date of its promulgation in Pakistan, there is no such law at this particular time to prevent cyber crimes in Pakistan.
Current State of Crime in Pakistan
In absence of any such comparative law there is strong urge on our legislators to pass a law that can stand the complexities of today’s cyber world and apprehend the accused instead of accusing people of political revenge and calling them the cause of government’s own negligence and failure to meet the demands of today’s fast moving cyber world.
An FIA official in a conversation with ProPakistani said that agency has been reminding the concerned departments about the lapse of ordinance, but apparently they are either busy doing other businesses or they are deliberately not paying any attention.
He said that Cyber Crime law is supposed to be defined by Ministry of IT and Telecom, as internet domain is fairly covered by IT Ministry. He further added that it is the need of the hour to get Cyber Crime Law get passed from parliament to make it permanent part of Pakistani law.
I recently heard from a friend that you can hack any mobile number and check the record of sent and received text messages and calls. And the misery is that victim can’t fight his privacy breach (not to mention coz of law-less land), unless he is a minister and use his influence to impose relevant sections from penal code on culprit.
If this is the situation of crime then one wonders where government is and it is doing to stop such breach of privacy?
Hacking credit cards, websites are so common, and there is no penalty for the guilty. So sad!
Nice article. I have personally seen helpless victims. The law is a must!
lol yaaaaaaaay lets Rock ‘n Roll :p
BTW many pakistanis are involved in creditcard phishing aka carding nowadays :@
very true!
Jin jaraim per qanon banye huwye hain in per bara amal ho raha hai …. isi liye tu zerdari hamara sadr hai :D
hahahaha agree :p but atleast qanon tou ho amal ho na ho :D
Kanon to pakistan men kai hen lekin wo sirf poor logon ko phasane klye hen rich log to kisi bhi qanon ki voilation kar lete hen aur koi nhen pochta islye qanon bane ga to poor log hi phansen ge ameer nhen islye pakistan men qanon ki koi zarorat nhen, kya khayal he ?
@Tanveer – @FreeSMSfun:
Internet is a domain where it is very difficult to catch a wrong doer but once identified a crime can hardly go unpunished, if there are laws and a competent authority in place.
Why there are people doing such stuff is because they have anonymity and are not punishable under the law. If you see most of the hackers are well-educated, members of respectable families. They are dead once their cover is blown (in most cases)… and if they are punished and sent to jail, there friends who used to say ‘yaar bara hacker hai, mujhay b sikawo’ would say ‘yaar banda ehteyat karta hai, tujhay b bari chari thi’..
.
I agree our rules are not being followed but the CyberLaw is a different case. You see the Police may not like or enjoy catching thieves but Hackers/Security Researchers do like to because they didn’t land there by chance, they chose that profession for themselves.
One of the reasons why we still don’t have services like Paypal operating in Pakistan, while they cover 190 countries.
agree with u
me 2
yes i personaly know in these criems. and this crime is also involved in celluler industry. All celluler companies franchise staff is involved in illigle oprations.kisi ki ka zong ka num MNP ho kr ufone main ja raha hai aur kisi ka telenor ka num MNP ho ka mobilink main ja raha hai aur customer ko pata hai nahin hota.koi puchny wala hi nahin hai. plz do something for it………
jitni b cell phone companies hain un ka franchice staff iss sari game main shamil hain even k ab tu franchisee b involve hain. kudha k liya kuch karo yeh sub sy bara cyber crime hai.hr connection ka data franchise staff k pass hota hai aur wo iss ko mis use krty hain………
specially janubi punjab main sari franchisee iss main involve hain highly zong staff is involved in this game.zong k ziada num issi waja sy MNP ho rahy hain ager koi zong wala sun raha hai tu plz iss pr action krain zong ki duplicate sim b free hai iss ka staff miss use krta hai.sim free duplicate nikali aur kisi aur network py MNP krwa lee.zong ko iss ka jitna nuqsan ho raha hai wo tu zong waly hi janty hain aur zong ki assi franchisee b hain jo daily k 100 duplicate b nikalty hain jo k sarti ki sari fake hoti hain aur ab tu zong ka software b market main sale ho raha hai jis main zong k sary numbers ka data avalible hota hai…..yeh software franchise staff sale kr rahy hai
aik din assa b ayee ga jo k bohat jald annny wala hai k zong k sary num mnp ho kr kisi aur network pr chalay jain gy aur zong waly dekhty reh jain gy ZONG walo kuch socho abhi tu ap ki company b new hai aur phir yeh sub…..
I think koi hacking wagara ke baat ho rahe the….ya discussion kaha chale gaye….bhi zong ko choroo….
“What about international law on cyber crime…”
you know there is …but even they cant do anything about it…
but in U.s they can..:)
P.S. you can report here about internet fraud
some body hacked my website. . . . . Can i do smethng against hacker? Aftr restoring wt shoud i do ? Now apears only index of/
plz sugest me wt shud i do nw? And how hacker can be traced?
Restore your website, assuming you have backups. Beyond that? Nope.