ARE WE HEADING TOWARDS DIGITAL DISASTER????

Aadhaar authority has set a December 4 deadline for top mobile operator Bharti Airtel to explain why action must not be taken against it for allegedly opening bank accounts of its customers without their informed consent.
This is the tip of iceberg in GOI's most ambitious project wherein many elements are actively involved in exploiting loopholes in the digitalised systems and relentlessly working to fail this project ,the dream project of PM Narendra Modi.
I have been highlighting many times about the misdeeds of wallet companies as well as telecom payment gateways but unfortunately all the investigation agencies as well as government authorities turned the blind eye towards the same. There are very serious issues about other payment wallets regarding non-compliance of KYC and assisting fraudsters by not following reasonable security practices in spite of receiving notifications about the same. If these malpractices are not addressed to with immediate effect I believe that we are heading towards serious digital disaster!!!!!
There must be serious introspection about the haste in which we have migrated to digitalisation and on war-footing there has to be damage control exercise.
Cyber Awareness or Digital literacy is the core issue which has been grossly neglected and I hope should be the one of the answer to this issue.

Many Businessmen harassed by so called Consumer Complaint Forums; Are you one of them?

Cyber crime helpline has been receiving many complaints from people from all the walks of life. Recently we have observed that there is enormous growth in complaints related to fake complaints uploading on various so called consumer redress online forums. The complainant is running from post to pillar to remove such false and baseless allegations made on such portals but their all efforts are going in vein and they are unable to remove such posts and have to suffer huge business loss due to such mischievous and defamatory postings.
In country like India,where digitalisation is growing at unimaginable speed and magnitude such false online propaganda or complaint against any business may cause tremendous financial as well as reputation harm to emerging business ventures. It has been also observed that mostly these mischievous posts are handiwork of disgruntled employee or business rivals or some jealous persons who does not digest rise of a business idea. But the businesses who suffer from such acts ,who will help them?
Present day criminals are finding this cyber space as a safe heaven for them due to very poor knowledge of Law enforcing agencies in this matter and hence we are receiving many complaints in this regard.
If you are victim of above described matter please write to us on info@cyberorgindia.com or mahendralimaye@yahoo.com as we are planning to file Public Interest Litigation in this regard to block such mischievous portals ,most of which are based out of India.

DECODING BLUE WHALE; IS IT REAL???????

The recent unfortunate suicides in India by the teens have been linked to infamous Blue Whale game by media as well as few police agencies. There was huge hue and cry about the game and the government acted with lightening speed to issue directives to the all major social media giants to disable any links providing access to the suicidal trap game. The government’s speedier actions need to be lauded.

There were reports published in many newspapers across India about few deaths which were attributed to the teens playing the deadly blue whale game and reached the last stage of killing themselves but none of them provided any follow up write-up based on facts and carried out their duty towards society of creating awareness and presenting the facts of the matter. Why it could be so? Why no media thought it proper to carry out a follow up story?

It is rumored that there are about 50 tasks provided to the person playing the game and he is required to present evidence (digital) of completing each task and then only he is assigned next task by the admin. Few tasks are hearing loud music, waking up at 4.20 am and visiting Graveyards or Crematories, walking on the railway tracks, inflicting bodily injuries upon self, remaining in isolation from the family etc.

There are acknowledgements from police officers about cause of suicide not being the children’s addiction towards Blue Whale game and neither any digital forensic report is available in public domain which confirms the root cause of death being Blue Whale. If entire reporting or instructing is happening through digitalised communications is it so impossible to track the evidences? It is accepted fact that digital footprints can’t be erased forever then how it is possible that in either of so called Blue Whale suicides no evidence can be gathered by the police in India yet?

And this is the reason which raises suspicion in my mind about the root cause of unfortunate suicides by few teens being attributed to Blue Whale game. I am unable to make out any reason why it was attributed to Blue Whale game and our government acted so hurriedly in imposing the ban on the same.

Why this huge Hue and Cry about one game supposedly developed by some Russian person and allegedly reason behind the teens suicides in Russia? The game is not available on any website not has its links available on any popular social media sites like Facebook/Whatsapp/Twitter nor any search engines like Google and Yahoo have any traces of links leading to Blue Whale game. Even the Russian social networking site VK, which was blamed to facilitate the access of links to Blue Whale game, does not have any notable presence in India nor any students across India which I am interacting with never reported about the knowledge about this game nor CYBER AWARENESS ORGANISATION’S CYBER CRIME HELPLINE received any reports about presence of such deadly game available anywhere.

And that’s why I have every reason to doubt the very existence of this BLUE WHALE game in India. I again reiterate that if government has received some facts then it has every right to ban the game and I also strongly support the same but let those facts come in public domain. Or else students of cyber space like me will remain curious and suspicious about intentions of the government to ban selective websites/links.

WORLD CONSUMER DAY- Who will address Digital Consumers’ concern?

Today world consumer day is being celebrated with much fanfare. The theme this year is Digital Consumers and their protection. It must be appreciated that in this digitalised world the focus shift on protection of digital consumers from normal consumers is thought off.

Do we really understand the difference between normal consumers and digital consumers? For many the difference lies only in the way they make their purchases either online or offline. Rest of the duties and/or rights remains same for Digital or Physical consumers as well as sellers.

Many of us don’t go beyond this distinguishing feature. Have we ever considered beyond this? What is main purpose of celebrating World Consumer Day? It’s to remind all of us about our rights and duties of consumers and strengthen the consumer movement.

It is many a times said that consumer is the king. But in this digitalised world and use of technology and particularly in online shopping scenario is this position of consumer still as a King?

According to my observations there are many disadvantages to which our so called King is exposed to and no longer can he claim to be a King.

 For evaluation, we will consider some distinguishing features.

1)    In case of physical consumer making purchase at any shop, he is pretty sure about the location of same and jurisdiction of that shop. Does this hold true in case of digital consumers? How many digital shoppers know about exact location of online website they are visiting to? How many digital shoppers know about legal jurisdiction of that website, in case of certain mishap?

2)     In case of physical consumer, he can be somewhat sure about authenticity of the shop with which he is dealing with either due to its continual operation from same location or certifications from government’s various departments. Does this hold true for digital consumers who are visiting online shopping websites?

3)    Physical consumers at least know that there is Consumer Protection Act for their rights protection but what about protection of Digital Consumers? Are they covered under Consumer Protection Act?

4)    Under which laws the Digital consumers get protection?

5)    Which jurisdiction digital consumers can invoke if their consumer rights are breached?

How many digital consumers are really able to provide answers to above questions? Or how many agencies celebrating this World Consumer Day have thought it proper to give a serious thought on above raised questions and tried to find out answers for some of them so that we can really protect Digital Consumer?

It’s sad but true that very few of us consumers and consumer movement agencies have ignored these distinguishing threats to which ever growing digital consumer is being exposed to.

It’s high time that all agencies working for betterment of Digital Consumers should sit together and find certain proposals/suggestions for the safety of Digital Consumers.

I from my end have certain proposals for betterment of Digital Consumers.

1)    The Online Shopping websites should be strictly covered under some legal regime and there must be some registration procedure for the same.

2)    All the Online Websites should be compelled to accept payment after delivery and there must be some cooling time with banks to effect the funds transfer in shopping websites account.

3)    The Digital Consumers must be made aware about how to verify authenticity of shopping websites and what precautions they should observe while making online shopping.

4)    The responsive mechanism i.e. Police and Judiciary must be suitably upgraded to register and try matters in case of digital consumer disputes.

LESSCASH AWARENESS TIPS

                                      “To be or not to be”

This is the question we are trying to answer by every passing day. How safely to become a part of Less Cash economy or not to be a part of it but still perform our day to activities are the major concerns troubling us currently.

You select either of the option, the writing is on the wall that every Indian must become a part of cashless economy and hence it’s more appropriate that we learn some basics about security while utilizing these various instruments of cashless economy.

The need to learn security must be at forefront as we all are presently not comfortable with these instrumentalities of cashless transactions and have many doubts/apprehensions in our mind about functionalities of the same.

With lack of basic digital knowledge and cyber securities culture its very tricky situation and hence CYBER AWARENESS ORGANISATION appeals to follow following safety tips.

1)    Always use one particular number for commencing these cashless or electronic transactions.

2)    This number should not be used for any other purpose meaning it should not be your regular mobile number.

3)    Do not share your this mobile number with anyone except for these digital financial transactions.

4)    Be sure about the connectivity/ working of this number and make it a habit to check it after a standard interval of time.

5)    Don’t use your regular mobile number which is known to many for any of the e-wallet, online banking like sending OTP etc. activities.

6)    If you have synchronized existing mobile number presently to your digital instruments, try to change the same with some new number.

7)    Inculcate the habit of changing your PIN/Passwords on more regular basis like your habit of changing your underwear.

8)    Don’t link your e-wallets or similar instruments with your bank accounts.

9)    Always maintain two different bank accounts and one should be exclusively for digital transactions with no connection with other bank accounts.

10)                       Don’t provide standing instructions to your bank for topping up of e-wallets etc.

11)                       As far as possible use some alternative methods of transferring money to these e-wallets.

12)                       Don’t use open networks, unsecured public connections and free wi-fi to carry out your financial transactions.

13)                       Always be particular to verify the authenticity of the transaction with all the available minute details.

14)                       Don’t hesitate or delay to lodge your protest in case you observe any discrepancy in digital transaction.

15)                       Spread these security tips to 10 persons and become a part of this CYBER AWARENESS CAMPAIGN.

If you have more security tips please write to info@cyberorgindia.com or do call CYBER CRIME HELPLINE 09225109900.

Published by Advocate Mahendra Limaye President of Cyber Awareness Organisation for the cause of Public Awareness.

Moving Towards Cashless Economy with Digital Illiteracy!!!!!!!!!!

Recent move of Demonetisation of Rs.1000 and Rs.500 old currency notes and replacement of vacuum created by same with new Rs.500 and Rs.2000 currency notes is having various dimensions as per various economists. Every move has its pro’s and con’s. The Modi government must have examined all the viewpoints and taken the decision with due deliberations and discussions.

There can be various alternatives to this vacuum caused by shortfall of currency notes and one of them as suggested by various ministers and even PM himself is migrating towards CASHLESS ECONOMY, as adopted in various western countries.

Understanding Cashless Transactions in simple words is avoiding hard cash in most of our financial dealings and use of various electronic payment means like credit/debit cards or payment wallets etc. The full page advertisements released by most of the e-wallet companies in India, in all leading newspaper, is evident that these companies are going to be immensely benefited by such move of migration towards Cashless Economy.

The main risk about Cashless Transactions is lack of physical intervention at any check point involved in entire transaction. Most of the transactions just need system generated OTP as the only security mechanism, which can be very easily compromised. Normally this OTP is sent on the mobile phone registered with the service provider.

The other risk is trust deficiency in this mechanism as people are running from post to pillar for retrieval of their lost money in case of any such fraudulent transaction. As most of the mechanisms are handled by call centers and it’s very difficult to physically locate any of the support centers, people have trust deficiency in the same.

Various Ministers of the central government are making statements that even a school going kid is able to teach how to use these digital money apps to their parents but can a school going kid identify the inherent threats involved in these apps utilization or is he able to distinguish real caller or fake caller or genuine app or fake app? And is government relying on these school kids for imparting education of CASHLESS MONEY TRANSACTIONS to their digitally illiterate parents?

Technology is two edged sword and nobody can be 100% sure about using it safely. 70% People are using technology due to compulsion and only 30% are using the same voluntarily. These 30% consists of techno savvy and few from good educational qualifications. What about 70% of the masses who are using the Cashless modes mere by compulsion? It is proven fact that if anyone adopts anything voluntarily then he is bound to explore the same properly and the one who is forced to adopt the technology will be under constant strain and fear of using the same.

How these e-wallet companies function? What is there revenue model? What security guidelines and practices they follow? What complaint redress mechanism they have in place? Are there any possibilities of criminal activities through these Cashless Transactions? If yes, what is counter action plan for the same? There are many such questions which needs answers and these answers along with solutions must be put in place at once or else too much damage would be caused to millions of digital illiterates in the country.

For a country with highest number of digital illiterates migration to Cashless Economy is very bold and courageous move on the part of government. If proper education about digital safety and using these digital instruments with utmost care is not provided on war footing I foresee large adverse fallout of this step.

Cyber criminals have already made merry out of the digital illiteracy on part of online users and this is evident from NCRB statistics about exponential growth in cyber criminal activities in every passing year. This demonetisation will be an additional booster in these criminal activities and coupled with the organized cyber criminal activities and digital illiteracy there can be no stopping to the same if fast actions are not initiated by the Government.

It has been reported by a leading Mobile Wallet company very recently that due to concerns about privacy security of the users they were compelled to suspend launch of their POS App.

In October 2016 itself 32.14 Lakh debit cards of various public as well as private sector banks were reported to have been compromised by malware attack and thereby causing compromise of privacy of users. This incident speaks about the inherent dangers in Cashless Economy.

For moving towards cashless economy our at least 80% digital users must be digital literate and they must be properly trained and educated to handle these new avatar of monetary instrument. At the same time our laws must be more stringent and police must be on toes. The traditional mindset of police machinery which revolves around jurisdiction only must be modified immediately and the police should be more digitally equipped. How digitalised society can be regulated under digitalised police or judicial machinery?

Sooner we find the solutions to these concerns the better will be the future.