Online Gaming and COVID 19: Alarming increase in Cyber threats against Children.

by

Rakesh Lingappa | May 31, 2020 | in Digital change-maker challenge | ICT applications

Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.

1.The awareness and capacity building among cyber people and law enforcing agencies should be given the top priority.

2.The role of parents and teachers in molding the cyber behavior of future generation should also be given adequate priority.

3.Strict enforcement of cyber regulations should be ensured at all levels. The major focus should be given to the international efforts of mutual cooperation.

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

Whole world is now increasingly dependent on computer and internet services. Almost all the social and economic activities have shifted to computers and internet including match-making, accounting, business, banking, cash disbursal, etc., when majority of human activities are being shifted to cyber space, than criminal relatives is naturally to shift to cyber space. We have to now gear up to face it and make devices to prevent it.

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

Awareness and Law Reforms – The well-known proverb "prevention is better than cure" may come to our help in the present situation. The adequate people's awareness and law reforms should be adopted at the earliest to deal with the hi-tech crimes. Some tips are –

(a) Avoid giving out any information about yourself in chat room.

(b) Children should never arrange face-to-face meetings or send their photographs online without informing their parents.

(c) Use the latest anti-virus software, operating system, web browsers and e-mail programmes.

(d) Use a security programme that gives you control over cookies that send information back to website. Letting all cookies in without monitoring them could be risky.

(e) Put in a firewell and develop your content off line.

Besides awareness and any matter should be reported immediately to the police, it is also important that the user must try and save any electronic information trail on their computers.

Role of Guardians - The parents and guardians have an important role to play in moulding the character and conduct of their children in the society. They can also play an important role in protecting children from the ill effects of cyber space. The following are the some of the safety measures which guardians may adopt to protect their children from harmful effects of internet:

(a) They should not give any kind of personal information. Such as residential address, school's home, telephone number, etc., in chat room or bulletin board.

(b) One should not leave photographs on websites.

(c) Children should not be allowed to face-to-face meeting with other computer users without guardian's permission.

(d) Guardians should keep an eye on the children's companions.

(e) Children should be encouraged to inform parents about any message received by them.

(f) Children should be asked not to respond to message which are obscene, suggestive, belligerent, threating.

(g) Guardians should know the online friends on their children as they know about their other friends.

There are many websites which provide appropriate guidelines for the parents and make available necessary software programmes for checking the children's access to improper materials. The school teachers and libraries may also provide appropriate guidance to the children.

Share your story (your narrative)

My main Focus:

(i) Create better awareness on cyber crimes.

(ii) Every city has a cyber crime cell where the complaint should be lodged.

(iii) Achieve better coordination among various Govt. and nongovernmental organizations working in the field of women’s security.

(iv) - Provide Professional counseling to victims of cyber crime and other categories of people on the subject.

(v) Awareness on bogus websites, threatening messages sent via email, email abuse, hacking etc.

(vi) Protective measures to be taken to avoid cyber crime.

(vii) Introduction to types of social crime.

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

Mobile Pornography: No Nearer Solution in Sight - The number of MMS messages are now increasing very rapidly. Last new year's night, 60 million MMS greetings were passed. A billion message are sent every month.9 At an average rate of one rupee per message, it is a considerable sum of earnings. Service providers are also planting porn messages. Now nearly 57 million persons have cell phones that allows MMS. That's why the issue of MMS pornography is increasing at alarming extent.

The Following are the types of Social Media Crime Faced by Children and woman –

1. Profile Hacking - Profile hacking happens when, as a user,  you are not able to log in to your account. Someone has complete control of your account and has changed all the credentials. Facebook is the most hacked social networking site and it generally happens because of the following reasons: (a) Not logging out from the account. (b) Sharing passwords or having passwords that are easily predicted (c) Hacking the email with which you login to your Facebook account (d) Logging in through Facebook options for apps.

2. Photo Morphing - Photo morphing is a special effect that allows a person to morph or change one image or shape into another without any difficulty. As per the 4th quadrant of 2017, there is roughly around 3.2 Billion images shared every day. It is easy for a hacker to use your images, morph it and then use it for porn sites or blackmailing for financial/sexual gains.

3. Offer and Shopping Scams - You would often come across messages, post which would say ‘Click on the link to claim the offer’ or ‘spin the wheel to win.’ These offers would generally ask you to forward the message to another 20 people once you have registered in order to get the code or coupon. You won’t get coupons but the host would get your personal information.

4. Romance and Dating Scams - There are people out there who would connect to you on social media, interact with you, and persuade you to move to a different form of communication through various excuses. Once they realize that you are falling for them, they would send you small gifts to show you that it’s same on either side. After a point the romantic period would start declining and they would start asking for monetary help in the form of recharge, booking flight tickets to meet and the list only grows.

There are also extreme cases where a guy promises to marry the girl and before the marriage runs away with all her money.

It is basically a trick/scam which would begin with romantic intensions to build goodwill and later commit fraud.

5. Information Theft - Informational theft occurs when an imposter identifies key pieces of personally identifiable information like social security, driving license number in order to impersonate someone else. Many people tend to store passwords or bank details on their email. Many people try to have very private conversation on Facebook or Instagram messengers.

6. Cyber Bullying - Posting any kind of humiliating content on the social media or sending vulgar messages online, or threatening to commit any act of violence, or stalking by means of calls, messages or threatening of child pornography is called as cyberbullying. There are many Indian laws that can allow a woman to deal with this and with the help of Indian police, you can sort this particular issue.

Prevention of cyber crime -  (i) Use anti-virus software (ii) Didn't expect, don't click

: The golden rule: Hackers infect PCs with malware by luring users to click on a link or open an attachment. (iii) Different site, different passwords (iv) If in doubt, block - Just say no to social media invitations (such as Facebook-friend or LinkedIn connection requests) from people you don't know. (v) Don't bank or share personal information on public wi-fi. (vi) Use more than one email account (vii) Ignore pop-ups.