-Caveat Lector- Wrong end of the stick Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/280501/platefrm.asp India is fast emerging as a major production centre for cyberpornography. Today there are over 18,000 pornographic websites featuring Indians, up from only 4,000 at the beginning of 2001. At least 25 Indian sites feature in the top 500 list of most-visited pornographic websites internationally. All of them provide hardcore pornographic films starring Indians to their subscribers, and offer free two-minute samples to entice visitors. The popularity among Indian websurfers of a particular series is due to their providing hundreds of static images free of charge to lure subscribers to their paid movie sections. In the public interest litigation currently pending before the Delhi High Court, two advocates want all cybercafs and educational institutions to install filtering software on their computers to prevent exposure to inappropriate material that is sexual, hateful, or violent in nature, or encourage activities that are dangerous or illegal. A similar demand was raised in the Child Online Protection Act passed by US Congress in 1998. The American Civil Liberties Union, American Library Association, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Internet Free Expression Alliance, and the student-run organisation PeaceFire challenged COPAs constitutional validity. After the US district court in Philadelphia directed the US Department of Justice not to enforce COPA pending a final ruling, the latter approached the US Supreme Court to resolve the impasse. All the filtering nanny packages commercially available today have severe deficiencies. These compute the percentage of skin colours in a picture, and even the best ones have a success rate of less than 20 percent. No filtering package has yet been developed which can distinguish between pictures of nude people on a porn site and those in a Reubens painting. The American Library Association argued before the Philadelphia court: Given the inherent limitations of available filtering technology, it is practically impossible to comply. Electronic Frontier Foundation added: No filtering product on the market today has anywhere near even a 20 per cent effectiveness rate, which will result in a completely false sense of security. Even blocking textual material based on specified keywords has a success rate of less than 85 per cent. Many pornographic websites also detect the presence of these nanny packages and have developed techniques to bypass them. Most of the pornographic websites created in India are hosted on servers abroad both due to the high bandwidth requirements for transmission of movies and images, as well as the need for secure electronic commerce and credit card transactions. Chennai is the major production centre, followed by Kochi, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada. Surprisingly, our moral busybodies have not attempted any action against these websites even though they are committing a criminal offence under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which states: Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in the event of a second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years and also with fine which may extend to Rs 2 lakh. Hosting these websites on servers located outside India appears to be no defence since under Section 1(2), the IT Act extends to the whole of India and, save as otherwise provided in this Act, it applies also to any offense or contravention thereunder committed outside India by any person. Further, Section 75 states: (1) Subject to the provisions of sub-section (2), the provisions of this Act shall apply also to any offense or contravention committed outside India by any person irrespective of his nationality. (2) For the purposes of sub-section (1), this Act shall apply to an offence or contravention committed outside India by any person if the act or conduct constituting the offense or contravention involves a computer, computer system or computer network located in India. Moreover, in view of Sections 81 and 61 of the Act, it appears that the creators of these websites are criminally liable under Indian law irrespective of the countries they are residents of and irrespective of where the servers are located. However, it is doubtful whether such provisions could be enforced in practice under international law and the accused extradited to India to stand trial, since hosting of pornography is not a criminal offence in many countries. The whole issue of criminal punishment for publishing or transmitting pornography should be reviewed, as the instance of the Delhi schoolboy has shown. Clause 67 of the IT Act is almost identical to clause 292 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, but the zeitgeist and ethos of South Asia has totally changed in the last 140 years, especially among the social classes and age groups who access the internet. In its hearing on the public interest litigation on May 30, the Delhi High Court has an opportunity to set a judicial precedent for the US Supreme Court which, in October, will review the Philadelphia courts decision blocking enforcement of COPA. It will be interesting to see what decision it takes. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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