Safeguarding Cyberspace

[Music]

earlier this year

an ex-boyfriend uploaded the video of

his sexual act

with his then girlfriend and within

weeks

that particular video of the 19 year old

girl

was all over the internet i mean it was

over 40 pornographic websites now this

is a case of revenge porn a 14 year old

innocent girl

is groomed online for over a month and

she’s then convinced by the perpetrator

to unrest completely in front of a

mobile camera

and this is a case of online ruling

online grooming is when someone builds

trust with you

and thereafter misuses this trust to

convince you

into doing something sexual in the

cyberspace

boys are being recorded while having

cyber sex with whom they think

are girls but are actually men who are

playing the recorded video

picked up from some porn website

such incidents which have increased

exponentially in the past few months

especially during this lockdown

are commonly referred to as sextorship

it’s not just the youth alone who are

targeted

people as old as 72 years have taken the

bait

when they received an email which

mentioned about their password they had

been using

and also said that there was a malware

installed on their devices which enabled

the webcam

to record them while they were watching

something pornographic

in fact none of these victims had ever

watched

anything that was pornographic in nature

nor

was any such malware installed on their

devices

this was a clear scan while this sounds

as

extortion it since it’s the scam

it’s referred to as this extortion scam

now being the cyber crime investigator

for almost 20 years now i deal with many

such cases on a daily basis

now when i started my web designing

company before web in 1999

these cyber trends were unheard of but

in the past few years

cyber crimes such as extortion revenge

bonds cyber bullying

are now in the top three cyber crimes

that led me

and my wife to start an anti-cyber

bullying organization

cyber bar that stands for cyber bullying

awareness

action and prevention i’m proud to

inform you

that not only we have held hundreds of

teens and queens

but also saved many victims from the

shackles

of revenge porn and sex torsion

a victim of sextortion is often asked

for more nude pictures

more videos of theirs and many times

even for sexual encounters

sextortion rips you apart not just

physically and emotionally

but at times also financially

victims have paid in lacks of rupees to

these criminals

and yet they did not get any respite

the impact of sextortion and reverend

spawn

is so high that it distorts your ideas

and perceptions

of intimate relationships you start

losing trust in relationships and the

impact is far deeper

if you’re a victim at a younger age

which can lead to clinical depression

anxiety paranoia

being a victim of such incidences can

leave you feeling

so many emotions embarrassment guilt

and even frustration because you feel

ashamed to speak to anyone these

incidences

can also make the victim suicidal i know

of several myself

some went on to slit their wrists while

some even wanted to jump out of the

terrace

i want to tell you all that there was a

time

in my life when i too felt so low

that i contemplated ending my life

no the the reason wasn’t any of these

cyber crimes such as

extortion or revenge bond uh like it’s

been happening in the case of these

victims that we are discussing

but it was honestly a very very dark

and a constricted place to be in

i felt lonely i felt alone although i

had a lot of support

i felt helpless

the only reason i’m able to understand

the pain of such victims today is

because

i was once in that exact same

dark room

now while you often hear about these

criminals

operating out of anonymity i’m going to

strongly say that

anonymity is a myth my friends now

that’s the reason why as an

official cybercrime investigator of the

award-winning

show you must have heard about mtv troll

police

i was able to not only identify the

trolls and track them down

but also bring them face to face with

the 13 celebs

they were trolling you must have heard

about

darkweb you know that that is a place

where anonymity

is at its best and highest but yet

owners and administrators

of such popular marketplaces such as

like silk road

and alpha wave they’ve also been traced

and arrested

our policemen are now technically well

equipped

to trace these criminals who often under

the guise of

fake accounts exploit their innocent

vectors

well but what happened to the four

victims we spoke about initially

the 19 year old girl whose video was all

over the pornographic websites she was

brave enough

to speak to her parents who then

approached the cops and the courts

although she comes from a very

conservative family her parents stood

with her family

the cops were able to trace and arrest

the boy

her ex-boyfriend and two more friends of

his

who had uploaded the videos using fake

ids

the quotes ordered the websites to

remove her videos

even we wrote to many such websites and

got the bit is removed

and now in the second case of online

grooming the 14 year old girl

narrated her incident to her elder

sister who immediately

spoke to the parents and decided to

approach the cops

the cops acted swiftly and the stranger

got arrested

well in the cases of the boys being

sextorted

the boys registered a complaint on the

uh the national cybercrime portal

and they then inform the blackmailers

too that a complaint has been registered

against you

and that was the time the blackmailers

actually stopped calling them and in

fact

here is a case where the victim is

supposed to block the blackmailer

the black males were so scared that they

blocked the victims

oh and in the case of the 72 year old

uncle

we had a tough time explaining to him

that it was just a scam

and you know we made him report it

online

and uh made him changes the password

which was then the email and he asked

him if he’s using it anywhere

he said no he this was a very very old

password and you know he’s not using and

so he ignored the mail

and since then uh he’s been at peace

we’ve also been at least but remember if

you’re a victim of cyberpunk

never delete any pieces of evidences

the sms’s be it emails be it

whatsapp messages images photographs

videos

voice messages take a backup of it also

in fact if the fraudster or the harrison

calls you

make sure to record the conversations

too

if he or she is calling on whatsapp or

on instagram

put the call on the speaker and record

the conversation from some another

device

now we all know what to do in case if we

become victims

of any of these crimes but

let us ensure that we never fall prey to

such incidents

now since these cyber criminals take

advantage of our images

and videos let’s be very cautious and

careful while

taking pictures of our body especially

or

matter for a matter of fact even videos

now let me tell you an incident where a

woman was trying an undergarment at a

mumbai’s

uh you know popular shopping store she

took a picture of herself

and she just watched that what’s

happened to her mother

and asked her about the fit the pattern

the color

now a few weeks later she found that the

pic

on the internet a weak password

and absence of two factor authentication

led to her google account being hacked

and

because the images were synced into

google photos that to real time

the hacker had access to her pictures

who eventually leaked it

in a similar incident a young boy

had taken a photograph of his genitals

to share it

with the same doctor for some advice his

college friend wanted

his mobile for a minute for some work

but he mischievously

you know without the consent of his

friend just accessed his gallery

and he whatsapped that picture to his

college group just for fun

the fun turned into severe bullying and

embarrassment

an app lock on the gallery could have

prevented the boy’s friend

from accessing any picture

in the gallery a newly married

woman she exchanged her old phone online

for a new mobile you know after deleting

all the data

and doing the factory reset now the

person who got that phone

was able to recover all the data using

the free data recovery software

and as a result he got access to

all her credit cards debit cards the

passwords that

she had saved in notes and also

her most intimate moments with her

husband which they had recorded during

their honeymoon

the young married woman was being cursed

by the stranger

to have a one night stand else he would

upload

the video on websites now such personal

images and videos should be stored on

photo walls you could download it from

the stores

that do not only have military level

encryption but

also don’t get synced by default

couples often share news with each other

and here

trust plays the most important element

but trust just like anonymity is a myth

on the internet you may trust your

partner

but you cannot trust the apps on your

devices

that have access to your gallery and

many other things

revoke their permissions before they

revoke your mental piece

as my mentor always says there are

consumers

and then there are contributors so

let’s not just be a consumer of the

cyberspace let us also contribute

to make this internet a safer place for

everyone including for you

and for the future generations thank you

and stay safe offline as well as online