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