Sri. Jacob Punnoose IPS    Director General of Police, Kerala

Many years ago, in my childhood, there used to be people in my locality who were unable to read letters addressed to them. They would often come to my father for assistance in reading the contents. Such people used to be called illiterates. These days, however, such people are very rare. On the other hand, you will find even educated people who are not capable of writing, reading or sending e-mails. Today, these are the people who would be called "illiterates." Thus, owing to the progress of technology, even educated people have become illiterates! In this sense, I, too, was an "illiterate" till the age of 42 years. But, for over a decade now, I have been a regular user of computers. Today, all the reports that I have prepared during my career thus far are available on my laptop at the click of a mouse. Absolutely no need to browse through dusty and moth-eaten piles of files!

These days, when computers have become such an integral part of our lives, instances of computer-based crimes, usually referred to as "cyber-crime" have also begun to crop up. Hence it would be useful to take a look at what comprises such crimes, and what modern Police forces need to do to tackle such crimes.

At the outset, it is important to realize that all crimes that use computers as a tool are not necessarily cyber-crimes. For instance, if one receives a threat by e-mail, it is just a threat delivered by means of a computer, and will be treated as is normally done in the case of such acts of crime. In this case, the computer is used merely as a means of conveying the "threat" to the intended target and does not play a major part in the crime. It is only when the target itself is a computer and/or computer network that such a crime may be considered as a "cyber crime." The aim of such cyber crime may either be to disable the 'targeted' computer systems/networks or else to access the data in them unauthorisedly or even to maliciously tamper with the contents of the targeted systems/networks.

In India, such crimes are not very common. For this to happen, there needs to be a "cyber community" where acts of such crime may occur. However, it may not be long before such a community does actually evolve, wherein more and more financial transactions and other day-to-day business takes place with the aid of computers. This is especially true in the context of Keralawhere it is not uncommon to find grandfathers learning to send e-mail to their grandchildren, and where Internet cafes exist even in the forest areas at the foothills of the famed Sabarimala temple!

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