Naavi.org

As we wake up today to the news that two boys in Bangalore were detected to have been playing Blue whale challenge “game”, the threat seems to be spreading fast. Bangalore is reported to be the sixth city in the world to have searched most for Blue Whale on the Google.

Some have suggested that the increased media attention on Blue whale is actually making more people take up the game. However today’s incident indicates that friends in a school observed and reported to their teachers about the two boys suspected to have been playing the game and the matter then has been reported to the Police and further action has been taken.

This clearly indicates that “Awareness” has actually saved these two persons from proceeding further and vindicates the strategy of containing the damage suggested in the earlier article…. The Blue Whale Challenge.. Where is the Effective Action Point for Control? 

Can Courts find a solution?

Following the many reported incidents, there has been a tendency to file PIL in Courts and seeking a judicial remedy to the problem. Even the Central Government has swung into action issuing instructions to Google and Face Book to block access to Blue Whale Challenge game. A lot has been written about how parents, schools and Internet intermediaries need to do etc.

I have also previously discussed the nature of the threat in the article… The Psychology behind Blue Whale Challenge which Claims one life in India… which may also be referred to now.

We must understand that Blue Whale Challenge threat is not like a typical Cyber Security threat which can be addressed by traditional Information Security solutions such as “Firewalls” and “Anti Virus”.

This is a threat that arises out of “Internet/Mobile Addiction” in the first place and “Blind Faith in Virtual Content” in the second place.

Unless we address these two sub threats, we will not be able to make progress in mitigating the risk of Blue Whale. There is no doubt that all stake holders namely the Parents, School, the Intermediaries and the Government have a role in addressing this issue but it is necessary for all of us to appreciate the root causes before jumping into solutions.

De-addiction to Internet/Gaming/Mobile

The first task in mitigating the Bluewhale challenge is trying to address the “De-addiction” requirement of a subject from adverse effect of addiction to Internet or Gaming or Mobile. Gaming addiction is more dangerous than Internet addiction and Mobile Gaming addiction is even more dangerous.

Identification of “Addictive Behavioural Pattern” can be done by the parents since they have an opportunity to observe the children’s behaviour to some extent. However, we must also recognize that in  most homes today, children enjoy a high level of privacy and it is not possible for parents to always be aware of what their children are doing. In fact, many parents would be happy if children leave them free to watch TV serials and lock themselves up in their study rooms. Some parents are too busy with their official work including attending to calls at odd hours etc and cannot spare time to watch and interact with children.

We also understand that the case in Madurai as well as two cases in Bangalore are of children in the age group of 18 and 19 who are actually “Adults”. Our Supreme Court feels that “Privacy” is a fundamental right and therefore if any Parent tries to intrude into the Privacy of the Children’s mobile, then they need to face challenges from their children that their privacy is being intruded.

There are some technical solutions which are essentially spywares that the parents can install in the children’s mobiles and they would be tempted to do so. However, this is not recommended and is considered counter productive.

Blue Whale is a game which starts with a compromise of the device and the Curator takes full control of the mobile from the very beginning. Hence even if the child does not identify the spyware presence, the Curator would find out and may warn the child that the Parent is spying on them and also use it as a tool to prove that “Parents are not to be trusted”.

Even Courts are today confused as to how to deal with a complaint about any content in the mobile and whether its access would be a violation of Privacy.

I would like to state that since “Privacy” is still a right that can be over ridden for interests such as “Security” and also “A person who is psychologically under the control of the curator..or suspected to be so” can be considered as “Mentally not in control of himself”, Parents or Teachers who try to find out the contents of a mobile of the Child for checking on the Bluewhale threat cannot be said to be infringing on the Privacy.

Schools may display a notice to this effect in their premises, confiscate and check the mobiles of students if need be and if this is objected to and challenged in a Court we should fight until a 11 member Supreme Court bench clarifies the limitations of the right to privacy.

Legally speaking, if the mobile has been purchased by the parent and he/she hands over the mobile to the child with a specific indication that it is on lease to him/her and the parent retains the right to observe and monitor the use of the device including inspection of the content, no Court should be able to interfere on Privacy grounds even if the child is an “Adult”.

Despite this support of the parental rights to spy on the children’s mobile habits, I would like to make it clear that I do not recommend it from the point of view of maintaining the harmonious relationship between the parent and child.

Hence I consider that the Parents role would be only to identify the “Addiction Behaviour”. There are three important parameters for this which I have highlighted earlier namely

a) Immersive tendencies... forgetting the time when on mobile

b) Substitution tendencies... replacing physical activities with mobile activities

c) Irritable tendencies…. getting angry when brought out of the mobile world

If it is confirmed that the child addictive, expert help need to be sought for counselling for which the School is in a better position to administer.

At the Schools, apart from building awareness, there is a need to

a) Make an Internet Counsellor available for consultation

b) Initiate a whistle blowing program so that friends can identify the Bluewhale hooked children and report it to the management.

If Courts and Government wants to provide direction, they should focus on mandating the appointment of Internet Counsellors who are child psychology specialists with an understanding of Internet and game addiction problems.

“Internet De-addiction” and “Game-De-addiction” programs should be a focussed activity in Schools to mitigate the Bluewhale challenge risk.

Breaking the Blind Faith

The next mitigation effort is to break the blind faith that the addicted persons exhibits on anything which is on the Internet.

We often train small children going to school that “they should not trust strangers”.  This has been mostly successful and children are today conditions to distrust strangers.

Now we need to reinforce this instruction and make children understand that they should not trust strangers on the Internet who come as “Friends” in Face Book or Whats App or SnapChat.

I consider that this is the single most important thing we need to do in the wake of the Bluewhale havoc.

Unfortunately we all have contributed to the conditioning of the Children into thinking that “Google” or “Wikipedia” is the “Most Trusted information source” on anything on earth. Most times this is true.

But we are already aware that if a pop up appears stating “Your Computer is Infected”,  we now know that we should not trust this.

Also, if we get an e-mail “Your Mobile/E Mail has won 1 Million US dollar prize”, we know we need to ignore.

When we receive an e-mail from a Bank stating that “You need to update your security information” or a phone call stating “Your Credit Card needs to be replaced” or “Bonus is payable to you on your insurance Policy” or “Income tax refund is due to you…” , “I am in London and have lost my passport..please send me money urgently“, “I am a Nigerian Prince and want your help to stash away a few billion dollars”…etc…etc we know not to believe it.

Similarly, if some body comes on line and says “I am your friend”, we should let our Children suspect if this is a genuine “Friend” or a “criminal in the garb of a friend”.

We know how the 13 year old Megan Meir was cheated by a mother of a classmate who impersonated as a 16 year old ” Cute Boy” eventually leading to the suicide of the girl.

We also know how a software professional in Canada was fooled by a middle aged lady in Coimbatore into believing that he was chatting with a beautiful young girl ready to marry him but being kept under house confinement by her parents and extracted over Rs 3 lakh worth gifts from him.

We also know how a Gujarat Ambuja Cements Executive committed a fraud of over 2 crores making a person in Dubai believe that he is actually a “She” who had fallen in love with the victim,  committed suicide since he rejected her and Police are on the look out for him to be arrested…etc

Today it is our responsibility to teach our young children that Internet is full of such “Impersonation” and “Cheating through Impersonation” and  when some body appears on Facebook chat and says, you seem to be depressed, you can chat with me as a well wisher….we need to be on our guard.

We need to condition our young brains that when we interact on the Internet with strangers, we donot even know if he is a man or a woman, boy or girl, a pedophile or a scamster and hence we need to distrust him from the go.

Internet has so many good things and we the Parents and Schools are ourselves responsible for introducing the addictive tendencies in our children.

Very early in the life of a toddler, parents start showing Mobile and playing you tube videos of Nursery rhymes as the child keeps staring at the wonderful video that plays with colour and sound. A little later we enjoy our children playing games on the mobile trying to shoot down bad people or strike down an opponent with a Taekwando kick. Through out the growing period of the child in the pre-schooling days and later, the child is observing that his parents are always on the mobile …may be for official business… of for WhatsApp chatting… and looks at a Mobile as a “Toy of the Grown Up”.

When the child moves to the school, teachers say… Go to Internet and find out from Wikipedia…. Baiju advertisement says… learn through your mobile… Friends say if you want o know the meaning of a word, check with Google…and not dictionary… and so on.

With all these behavioural traits exhibited around us the child grows up picking up the addiction along with the blind faith on the contents on the way.

Just as a child who growing up seeing people all around him smoking, drinking and partying getting addicted to such habits, a child growing up in an environment where every body including his teachers look to Internet for guidance makes him believe that what is said on the virtual world is “Truth”. If “Siri” says traffic is heavy on a road and you need to take diversion, the child is conditioned to believe it. If somebody says he/she is actually Siri and chatting with him/her on the Facebook to relieve of his depression and parental neglect, it is natural that he will believe and go behind this “Virtual Fake Siri” like going behind the pied piper.

Thus “Mobile Addiction” and “Blind Faith in virtual content” is what we have taught our youngsters. The Curators of Blue Whale are now exploiting this “Conditioned Mind” and using “Cyber Hypnotism” to take control of the vulnerable kids.

Cyber Hypnotism

“Hypnotism” requires a “Communication” between the hypnotizer and the subject. In a physical world, we try to make the subject relax and listen intently to our suggestions until he falls into a trans, establishes a private communication network with the hypnotizer and starts taking suggestions directly into his sub-concious mind. The hypnotizer is also able to leave “Post hypnotic suggestions” which could change the attitude and behaviour of subjects even after they come out of trans.

Now look at the medium of Internet and the face book chat. The subject is all alone, staring at the computer screen ready to listen (through ear phones some times) intently and without disturbance to the voice coming from the other side or see the words and picures appearing on the screen. For a seasoned hypnotizer, this is an ideal condition under which he can get the subject into a trans at a snap of his fingers. The role of “Horror movies” used by Bluewhale curators is a way of softening up the subject so that he starts losing his self confidence and moves from a depressed state to depressed cum fearful state in which suggestions are accepted readily.

If there is any resistance, the hacker will use the information he has got on the subject which he has gathered by planting a trojan and through his research on face book status etc., to make the subject believe…. “I Know everything about you and your dear ones around you… I Can harm them if I want…just like what you have seen in horror movies…”.

If the subject is already depressed, the curator may reinforce the depressed feeling… you are right to be depressed…continue…be more depressed…until you feel that you donot deserve to live…

There is one belief under which all hypnotists work. It was that under hypnosis you cannot over ride certain basic attitudinal beliefs since the natural resistance mechanism will come to defend the individual. For example, you cannot make an ordinary person to commit a murder when he is a trans. The Blue Whale is challenging this basic principle since it is successful in driving the subject to even committing suicide.

We need to either give up this myth or find a new logic on the conditions under which a hypnotic subject may be made to work against his fundamental beliefs.

We may remember that the last act of “Suicide” for a subject who completely believes that he is a life not worth living, is actually a feeling of “Success”. He is perhaps made to believe that though I have failed all through my life, I am recording at least one successful act in life of jumping down this high building and taking away my life.

Possibly, the conventional “Anti hypnotic resistance” is over come because of this “Feeling of Success”.

Under psychological analysis, it is difficult not to appreciate the ingenuity of the Game and it is no wonder it was created by a psychology student. Just as Technologists are enamored by the Bitcoin and Block Chain, psychologists and hypnotic practitioners may get enamored by the game as it teaches them how to mesmerize and hypnotize through the Cyber Medium without the need to dangle a pendulum before a subject relaxing in an easy chair in a room with a dull read light.

We should not therefore fall into a false sense of security by the Government asking for non existent links to the games to be removed. If at all Google or Facebook has to be of help, they should be able to use “Artificial Intelligence” to  pre-identify vulnerable victims and monitor their chats. If successful they may be able to identify “Suggested hyper links in Chat conversations” and filter them against known darkweb addresses, horror movies etc.

If Courts want to be of help, they can first direct Schools to put in place an infrastructure for identifying potential victims and administering counselling.

Schools Calling the Police is not necessarily a nice thing as Police are not equipped to handle the psychological issues of children and in fact make children feel more afraid and guilty with a feeling of shame.

If Courts and the Government can persuade Facebook and Google to monitor Chats to identify potential victims, they can do so. But herein comes the catch… Are they going to be guilty of “Privacy Invasion”?

We need to ask the Nine honourable Judges who passed the dictum “Privacy is a Fundamental Right” to let us know if monitoring the chats of vulnerable children would be allowed?… by the Parents?…by the Teachers?….By the Police?…..By the Intermediaries?….By the Government?…

…..perhaps we need an 11 member Supreme Court bench to decide on this.

We can also look at some technical solutions at ISP level where ISPs may be allowed to run filters against specific devices..termed “Restricted Access” where Parents will be allowed to restrict access to Internet or Gaming on a selective basis in their children’s mobiles because they own the device and the internet subscription.

Here again, the Supreme Court may come down and say we are depriving some other fundamental right such as  “Freedom of Speech”, “Freedom to go anywhere on the cyber space”, “Freedom to browse through dark net”, “Freedom to play any game we want”, “Freedom to chose our entertainment source” etc….

The decisions in the case of both Section 66A and Privacy shows that we need our Judiciary to understand how good things like “Rights” have to be peppered with “Responsibilities” and “Duties”. It is not enough if Indian Judiciary is appreciated in foreign press as “Most Mature to uphold democratic principles”. It has to also understand that all Rights come with the need to manage the security of the environment. This applies as much to freedom of speech of Kashmiri Militants as the use of technology by psychopaths like the creators of Blue Whale.

Naavi

Related Articles:

Incident in Madurai ::Incident in Pondicherry

What Parents can do:: What schools can do :: What Facebook etc can do

What is Bluewhale?

P.S: Here is an interesting photograph where if you keep your eyes half closed, you see a smiling girl. If you open your eyes wide open, you see a devil like face. It depicts Blue whale game and other addictive games appropriately. Let’s look at Blue Whale challenge with our eyes wide open.

It is time to directly call the attention of our honourable Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitely on what his department is upto as regards the Bitcoin issue…. Hence this open letter…

Dear Honourable Finance Minister Mr Arun Jaitely,

I have time and again brought to the attention of the Government through this website that legitimizing Bitcoin is a harakiri as far as our financial system is concerned.

Bitcoin is a currency of the criminals and currency of terrorists. It is completely anonymous and a haven for black money parking. Bitcoin is linked to many other similar crypto coins and funds in these cryptocoins is easily fungible. China is one of the biggest holders of Bitcoins.  

If Bitcoin is legitimized all Black money will be converted into Bitcoins, your Banking system will see an evaporation of the deposit base and the stone pelters of Kashmir and Naxalites will be able to use it for distribution of money within the country without your PAN Linked Aadhaar system breathing down their neck. China will be able to destabilize India by playing with the Bitcoin supply into India.

I donot think you require anything more to appreciate that Bitcoin is a poison which should be kept away from India.

The Finance Ministry’s committee which has collected public opinion on this matter is yet to publish its findings.

At this time, I am alarmed to observe the following two advertisements/news report reported from  Economic Times.

Dear Sir, these press note/advertisements indicate that some body in your department has already given a green signal to some US based firm and also a Bangalore based Bitcoin player that the Government will shortly announce legitimization of Bitcoins in India.

I have already pointed out that every member of the Ministry’s task force should have given a declaration before they sat in the committee that they did not have any holding of Bitcoins since I suspected that the Bitcoin vested interests would try to corrupt the members.

Unfortunately the Government did not listen to this advise and now if a decision in favour of Bitcoin is announced by the Committee, the fact that these advertisements indicate a selective leaking of the information to some business interests would be sufficient prima facie evidence to indicate that there must have been a compromise in your department.

Being the top member of the Modi Government and a prominent member of the demonetization drive, it will be ironic if under your leadership Bitcoin is regularized in India. This will completely annul the efforts of Mr Modi to remove black money in India and Mr Amit Shah will not be able to face the electorate with an honest face.

Even Mr Mohan Bhagavat of RSS would have to admit that India is surrendering to corrupt forces in the form of Bitcoins and soon other things such as Drug Trade, Arms Trade etc would also be leigitimized.

I would also be surprised if Supreme Court does not come down heavily on your Government much to the delight of your friends Mr Rahul Gandhi and Sitaram Yechury.

Do you want to allow this surrender to the opposition and abdication of your responsibilities as Finance Minister?

Most of the people around you are trying to fool you with an argument that “If Bitcoin Exchanges follow a KYC process and perhaps link Bitcoin trading to Aadhaar”, every thing will be fine. Some of the Bankers have also perhaps spoken to you and impressed upon you that “Block Chain Technology” is great and must be encouraged in the Banking system. Some would have even told you to impose a “GST at 28%” on Bitcoin trade so that Government would get more revenue and you can spend it on increasing the salaries and perks of all the MPs and splurge.

I consider you to be an intelligent person and hope you would not fall for such false propaganda. Nor do I consider you to be influenced by the vested interests in any other manner.

But at this point of time, I am not convinced that you are appreciating the enormity of the mistake you are committing which will eventually cost BJP your 2019 elections.

If by any chance you want to make use of this Block Chain technology and Crypto Currency, I have other ideas which you can explore namely,

a) RBI to introduce a Crypto Rupee using the same technology but having 100% identification of the Bitcoin holder from mining to its transactions including splitting.

b) BJP may introduce a “Party Crypto Currency” to fund its election expenses which is not convertible to any legacy currency but can be used in exchange of services only by BJP party members. ( More about this can be discussed outside the blog since Congress and Mamata Bannerjee may be eager to try out this suggestion if they spot the potential).

Any further delay in not announcing an immediate ban on Bitcoins and all other Crypto Coins would be deemed as a tacit support to the Bitcoin lobby and a perception that BJP has been corrupted with Bitcoins.

I look forward to your immediate action to prove that BJP has not given up its fight on Black Money and that your department has not been bought out by the Bitcoin lobby.

I am sure that some body will soon file a PIL in Supreme Court if the Government continues to “Remain in Observation Mode” as to what to do with Bitcoins and BJP will be losing face.

I am aware that you may not like what has been written here. But the objective is to make you realize what a monumental blunder you are likely to make and I as an ardent supporter of your party and Mr Modi would consider it a tragedy if you donot come down heavily on Bitcoin without further delay.

Regards

Naavi

P.S: I appeal to the Readers to send a copy of this letter to their known contacts in the Government so that it reaches the ears of people like Mr Jaitely, Mr Modi, Mr Amit Shah and Mr Mohan Bhagavat and others.

If it is also distributed to the media, we will know how honest are the Republic and Times Now when it comes to fighting commercial interests of Bitcoin players.

On the occasion of the “Teacher’s Day” today, it is appropriate to spare a few thoughts on the role of “Teaching” in the Digital Era.

“Teaching” essentially involves “Knowledge Transfer” and it may happen either within the four walls of what we call a “School” or “College” or through any other interaction. Today, web is naturally one of the greatest “Knowledge Transfer Medium” with “Google” as one of the prominent tools of knowledge transfer.

In order to retain its status as a respected teacher, being  the “Most Accessed Search Engine”, Google needs to ensure that it’s revenue objectives donot cloud its performance.

Advertising as a Diversion

One of the areas where Google’s weakness comes through is in it’s “Advertising policies on the Search results”. The top of the search page ads  confuse the public with advertisements misleading the search engine users.

For example, if I do a “Full Site Search” from the Google tool on Naavi.org with the key word “OPPO”, the top results are all advertisements from OPPO where as my specific article on “Oppo taking over Police Stations in India” does not come up, though it does come up in the other search engine I use on the website.

“Google Site Search” therefore misleads visitors to the site with wrong results and fails as an honest “Teacher”.

I have in the past even pointed out many ads from Google Ad server which are linked to Pornographic websites (Mostly on the mobile) showing again a failure to filter such ads. “Poisoned Search Results” were once a very prominent means of injecting viruses though it has been controlled significantly at present.

Though the Search Engine is making its efforts to improve its performance and perhaps is still the best search engine by a large margin, just as a “Teacher” never stops learning and improving, Google should continue to improve it’s performance by not letting its revenue objectives cloud its performance.

Having worked in the Advertising industry myself, I am not against Google generating revenue out of advertisements but there is a difference between presenting advertisements in the side columns or even on the top with a distinctive format rather than making it look like an “Advertorial”.

I hope this “Ethics” of advertising is not forgotten by Google in the days to come…. so that we can salute Google as one of the best Teachers of the Netizens on the Teacher’s day.

Naavi.org as a Teacher

While reflecting on the activities of naavi.org, it seems that Naavi.org has been critical of many organizations both in the private sector and the public sector on specific occasions. In all such occasions, it is essential for visitors to remember that we may be trying to make a particular point though some times we may not be efficient in putting things across diplomatically. Some times the titles could be deliberately made provocative, taking the liberty of journalistic freedom. I hope those who feel hurt will look at things in the right perspective and excuse me if I have made any mistake.

One of the principles I have tried to maintain in such cases is to provide an opportunity to the organization criticized to use the same platform to post a counter. In fact way back in December 2001, this principle was espoused as a recommended strategy to counter rogue sites such as dalitstan.org. The principle also applies to other sites including naavi.org.

This suggestion may go counter to “Right to Erase” but needs to be examined by others in greater detail when we see complaints about mouthshut.com or glassdoor.com.

Similarly Naavi.org has been advocating “Regulated Anonymity” as a solution to resolving the fight between Privacy and Security which is counter to the principle of “Anonymity” which is so dear to many.

Naavi.org as a teacher therefore has several contrarian views to express and has always invited visitors to respond even with counter views if any. Though in many cases, we have invited responses from different Government agencies (a search with the key word “respond” indicates the innumerable such occasions), most of the Government agencies prefer to remain silent in the wake of criticisms. Private Sector either remains silent or some times shoots out a notice but very few take criticisms positively.

Just as old teachers some time say… “I scolded you when you were a student and see what a good citizen you have now become?”… perhaps in times to come some of the organizations which we have criticized may acknowledge that the criticisms were well meant. It could be in the case of Bitcoins or Cyber Insurance or Bank frauds or Police mistakes or even mistakes by Judiciary. May be the content of this site will be available for back reference to check if this reflection becomes true.

Such acknowledgements will bring true satisfaction to any teacher and also to Naavi.org and would be the compensation for all the efforts we are making today.

Regards to Dr S. Radhakrishnan for having enabled us to reflect on our “Teaching activities of the year…

Naavi

In continuation of our earlier discussions I am posting here some photographs :

As we can observe, all Police stations in Ramanagara sport the OPPO brand so prominently that it appears that the Police Station belongs to OPPO. In the case of the Women’s Police Station, even the word “Ramanagara” is absent.

We can also observe that in the case of the Town police station, there is also an earlier Airtel sponsored board which at least relatively shows more prominence to the Police Station.

There is no doubt that any marketing manager would be happy to have their brand displayed so prominently across different police stations which create a hugely positive impression in the minds of people who also see OPPO brand name across many of the mobile shops in Ramanagara. Even simple hoardings in prominent places in Ramanagara should cost lakhs of rupees per year on the high way at least. Association with Police is completely misleading as if OPPO belongs to Government.

This is plain cheating and not marketing.

Obviously the decision has been taken by some body who either does not understand marketing or has been suitably impressed by the marketing manager of OPPO.

When people are fighting against Chinese military aggression and dumping of its products, this OPPO invasion is unacceptable.

I wish suitable action is taken to remove all sponsor names in the Police Station name boards including Airtel boards which are also found in Bangalore.

I urge the High Court of Karnataka to suo moto take up the issue and take action or some PIL advocate take up the cause.

Naavi

Yesterday, while travelling from Mysore to Bangalore, I was surprised to see “OPPO Police Station” in Ramanagara on the highway. For a moment,  I was confused if China has taken over India and Oppo has been given charge of internal security!

May be Karnataka Home Minister and DGP can explain.

Some time back, in Bangalore, we have seen Police Station Name boards in the name of Airtel. But to see the name boards in the name of a Chinese Company indicates that our administrators have not considering the impact of such blind acceptance of commercial sponsorship of even sensitive matters such as internal security in India.

If this trend continues, we need not be surprised if Police uniforms carry Oppo or Vivo brands just like our Cricketers. May be even our Ministers may paint Huawei on their cars.

This trend must stop and stop immediately.

Acceptance of sponsorship of foreign commercial organization’s money for routine maintenance of administrative machinery of the Government is another form of “Corruption”. If Police are obliged to companies for even putting up of their name boards, then how will they take up a complaint against these companies lodged by any citizen of India?

It is necessary that all Government agencies should follow a principle where by corporate sponsorships doesn’t compromise on the constitutional obligations of the Government agencies.

On the other hand if these companies want to sponsor some event such as educating the masses on Cyber crime issues etc, it should be fine. But in such cases also the public should be promptly notified that

“This event is commercially sponsored by ……. Government undertakes not to compromise its principles in favour of the sponsors by virtue of this sponsorpship”.

In the meantime, I urge my friends in the media to file an RTI and find out what is the consideration paid by OPPO to host a board “OPPO POLICE STATION” in the Bangalore Mysore highway as rent per day and what is the normal market value of a hoarding in the same area and arrive at the opportunity loss suffered by the Government.

If OPPO has simply spent a few thousand rupees to get the Board organized, I would like to replace the board with “Naavi Police Station” and donate a board twice the size of the current board.

At least “Naavi” brand is associated with fighting Cyber Crimes unlike OPPO which as a Chinese Company is suspected that it may have a back door in its software.

Will the Government of Karnataka clarify? Will the Media question the prudence of who ever took this bizarre decision?

Naavi

We have been discussing the “Limited Liability” Circular of RBI which was first issued in draft form on August 11, 2016 and confirmed on July 6 2017.

However, recently when one of the customers of SBI Cards from Chennai, (a respectable employee of a MNC software company) who had lost money on a fraudulent credit card transaction, requested them to redress his grievance under the provisions of this circular, SBI Card replied to them that they are not aware of the existence of such a circular.

In an email reply from ceo@sbicard.com dated 1st September 2017, signed by one Jaspreet Kaur, SBI Card replied

“…we are not in receipt of any communication from RBI regarding limited liability clause. “

The Bank has provided the IP addresses from which the fraudulent transactions have been made which indicate transactions somewhere in Jharkhand while the customer is in Chennai.

This indicates that SBI card authentication system has not implemented “Adaptive Authentication” to identify an unusual transaction, as is required under various cyber Security guidelines issued by RBI from time to time.

Obviously, if Jaspreet Kaur does not know even the important Limited Liability circular, we may presume that she must be not only ignorant but incapable of understanding what is “Adaptive Authentication”.

Employing such inefficient persons with an authority to reply under an e-mail “Ceo@sbicard.com” indicates the complete lack of competence of SBI Cards to handle the responsibility of credit cards.

We also are surprised that this fraudulent transaction being a credit card transaction in which a payment has been made to a merchant, a “Charge Back” option has not been exercised by SBI Cards.

The concerned merchant is the beneficiary of a fraudulent transaction and therefore is part of a “Money Laundering” exercise. Hence SBI Card should not have hesitated to allow a charge back immediately.

SBI Cards should make a public statement if the Card holder who is also a customer of the Bank is not as much important as the Merchant who may also be a customer of either SBI itself or some other Bank.

If SBI/SBICards was aware of the Limited liability circular, they should have introduced a grievance redressal mechanism as well as indicated a policy for determination of the liabilities under various conditions. No such policy has so far been published by SBI even after two months since the circular was issued.

The casual handling of the complaint by Ms Jaspreet Kaur indicates the possibility of her being an accomplice in the fraud.

I wish Police in Chennai register a case against SBI Card as an organization and Ms Jaspreet Kaur as an individual who by her “negligence” and “an attempt to shield a fraudster” become an accomplice to the fraudulent transaction.

I also do not think that Ms Jaspreet kaur could be the CEO of SBI Card. If she is not the designated CEO of SBI Cards, her using the e-mail CEO@SBIcards.com is an attempt to cheat the customer with misrepresentation and possible unauthorized use of a senior executive’s e-mail ID which are offences under Section 66C and 66D of ITA 2008. These are cognizable offences and Chennai police should make use of this provision in pursuing the complaint.

I call upon the Chairman of SBI to also initiate an internal enquiry on the complaint and ensure that customer complaints are handled with more responsibility.

I also request RBI to also pull up SBI for not ensuring that its executives are not properly informed about the RBI Circular and if no satisfactory explanation is available, suspend the Credit Card license of SBI Cards.

I am looking forward to immediate response from some responsible person in SBI and request him to redress the grievance of this customer. (Ref: Interaction ID : 123634897427)

It is a general observation that  a large number of frauds happen in the credit card system of SBI Cards, much more than in other Banks. The reason is apparent that the SBI cards is being managed by incompetent persons who may be hand in glove with the fraudsters. There is a need for an in depth enquiry by CBI on the functioning of SBI Cards so that customers may not be subject to a “SBI Risk”.

Naavi