GOI to file Reply on CAT Chairperson appointment in Karnataka High Court

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Vijayashankar Na

Dec 3: The PIL regarding the non appointment of the Chair person for Cyber Appellate Tribunal (CAT), in New Delhi was heard in Karnataka High Court today. The PIL filed by an advocate Sri Chaitanya has alleged that the non appointment of a chair person to CAT has placed several Bank fraud victims at a disadvantage since their cases are held up without judicial scrutiny since June 2011 and requested the Judiciary to direct the Government to take necessary action. The counsel for the GOI has requested for 6 week’s time for filing the reply from the Government side.

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Julian Assange on Internet Freedom

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Vijayashankar Na

Dec 3: Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange speaks of how an infrastructure for total control of Internet is already in place and is beig also used partially. … Details

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PATCO Case: Bank’s Liability for Frauds

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Vijayashankar Na

Dec 3: Naavi has been personally fighting several Bank fraud cases on behalf of victim customers. This struggle has been temporarily blocked because the Government of India has failed to appoint the chairperson for Cyber Appellate Tribunal (CAT) since June 2011 when the previous chairperson retired. Naavi believes that the delay is caused by some of the influential Banks who donot want a progress in the cases pending against them and are in the meantime trying to convince the Reserve Bank of India to change the regulations to their liking to manipulate the environment in their favour. Much to the disappointment of these Banks, RBI actually has so far refused to dilute the security prescriptions as desired by the influential Banks though the MCIT appears to be more flexible to amend laws to make it adverse to Bank customers.

In this context it is interesting to observe that the case of Ocean Bank (now called People’s union) Vs PATCO has after a see saw battle landed in favour of the customer.District Court ruling in favour of the Bank: In June 2011, a US Districit Court had ruled in favour of the Bank holding it as not liable for the fraud which occured with the use of a key logger trojan. It had ruled that the security system adopted by the Bank in the form of log in ID and password was not deficient and met the contractual agreement between the bank and customer. In the process the court had disagreed with the earlier decision of another court int he Experi-Mental Vs Commercia case.

Reversal of the first ruling: :Here (on July 3, 2012)  the federal appeal court reversed the earlier District Court ruling holding that the Password based system was “Commercially Unreasonable”. Copy of order

Settlement: The Bank finally settled with the customer and reimbursed the loss of Us$ 345,000/- after the customer agreed to drop claim for expenses and other collateral claims.

This has finally brought the curtains down on an interesting battle which will be a guide even in the Indian scenario.

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Compliance of Section 43A in a Corporate Environment

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Vijayashankar Na

Dec 2:  Here is a brief guideline which companies may try to folllow to work towards compliance of Sec 43A-ITA 2008  requirements as a part of their Information Assurance Plan. …Details

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TELCOs are responsible to counter Chinese Threat

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Vijayashankar Na

Dec 2: An US intelliegence report recently advised that “American companies and its government should avoid doing business with China’s two leading technology firms, Huawei and ZTE, because they pose a national security threat to the US”. Copy of the report

After considering this report, the GOI has placed the responsibilities of countering the reported security threats arising from the Chinese telecom supplies entirely on the companies themselves.

In a press release issued by the Government, it is stated that …”it is mandated that Telecom Service Providers are responsible for the security of their network. It is also mandated that only those network elements shall be inducted into their Telecom Network, which have been tested as per relevant contemporary Indian or International Security Standards e.g. IT and IT related elements against ISO/IEC 15408 standards, for Information Security Management System against ISO 27000 series Standards, Telecom and Telecom related elements against 3GP, 3GPP2 security standards etc from any international agency/ labs of the standards e.g. Common Criteria Labs in case of ISO/IEC 15408 standards until 31st March 2013. From 1st April 2013 the certification shall be got done only from authorized and certified agencies/labs in India. The copies of test results and test certificates shall be kept by the licensee for a period of 10 years from the date of procurement of equipment, which can be audited / demanded any time during this span, by the licensor.”

Ref: Press Release

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CRAC Meeting Official Press Release

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Vijayashankar Na

Dec 2: The meeting of the Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee held on November 29, 2012 was a historic event since it was the first time that the committee met since ITA 2000 came into effect. According to the act, CRAC deliberation is mandatory for any amendments to the Act. However there was no public knowledge of any such meeting having been held when the ITA 2000 was amended in 2008 and Naavi.org has even commented that the amendment process for ITA 2008 was faulty. In this context the current meeting held in the aftermath of the Palghar arrests under Section 66A was significant. The press release issued after the meeting records that ” a suitable clarification in the form of guidelines in this regard be issued by the Government to States and Union Territories to clarify the intent and enable uniform implementation across the country. A consensus on the content of the draft guidelines was also arrived at.” Press Release

Further information available in the press only indicates that the States have been advised that action under Section 66A may be taken only by a police officer of a higher rank as indicated in the earlier report

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