Cyber Space-Opportunities and Threats

Cyber Space:
Opportunities and
Threats
Cyber space: It is not only an
information superhighway, it
has now become a battle
field where the netizens
who use internet in a respo-
nsible manner have to fight
against the rogue elements
bent of creating problems.
VRC Reddy

First Edition: Jan 2010
The author claims copyrights over the content. Any
mass production of the text is prohibited.
Author : Ramachandra Reddy V
Address : Department of Science and Humanities
ANURAG Engineering College
Kodad
2 | P a g e

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 the Universe and the Web 7-15
Chapter 2 the empowerment of the 16-27
passive
Chapter 3 Internet-The double edged sword 28-34
Chapter 4 an attempted Cyber Crime 35-68
Chapter 5 precautions needed to protect 69-100
ourselves
3 | P a g e

Internet Security
“The only system which is truly
secure is one which is switched off
and unplugged, locked in a titanium
lined safe, buried in a concrete bunker,
and is surrounded by nerve gas and
very highly paid armed guards. Even
then I wouldn’t stake my life on it”
Pro
fessor Eugene H. Spafford
( is a professor of computer science at Purdue
University and a leading computer security expert)
4 | P a g e

FORE WORD
Well I’m not a technocrat and I know very little about
the intricacies of technology. But as an active netizen, I
have been observing the cyber space for the last one
decade. This book is based on my observations during
these ten years. While you learn a programming
language it demands logical intelligence from you, but
when a person like me browses Internet he/she keeps
on exploring the net as the screen displays something
new every second. Humans by nature need something
new every time. If you take newspapers every day you
get a new copy and that is the main reason behind so
many people getting fascinated by newspapers. It
arouses curiosity among the readers and they wait for
the newspaper boy to serve the paper at the door steps.
Some of the readers may even feel somewhat anxious
if there is any delay, in its serving. In case of Internet it
offers something new every minute or even every
second. That is why so many people are fascinated by
the Cyber space. For me the screen of my machine
looks like a river from where there is a ceaseless flow
of information which, sometimes… I find extremely
difficult to manage. There is so much to download but
5 | P a g e

you would not be left with any time to read all that
content. So from lack of information we traversed to a
stage where there is abundance of information. But the
access to this information is highly uneven creating a
digital divide. More over it is human tendency to
misuse the resources and facilities for wrong purposes.
The main reason behind this misuse is, in our society
people are growing knowledgeable but they lack
wisdom and discipline. So they often use their skills
for destructive purposes and put others to lot of
inconvenience. Here cyber crime comes into picture.
Hacking, injecting malware, denial of service attacks,
hate mail, pornography, piracy and identity theft have
all become a cause of concern for society as well as the
governments. So governments all over the world are
enacting cyber laws and training cyber forensic experts
to curb the internet related crimes. As internet related
crimes are very sophisticated and it is very difficult to
find out the origin of the crime the cyber criminals,
most of the times go scot free. This book is an effort to
bring about awareness in cyber security among the
netizens, so that safe computing practices become a
way of life for us and enable us to escape the adverse
impact of cyber crime on our society and the country.
6 | P a g e

Chapter 1:
THE UNIVERSE AND THE WEB
Internet… it is a double edged sword. On the one hand
it is the information superhighway, the treasure house
of knowledge, but on the other hand a net worked
computer…I mean a computer connected to World
Wide Web is the most dangerous thing and we have to
be ever vigilant in order to
protect ourselves from
deception. It is the most
amazing inventions of the
21st century. When you sit in
front of a networked
computer you feel as if you
are so powerful, because we
have access to infinite amount of information at our
disposal. Once a person gets addicted to it he feels
powerless when he is offline. Gone are the days when
you would go to a big library and refer to many books
or pursue experts to know the things, to acquire
knowledge and to widen your horizons. Now they are
all not required. You can comfortably sit in your study
7 | P a g e
Cyber Space

and connect your machine to the web and with the help
of browsers and search engines we can gain access to
the millions of websites in the world. We humans have
borders and need passports and visas to cross the
international borders. But a networked computer
doesn’t have any borders. It created a borderless world.
It made distances narrow.
With the help of your networked computer you can not
only gain knowledge, but even share your knowledge
with the world. Because you can not only download
the information that is available on net, you can even
upload the information you have generated. So in a
way it is facilitating the sharing of knowledge.
When you go online you find information in many
forms and formats- documents, e books, podcasts and
videos. So you need not learn things in the same old
boring way. You can educate yourself through
edutainment. Multimedia- text, audio and video are
combined to make our learning easy. As the saying
goes, a picture says thousand words. Imagine a video
clipping with some text embedded in it and featuring
audio… how effective it would be! So edutainment
makes your learning enjoyable. To access all this
8 | P a g e

information there is so much of software available on
the web. Though the premium versions of this software
cost, basic versions are all free. We have down loaders
and up loaders like Real Player, VLC Player, IDM
(Internet Download Manager) etc. to download and
save the content to our HDD. There are many file
hosting websites which enable us to share our
knowledge by uploading our own content.
Gone are the days when you befriended only the
persons in your neighborhood or in the nearby village,
town or city. Now by going online you can make
friends all over the world.
The astronomers say that we do not know where
exactly the Universe starts and where does it end. The
same is the case with Web. Millions of computers are
interconnected and unlimited quantity of information is
passing through underwater sea cables and other wired
and wireless networks.
Optical Fiber Cable- a great invention of the 21st
century which transmits data in the form of light rays
lets the data travel through it at a lightening pace. So
9 | P a g e

e mail has emerged as the fastest mode of
communication.
Normally if we have the habit of reading a newspaper,
we wait for the newspaper boy to serve the printed
version at your door steps and at times you feel
anxious if the delivery gets delayed. It’s just like
morning coffee. Coffee and your printed version of
newspaper- they go together. But not anymore. If you
have a networked computer you can type the URL of
your favorite newspaper and read it free, that too
without waiting for the newspaper boy. Normally
websites run by newspapers update by 4am. The
information that features in the website is same as the
information that is printed in the print version. So you
don’t miss anything. So you can save on newspaper
subscription. If you have a net worked computer you
can read not just one newspaper but all the newspapers
in the world. You get to know what is happening in US
by logging on to www.usatoday.com to read the USA
Today the largest circulated newspaper in US. You can
even read The Washington Post, The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal etc. If you want to know what
is happening in the Middle East you can log on to the
10 | P a g e

prestigious and widely available newspaper The
Jerusalem Post www.jpost.com. If you want to know
what is happening in the African continent you can log
on to one of the top ten English language newspapers
in Africa published from Johannesburg, The Times at
http://www.timeslive.co.za/ . In Asia you can logon to
www.toi.com to read the world’s largest circulated
newspaper ‘The Times of India’ which is incidentally
an Indian newspaper. You can even read financial
dailies, magazines by downloading them from some
websites which allow you to download free e books in
PD (Portable Document) format. So by going online
and reading different newspapers we can always keep
abreast of what is happening all over the world. In fact
in western countries newspapers are facing the problem
of reduced subscriptions and falling circulation of their
print versions and their websites started receiving more
number of hits.
One of the main reasons for Indian newspaper ‘The
Times of India’ acquiring the status of world’s largest
circulated daily is, at a time when western newspapers
are concerned with dwindling circulation as a result of
deep penetration of Internet, the people of India where
11 | P a g e

the Internet penetration in
very low still opt for print
versions.
Coming to text books and
journals there are
revolutionary changes
happened. That is e book
revolution. This author being
an ardent book lover visited
some book exhibitions in
Hyderabad, Vijayawada and
Chennai. When we find an
interesting title we feel like owning a copy. But when
we look at the blurb to find out the price we develop
cold feet, because buying printed copies of books is
prohibitively expensive. Recently I bought a book
which is priced at Rs/- 695. I badly needed that book
for my research. On that day unable to decide whether
to buy or not, I would visit the stall, have a look at that
book, read some pages and get back. I did it four or
five times, as my finances were already under pressure
in these days of inflation. But at last after prolonged
bargaining I managed to negotiate a discount of 15%
12 | P a g e
Amazon Kindle an eBook reader in
which you can store thousands of
eBooks and read them just like as you
read a printed book

where a uniform 10% discount is offered in all the
stalls of the book fair. When I was staying in
Hyderabad around five years ago, my favorite place in
Hyderabad was the sultan bazaar. On Sundays I would
enjoy walking along the pavements to look for good
picks from the second
hand books displayed on
the empty pavements.
Sometimes I would even
go for pirated books
though I’m well aware
that it is not legally and
ethically right thing to do.
On the one hand I can’t
resist my temptation to
own a book and read it;
on the other hand the
meager amount of money
I would make would not
permit me to go for
genuine versions. Once I got fascinated by the titles
that were on display- The God of Small Things by
Arundhati Roy and Made in Japan by Akio Morita at a
stall where they would sell pirated copies. I got them at
13 | P a g e
The latest issue of Scientific American
available as a free download

a very cheaper price and they were indeed good reads.
But throughout my reading I entertained a feeling of
guilt in my mind as I was reading pirated copies. But
you no longer need to undergo these hardships. You
can go online, and search for your favorite books by
logging on to websites like ebook3000.com,
ebook30.com, trulyfree.org, projectguttenberg.org etc
which allow you to download the books that you like.
They are available in various formats like Plain Text,
PDF, DjvU, Microsoft Reader, etc.
The new trend is, many of the books are read and
recorded by volunteers and these are termed as audio
books. You can download these audio books from
websites like www.learnoutloud.com. You can copy
these audio books into your MP3 player in your cell
phone and listen to them even when you are
comfortably lying down on your bed or on travel.
Another thing is Podcast. These podcasts are available
in audio and even in video format. In order to
download these podcasts you need to install a software
called I tunes from Apple software. If your cell phone
features video player you can even watch these videos
when you are on the move. So you can use your cell
14 | P a g e

phone to improve your knowledge instead of using it
for empty blabbering with the so-called friends. These
days many of the cell phones come with high-
resolution cameras. Once I used Nokia N73 phone to
take a photograph of Koya youth who live in
Khammam district of Andhrapradesh. They are the
hunter gatherer tribe, but their lifestyle is rapidly
changing in line with the changes taking place in this
21st century. I uploaded the
photograph onto the
Wikipedia the largest online
encyclopedia which is a
virtual treasure house of
knowledge to which most of
the knowledge seekers turn
to, to gather information on
various topics. So you can
even contribute to the widening knowledge horizons by
sharing your work. In fact I’m a volunteer contributor
to the Wikipedia. So you can not only acquire
knowledge but even share your knowledge by going
online.
15 | P a g e
Online shopping