Cyber crime and the victimization of women : laws, rights and regulations

280 Pages·2012·2.584 MB·English

by  Debarati Halder, K Jaishankar

Cyber Crime and the
Victimization of Women:
Laws, Rights and Regulations
Debarati Halder
Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling (CCVC), India
K. Jaishankar
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halder, Debarati, 1975-
Cyber crime and the victimization of women: laws, rights and regulations / by Debarati Halder and K. Jaishankar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “This book investigates cyber crime, exploring gendered dimensions of cyber crimes like adult bullying, cyber
stalking, hacking, defamation, morphed pornographic images, and electronic blackmailing”--Provided by
publisher.
ISBN 978-1-60960-830-9 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-60960-831-6 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60960-835-4 (print & perpetual
access) 1. Sex crimes. 2. Computer crimes. 3. Women--Crimes against. I. Jaishankar, K. II. Title.
K5194.H34 2011
345’.0268--dc22
2011016122
British Cataloguing in Publication Data
A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the
authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
Dedicated to the loving memories of
Dr. Dipak Halder (1933 - 2008) and
Mrs. Rukmani Karuppannan (1951 - 1999)
Table of Contents
Foreword .............................................................................................................................................viii
Preface ....................................................................................................................................................x
Acknowledgment .................................................................................................................................xii
Chapter 1
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................1
1.1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................1
1.2. Why Did We Focus Only on Women? .....................................................................................4
1.3. The Structure and Methodology ..............................................................................................7
1.4. Aims and Audience ..................................................................................................................8
1.5. Scope and Expected Implications ............................................................................................8
Chapter 2
Definition, Typology and Patterns of Victimization .............................................................................12
2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................12
2.2. Changing Definitions of Cyber Crime ...................................................................................14
2.3. Issues in Defining Cyber Crimes Against Women .................................................................16
2.4. Why Do We Need to Have a Separate Definition? ................................................................17
2.5. Towards an Operational Definition of Cyber Crime Against Women ...................................18
2.6. Typology and Patterns of Victimization ................................................................................19
2.7. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................33
Chapter 3
Etiology, Motives, and Crime Hubs ......................................................................................................40
3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................40
3.2. Etiology ..................................................................................................................................41
3.3. Motives ..................................................................................................................................45
3.4. Crime Hubs ............................................................................................................................46
3.5. Characteristics of Victims and Perpetrators ...........................................................................49
3.6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................50
Chapter 4
Women’s Rights in the Cyber Space and the Related Duties ...............................................................55
4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................55
4.2. Role of Conventions for Establishing Women’s Rights in the Cyber Space .........................56
4.3. Expanding the Aims of the Conventions to the Cyber Space ................................................58
4.4. Women’s Rights in the Cyber Space: An Illusion? ................................................................60
4.5. Duties of Netizens .................................................................................................................63
4.6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................64
Chapter 5
Legal Treatment of Cyber Crimes Against Women in USA .................................................................69
5.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................69
5.2. Regulations for Modification of Contents and Related Activities .........................................70
5.3. Regulations for Stalking ........................................................................................................71
5.4. Regulations for Cyber Bullying, Hate Speech and Cyber Defamation of Women ................73
5.5. Regulations for Online Pornography, Obscenity and Related Issues Against Women ..........75
5.6. Issues of Cyber Privacy and Related Problems for Women ..................................................76
5.7. The Tortuous Liabilities .........................................................................................................77
5.8. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................78
Chapter 6
Cyber Laws for Preventing Cyber Crimes Against Women in Canada ................................................82
6.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................82
6.2. Cyber Nonsexual Offences Against Women and Regulation of Laws ..................................83
6.3. Cyber Privacy and Related Offences Against Women...........................................................87
6.4. Regulating Cyber Sexual Offences ........................................................................................88
6.5. Obscenity and Regulations ....................................................................................................90
6.6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................90
Chapter 7
Cyber Space Regulations for Protecting Women in UK .......................................................................95
7.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................95
7.2. Unauthorized Access and Related Activities .........................................................................96
7.3. Stalking and Stalking Related Activities ...............................................................................97
7.4. Gender Based Offensive Communications ............................................................................98
7.5. Sexual Offences .....................................................................................................................99
7.6. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................101
Chapter 8
Cyber Crime Against Women and Regulations in Australia ...............................................................105
8.1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................105
8.2. Cyber Harassments ..............................................................................................................106
8.3. Stalking ................................................................................................................................107
8.4. Harassments, Threatening, Blackmailing, and Defamation ................................................107
8.5. Forced Pornography and Obscenity .....................................................................................109
8.6. Liability of the ISPs .............................................................................................................110
8.7. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................................110
Chapter 9
Cyber Victimization of Women and Cyber Laws in India ..................................................................113
Part I: Situational Analysis of Cyber Victimization of Women ..................................................114
Part II: Legal Protections to Women Cyber Victims...................................................................118
Part III: Lacunas in the Cyber Laws ...........................................................................................124
Chapter 10
Model Charter and Conclusion ...........................................................................................................129
10.1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................129
10.2. Model Charter ....................................................................................................................130
10.3. Conclusion .........................................................................................................................133
Appendix 1
Convention on Cybercrime, Budapest, 23.XI.2001 ............................................................................135
Appendix 2
Relevant Provisions from USC 18, Part-1: Crimes (Sections 1-2725) ...............................................157
Appendix 3
Relevant Provisions from Violence Against Women and Department of Justice
Reauthorization Act, 2005, Regarding Stalking and Related Violence Against Women ....................166
Appendix 4
Relevant Provisions from Canadian Criminal Code (R.S. 1985, c, C-46) ..........................................168
Appendix 5
Relevant Provisions from Protection from Harassment Act, 1997, C-40 ...........................................177
Appendix 6
Relevant Provisions from Equality Act, 2010 .....................................................................................184
Appendix 7
Relevant Provisions from Computer Misuse Act, 1990 (C18) ...........................................................193
Appendix 8
Relevant Provisions from Police and Justice Act, 2006, C-48 ...........................................................204
Appendix 9
Relevant Provisions of Criminal Code Act, 1995, of Australia, Act no 12 of 1995, as Amended and
Cyber Crime Act, 2001, of Australia ..................................................................................................209
Appendix 10
Relevant Provisions from Information Technology Act, 2000. [As Amended by Information
Technology (Amendment) Act 2008] .................................................................................................251
About the Authors .............................................................................................................................263
Index ...................................................................................................................................................264
viii
Foreword
Cyber Crime and the Victimization of Women: Laws, Rights and Regulations, is a unique and a very
important contribution to the literature analyzing various aspects of cyber crime. This book deals di-
rectly with an issue that is usually addressed only interstitially, i.e., as an incidental aspect of a particu-
lar cyber crime case or a particular cyber crime issue.
Cyber crime against women has all of the characteristics that define cyber crime as a general phe-
nomenon, e.g., online, often anonymous communication, messages, and other tactics that are designed to
inflict “harms” of varying types and degrees on the victims and perpetrators who, for a variety of reasons,
are unlikely to be identified and / or punished for the injury they inflict. Cyber crime against women
tends to involve additional characteristics that distinguish it in varying ways from generic cyber crime.
As you will see from the following chapters, women are the primary targets of cyber crimes such as
online harassment, stalking, and / or bullying. The behavior at issue in these crimes can involve the use
of emails and / or social networking sites to bombard the victim or the victim’s co-workers and family
with messages that falsely accuse the woman of engaging in offensive and / or embarrassing conduct.
The behavior can also involve posting nude photographs of the victim online, photographs that were
either taken while the two were involved in an intimate relationship or that have been altered to make
it appear that the woman posed nude when she did not.
These hostile behaviors can have devastating consequences for the victims. Two years ago, I did a
presentation on Internet defamation and invasion of privacy at a law enforcement conference. Afterward,
a prosecutor approached me and told me of a particularly heinous case she had handled recently: Jane
Doe and her sister Julie Doe were twins. Jane was married with two children and had a job she enjoyed,
both for the work itself and for the close relationships she had with her co-workers. Julie tended to live
on the “wild side.” Her exploits were notorious, at least among her family and friends. For some reason,
someone posted a photograph of Julie, in which she was nude and in a compromising situation with an
unidentified male, on a website and included a caption that identified the woman in the photograph as
Jane Doe. The person who did this then sent emails to Jane’s family, friends, and co-workers that directed
them to the website on which the photo of Julie-identified-as-Jane was posted.
By the time Jane learned about the photo and the emails, she had been fired from her job. Neither her
employer nor her co-workers would believe her denials that the person in the photograph was her and
her claims that it was, in fact, a photograph of her sister, Julie. Her employer and former co-workers had
“seen the photograph for themselves” and were certain they recognized the woman in it as Jane Doe.
Therefore, Jane lost her job and all of the people she once worked with told others in the small city in
which Jane lived about the site and about Jane’s photograph. The visual lie the anonymous perpetrator
ix
of this cyber crime created ripples through the community, seriously damaging Jane’s once impeccable
reputation.
And the virtual lie almost ended her marriage. We might think that Jane’s husband, who knew Julie
and knew about her exploits, would instantly realize that the photograph was of Julie, not his wife Jane.
However, he did not. He blindly believed the photograph was, in fact, of his wife and persisted in that
belief for some time, despite Jane’s pleas for him to believe her and to assess the situation rationally,
given what he knew of her sister. He finally relented and decided not to file for a divorce, but the rela-
tionship between the two was still strained.
Jane came to the prosecutor I spoke to, asking her to find the person who had posted the photography
and prosecute him or her. The prosecutor told Jane that the U.S. State in which they lived had a sixty-
year old statute that made defamation a crime. The prosecutor told Jane she believed she could use the
statute to prosecute the person who posted the photograph for criminal defamation, since the statute did
not limit the conduct at issue to the use of traditional print media, such as a newspaper or magazine. That
was the good news. Then the prosecutor told Jane the bad news: She was not at all sure her investigators
would be able to identify the person responsible for posting the photograph, and even if they were able
to identify him or her, criminal defamation under that State’s statute was a misdemeanor, which meant
that if the person was convicted the punishment would almost certainly consist only of a small fine and
perhaps a period of probation or community service. In fact, the investigators were never able to find
out who posted the photograph.
The above-mentioned relatively simple case illustrates the problems and policy issues you will read
about in this book. You will learn more about cases like this that are handled in the United States; you
will also learn about how they are handled in several other countries. Most importantly, perhaps, you
will be able to review a model charter that is designed to improve how governments respond to cyber
crimes against women.
Susan W. Brenner
NCR Distinguished Professor of Law and Technology
University of Dayton School of Law, Dayton, Ohio, USA
April 2011
Susan W. Brenner is NCR Distinguished Professor of Law and Technology at the University of Dayton School of Law, USA.
She specializes in two distinct areas of law: grand jury practice and cyberconflict, i.e., cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and cyber-
warfare. A renowned cyber crime scholar, Professor Brenner has spoken at numerous events, including two Interpol Cybercrime
Conferences, the Middle East IT Security Conference, the American Bar Association’s National Cybercrime Conference, and
the Yale Law School Conference on Cybercrime. She has also spoken at a NATO Workshop on Cyberterrorism in Bulgaria and
on terrorists’ use of the Internet at the American Society of International Law Conference. She was a member of the European
Union’s CTOSE project on digital evidence and served on two Department of Justice digital evidence initiatives. Professor
Brenner chaired a Working Group in an American Bar Association project that developed the ITU Toolkit for Cybercrime
Legislation for the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union. She is a senior principal for Global CyberRisk,
LLC. She has published a number of law review articles dealing with cybercrime. Her books, Cybercrime: Criminal Threats
from Cyberspace (Praeger, 2010), and Cyberthreats: the Emerging Fault Lines of the Nation State (Oxford University Press,
2008) are significant contributions to the field of Cyber Criminology and Cyber Laws. She also writes a blog, CYB3RCRIM3.