'Cyber cafes aiding e-crimes'

Cyber cafes are breeding ground for e-crime, says Karnataka IT secretary Shankarlinge Gowda.

Delivering his keynote address at a conference on e-crime here on Thursday, Gowda said, "In the last few years, the proliferation of cyber cafes in the country (there are about five lakh registered and unregistered ones) has led to more gambling, pornography and e-business-related crimes."

In Karnataka there are about 10,000 cyber cafes. The government, through its cyber police station located in the core of detectives' office, is monitoring criminal acts like spamming people with pornographic mail.

Karnataka was one of the first states to draft the Information Technology (Karnataka) Rules 2004. "By doing this the government has sent the right signals to both domestic and international investors that the state is a safe place to conduct business."

"When the Karnataka government took the initiative of asking cyber cafes to check the identities of Net users, there was some resistance initially. But now everybody has fallen in line and the crime rate is under check," he said.

S T Ramesh, additional director general of police-computer wing, said, understanding of the issues at stake, involvement of numerous institutions, and co-operation among them is needed to fight computer-aided crime. To emerge as a software power, India needs to equip and prepare before computer-aided crime strikes us, he added.

Hacking, encryption technology, extortion, stalking, sales and investment fraud, illegal interception of telecommuncation, electronic funds transfer fraud are common crimes committed with the aid of computer and internet, said Ramesh.