The Hindu : Front Page : Mission to make Chennai ‘cyber safe’

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Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
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Mission to make Chennai ‘cyber safe’

S. Vijay Kumar

Browsing centres in the city told to install surveillance cameras

“The idea is to identify every customer”
Browsing centres to preserve database for 45 days

CHENNAI: The Chennai police have embarked on a mission to make the city ‘cyber safe’. Putting in place a foolproof mechanism that will identify all Internet users will be the bottom line.

To start with, owners of the 600-odd Internet browsing centres have been told to install surveillance cameras at the registration point to ensure that the image of every visitor is captured.

Access-control security features

In case of wireless fidelity (wi-fi), the cyber crime police have written to the service providers to create a database of users by introducing access-control security features.

At a meeting of browsing centre owners convened recently, Commissioner of Police R. Sekar announced that installation of surveillance cameras would become a part of the licensing conditions. “The idea is to identify every customer. The browsing centre owners have agreed to preserve the database for at least 45 days. This will be an absolute requirement, which will be monitored by the local police at regular intervals,” says Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crimes) M. Sudhakar.

MAC number

The police have asked service providers to insist on Media Access Control number when it came to use of wi-fi connectivity.

“Be it airport, shopping mall or coffee shops, we want to insist on some access-control mechanism. Since Media Access Control numbers are system-specific, it would be easy to locate a user in the event of any offence.”

Dr. Sudhakar said the Police Commissioner had given instructions to create a cyber environment where every user could be identified with ease.

“We do not want someone to misuse the Internet and get away with it. Non-compliance of licensing conditions by browsing centre owners could land them in trouble,” he said.

Onus on owners

“In case of crimes such as intimidating e-mails or hacking websites, they not only have to prove their innocence but also the fact that they did not abet the crime by providing Internet facility,” Dr. Sudhakar said.

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