Cyber Law

It is important to understand what cyber law covers when you are looking for images off the Internet. Cyber law is actually a very new and unique form of law that was created recently with the Internet becoming so popular. Because people who are looking for things on the Internet need to understand how this will law works. Traditional law does not cover what happens on the Internet so it was important that a specialized form was introduced to cover computer users. There are many instances where you may have a disagreement over an Internet domain name or who owns a certain online property. It is best to use a cyber attorney who understands these specific laws.

In some cases a cyber lawyer is similar to an intellectual property attorney. But there are many differences involve so if you have an issue it is always best to seek out a lawyer that fits needs the best. A good example of this is somebody who hacked into the computer has committed a cyber crime and there are specific laws they need to abide by. One of the biggest issues that faces the Internet todayis people being able to that they do not have a copyright on. In most cases they will take these images and use them for profit.

Remember that cyber law has not been around for a long time and was created to combat some legal issues that happen online. It is a niche form of law that has a specific need and it is important that you understand how to stay protected. Most of the legal issues that come up half to do with copyright and ownership of online website properties. There are some cases that deal with images and videos and who has the intellectual property rights to these items.

You've just gotten married, and are traveling the world with your new spouse on your honeymoon. A good friend who filmed the wedding and reception has just finished putting together the footage. He has posted it on YouTube so you both can relive your wedding day on your honeymoon.

The video is wonderful. It illuminates several moments you'd missed in the excitement of the day. Your friend has even included your song, Endless Love, as the background music for the video.

After the honeymoon, as you unpack the doorbell rings. Opening the door you find a man asking for your signature for a package. You think, "Which aunt or uncle must be sending money"? When the deliveryman smiles, hands you the package and says, "You've been served." you are surprise and horrified.

Confused, you tear the package open to find a lawsuit for $10,000 for copyright infringement. You wonder to yourself--could this be right? How did I infringe any copyrights? Out of curiosity you scan the pages of the lawsuit for a logical explanation. Then you find it: "the illegal use of Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross in your wedding video posted on YouTube".

With all the attention YouTube has gotten from the Viacom lawsuit for $1 billion for unauthorized distribution and infringe of copyright laws, everyone has overlooked a possible next wave of lawsuits to come. Those are for the vast majority of online videos that are made by small home videographers who have included music in their videos that has not been licensed for use.

Typically music publishers and record labels have turned a blind eye to home and wedding videographers who produce their own work. Shared with an audience of usually less then 10 close personal friends and family, these home videographers have all but been ignored for years. This was before sites like You Tube, Google Video, ChickShack, AsSeenInVT and a handful of others began creating an outlet for anyone with a video camera. Now home videographers need to be warned. You may soon find yourself involved in lawsuits for illegal use of a copyrighted protected musical recording, the fines for which could be in excess of $15,000 per song.

Remember how fiercely the recording industry went after everyone from children to old ladies who downloaded songs from sites like Napster? It may be only a matter of time until they start going after videographers in the same manner.
Most home videographers are unaware of the limitations on using copyright protected music. The vast number of home Videographers wrongly assume that they can synchronize or place any music they want in their video production. In the past, a small home and wedding Videographer would usually get away with this. The problem is these wannabee Quentin Tarantino's have now begun distributing their productions to more then just a few friends and family. A video loaded online has the potential market of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of viewers, and if you've created something popular using YouTube, you may be the next victim.

Local TV stations in America can pay tens of thousands of dollars for licensing music for their stations. This price can go into the millions if they desire to use popular artists songs.

For Videographers who have uploaded productions onto sites like YouTube and are now nervous, let me educate you a bit on how licensing works.

Simply put, copyright laws state that any music under copyright protection may not be used for any kind of video production, media presentation, websites, etc--that is, without approval from the copyright owner. Several types of licenses are usually required. These may include some or all of the following: Synchronization, Performance and Master licenses.

Now before you stress over the fact that no one will see your masterpiece or that big the bad RIAA is coming to get you -- there is a solution. First, you must remove the copyrighted music you have in your videos. Then you have the option to either write your own music for your video (most of us are not musically creative enough to go this route) - or license music from an Online Production Music Library.

Online Production Music Libraries typically lease music from their catalogs on either an individual per use basis, called a drop, or blanket licenses that will cover an entire project. The advantages of online production music libraries are the scope, depth and breadth of the catalogs. Pricing ranges greatly, depending on many variables.

Most production libraries do not create music specifically for amateur videographers, but Recently, an L.A. based production music library called TunEdge Music announced it would give special licensing for web distribution. TunEdge Music is providing access to their online catalog and for a reasonable fee their music can be licensed specifically for online creations.

After two interviews with cyber crime detectives the following updated information is very important for parents, educators and adults.

Sexting is the act of taking, possessing or disseminating nude or partially nude images via digital device and distributing same and is punishable under Federal Law. Title 18 USC 2252 and 2256. It is important to understand the law and what it states exactly and how it can affect children who are sexting (excerpts of the statutes at the end of article).

What does this mean and what do we teach children?

Law enforcement has been very forthright and clear to communicate taking an image of any sexual nature, possessing that image or distributing that image is punishable under federal law.

We want to teach children sexting is a very serious crime. Law enforcement is mandated by federal law to investigate every image that comes under the violation of the above statutes.

Are kids taking this seriously?

While children are not taking "sexting" seriously according to law enforcement they are tying up viable resources in local departments for the act of sexting. Continued investigations on sexting pull time and resources from local departments who are currently investigating cases of child molestation, abuse, pedophilia, child pornography and prevention of online predation.

We want to make very clear to our children they could potentially be charged with three felonies under the above statutes and each state has their own statutes which enforce the law as well.

We need to explain what actions your child "may take today" can have an incredible impact on their lives tomorrow. If convicted of a felony of child pornography, possession or otherwise, they have the potential to be added to the National Sex Offender Registry.

Charged with Sexting can be forever life-changing.

We need to explain very clearly if they were to be added to the registry, the ramifications of that event are forever life-changing. As adults, they will not be allowed to be within the specified distance of any public or private facility in which children are present.

Ask your children, do they plan to get married and have children? Tell them to think about this! If they were convicted of these potential felonies and added to the sex offender registry (there is a juvenile registry as well), they would never ever be able to participate in the lives of their children. No school events, no trick or treat on Halloween.

Halloween and Sex Offenders

By law registered sex offenders are required to put a sign out in front of their residence that tells children not to stop at that residence. They are required for the residence to be completely dark. Law enforcement in every community on Halloween personally visits every registered sex offender in their areas to make sure they are in compliance; otherwise they go back to prison.

Think about the ramifications of your son or daughter when they grow up get married and have children; they would never be able to participate in any of their children's events, no sporting events, no school events, no field trips, no parent teacher conferences on premises.

Why are kids sexting?

Girls receive pressure from guys. "Oh, come on, sext me." Girls say "oh, why not?" Well now we have very serious reasons why not! Apparently, the perception of law enforcement of why teens are not getting the message is because either they do not understand, or they do not care. What we as adults define in our lives as "private," teens may not see their privacy the same as ours. Therefore, that conversation needs to happen between parents and their children. What do they believe constitutes their privacy?

What to do

If you find images on your son's or daughter's cell phone or if your son or daughter receives inappropriate images, it is best to report immediately. If you wait, law enforcement has less opportunity to understand the potential innocent circumstances upon which the images came about.

What are the emotional consequences to youth if they become a victim of sexting?

1. Shame;
2. Embarrassment;
3. Humiliation;
4. Being bullied;
5. Harassment; and
6. potential suicide to name a few.

Excerpts from 18 USC 2252, 2252A and 2256

§ 2252. Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors

"(a) Any person who-

(1) knowingly transports or ships in interstate or foreign commerce by any means including by computer or mails, any visual depiction, if-

(A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) such visual depiction is of such conduct;

(2) knowingly receives, or distributes, any visual depiction that has been mailed, or has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or which contains materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported, by any means including by computer, or knowingly reproduces any visual depiction for distribution in interstate or foreign commerce or through the mails, if-

(A) the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; and
(B) such visual depiction is of such conduct;"

§ 2252A. Certain activities relating to material constituting or containing child pornography

"(a) Any person who-

(1) knowingly mails, or transports or ships in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any child pornography;
(2) knowingly receives or distributes-

(A) any child pornography that has been mailed, or shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer; or
(B) any material that contains child pornography that has been mailed, or shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer;"

§ 2256. Definitions for chapter

(1) "minor" means any person under the age of eighteen years;
(2) "sexually explicit conduct" means actual or simulated-
(3) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex;
(4) bestiality;
(5) masturbation;
(6) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
(7) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person; (subsection numbers do not reflect the same as in 18 USC 2256)."

Hopefully, this article has given adults, educators and parents enough ammunition to make the message very clear: "sexting" is a very serious crime.

We've all heard of the cyber threat from cybercriminals, cyberterrorists and hacktivists. They seek to steal our IP and disrupt our services for financial gain or political protest. But one threat that is rarely discussed and certainly growing is the 'competitor threat'.

The apparently lawful competitor who will seek commercial advantage through our disarray. It is now so easy and so cheap to hire a criminal botnet, that some unscrupulous companies are covertly employing criminals to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against their commercial competitors.

DDoS is mostly an inconvenience that can be borne or mitigated - it is rarely fatal. Now, however, there is a new threat on the horizon: the targeted data destroyer. In some ways this threat started with the mythical malware dubbed 'Wiper'. There is no known sample of Wiper in captivity (that is, held by the anti-virus companies). It infects a computer, wipes the data on that computer and then destroys itself - it is a pure cyberweapon thought to have been developed by the US and/or Israel for use against 'enemies' such as Iran. We know of the existence of Wiper only through the damage it causes and a few, very few, forensic clues it leaves behind.

But you can't hide good malware forever. Something called Shamoon appeared a couple of months ago, and attacked and destroyed data on Saudi computers. It is generally considered to be a 'copy' of Wiper, produced by Iran or Iranian hackers and used in retaliation for the Iranian oil embargo.

Now we have Narilam, malware that according to the experts bears more resemblance to traditional criminal malware than it does to state-sponsored malware like Wiper (or Stuxnet or Flame). Narilam has once again been found primarily in Iran (although samples have also been found in the UK and USA).

What is interesting - or worrying - about Narilam is that it targets specific databases; databases only likely to be found in specific Iranian companies. It doesn't destroy the databases, it writes random data over some items and destroys some selected database tables, leaving the database corrupt and very difficult to recover. The point here is that it is highly targeted and not likely to be state-sponsored. In fact, the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (Maher) declared, "The simple nature of the malware looks more like a try to harm the software company reputation among their customers."

Narilam in Iran is an example of one company trying to obtain competitive advantage over another through the implementation of highly targeted and destructive malware. It doesn't take much imagination to see that targeted phishing campaigns using intelligence learnt from social networks could lead to copycat malware being planted on individual targets, and for that malware to do its damage and then destroy itself. If this isn't already happening, it undoubtedly will. The seeds, and the idea, already exist.

It opens a new front that we now need to defend. It's no longer just our confidential information and intellectual property that we must ring fence, nor our websites we must defend from denial of service attacks, but the day-to-day operational databases that will be targets in the future. What we store, how we store it - and especially how we backup and recover corrupt data in a timely fashion are just some of the new things we need to consider.

Not sure of the best way forward to ensure all your systems and data are secure? Get in touch with Managed Networks directly for a no-obligation conversation to assess your network infrastructure as it stands.

Quite apart from the danger of regulatory fines, data breaches can injure reputation, steal intellectual property, impact share prices or even bring the whole company to its knees.

Download Full Length Movie For Free is a wonderful idea and several entertainment websites across the world use this method to generate more revenue. Imagine you get to see the best release of the year relaxing in the couch of your drawing room without shelling out a single penny along with your friends and family. The idea seems lucrative enough to drive you to a site which will provide you with the opportunity to download Full Length Movie For Free.

But have you ever thought that while you download Full Length Movie For Free, you are actually putting your PC or laptop in great danger. You must be thinking what is the danger in downloading free movies? Generally we are not much aware of the cyber laws and norms and believe me, this can put us in serious trouble. Would you like to pay havoc sums of money without even downloading a movie with quality prints? I guess all of us would definitely not want that to happen.

So friends, know about the website thoroughly before you go on to Download Full Length Movie For Free. The very term "free" is alluring. And when "free" is tagged with movies the appeal quotient rises all the more. Downloading a movie is not a crime, but the source from which you are downloading it may be illegal.

Websites need to register under certain laws before offering its customers with free downloading options. Many a times, sites do no follow the rules and regulations and offer services which are illegal to increase their revenue. The innocent commoners without even knowing a bit of what is going on gets trapped in their illegal business.

But there are several sites that are legal but the term "Download Full Length Movie For Free" has to change its meaning a little bit. Membership download sites are legal distributors of free movie downloads. Is it really free? It is not free but the more movies you download, the cheaper each movie becomes; because they only charge onetime small setup fee for unlimited lifetime movies download. Moreover you need not worry about the print quality or safety measures while downloading movies from such sites. Ensure the quality of the website which you are using before going on download free movies.

From latest releases, classics, documentaries to a variety of other kinds, movies available for free on the net are a major source of entertainment worldwide. Entertainment is right at your place just a click away from you. Choose the right website to get good quality picture. Don't go by what your friends say about some free movie downloading site. Have faith in the cyber laws and don't be a part of the cyber crime gang by downloading pirated versions or from illegal sites.

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their Hearts forever. -Unknown author

Today it is Mother's Day. By some ironical quirk of fate I am alone today. My 4 children are away, my partner is at a function, and my very own mother is busy. It is the first day in 10 years that I am alone on Mother's Day. My first instinct this morning as I awoke was to feel some self-pity; drown in a "Oh woe is me" moment. 'This is just not fair, I am a mother!" I thought with some childish petulance as I pulled the doona covers right over my head. And then I heard the familiar tone of my mobile as I received a text message and I cautiously peeked out from my cubby hole. My best friend sent me a text wishing me a happy Mother's Day and thanking me for the blessing of our friendship. Oh Thank-you Anita

I then climbed out of bed and sat at my computer. I opened my YouTube account only to find many selfless kind generous messages wishing me a happy Mother's Day. These loving messages were like receiving a giant cyber-hug. I instantly felt part of a group, I felt loved, and I felt acknowledged. I felt lonely no longer. Thank you to all of you who kindly sent me messages.

I guess, for me, the "feel good" feeling I received from these messages reinforced the true message of Mother's Day.

The spirit of Mother's Day is about giving to others, not necessarily the giving of commercial gifts, but rather the giving of consideration, empathy, and compassion. The true spirit of Mother's Day is about sparing a selfless thought for another. And it is the giving of these selfless thoughts which inspires the law of attraction.

So let's take a moment to remember that Mother's Day is not about receiving gifts, it is not about the ownership of a child, and it is not about commercialisation. It is purely and simply about acknowledging both the selfless role of motherhood as well as the understanding that we never own our children.

We have the honoured role, for a period of time, to lead our children in the journey of life. We hold their hands for a short while and then gently nudge them towards the wilderness of establishing own success and walking in their own journeys.

Working alongside a lawyer on a court case is obtainable through a variety of schooling options. Students can complete education online and enter a paralegal or legal assistant career. Training is offered at several educational levels allowing students to complete the program right for them.

Training is central in understanding how to help a lawyer prepare for a case. Students work through courses that help them understand legal jargon, law, and document preparation. Obtaining an associate's degree, which is the most common educational path, prepares students for the profession. Another popular education route taken is a certificate program. Overall, certificate programs are for students that already have a degree and want to transition into legal work. Students can also enter bachelor's and master's degree programs provided by a few online schools that offer this level of training.

An associate's degree provides students with the understanding of how to work with attorneys. Students can expect to learn how to assist a lawyer in every aspect of the case except for giving legal advice to a client. Paralegals and legal assistants are not allowed to represent a client. Working in public and private sectors has assistants doing different activities but students learn the basic knowledge needed to carry out specific legal tasks. Students can expect to gain skills that include:

• Conducting research for certain cases
• Understanding legal terminology
• Helping attorneys prepare for hearings and trails

The purpose of these basic level skills are learned so students understand how to investigate facts and identify relevant information needed for a case. With this knowledge students write up a report that is used to handle a case. Legal research, civil litigation, family law, and administrative law are some courses that make up the focal point of education.

Students that want to obtain a bachelor's degree will find that education will broaden their knowledge and allow them to conduct more activities inside the work place. Education encompasses both general and legal specific courses that prepare students to take on numerous tasks. Professional duties may include:

• Fact checking
• Writing case documents
• Helping attorneys set legal fees

Earning a four-year degree gives students more understanding of the field as well as the ability to enter managerial positions as a paralegal. Curriculum is more complex. It includes studying cyber law, tort law, legal writing, and real estate. A bachelor's degree is very helpful if students plan on entering law school after some years of experience.

Job opportunities as corporate or litigation paralegals are available to students that pursue an education. Students that enter an accredited program online gain an education that allows them to enter a satisfying career as a paralegal or legal assistant. Accreditation is provided by agencies like the American Bar Association (http://www.abanet.org/) to programs that offer a quality education. Numerous colleges offer programs at various educational levels and students can complete a program in as little as two years. Begin education now and research online colleges.

DISCLAIMER: Above is a GENERIC OUTLINE and may or may not depict precise methods, courses and/or focuses related to ANY ONE specific school(s) that may or may not be advertised at PETAP.org.

Copyright 2010 - All rights reserved by PETAP.org.

Adult websites hosting requires much more attention as compared to other hosting types, due to its tendency of offending cyber laws most of the times. There are a plenty of adult websites in the web world today, a majority of which have already applied a few measurements for keeping the underage individuals from entering them. This is because if they do not put any such warning message on their websites, they will be in trouble with abiding the cyber law.

To start with, you first need to look for a web hosting provider which accepts adult content, such as HostGator, ThePlanet and many more. Once you are through with your research, the next step is to determine the amount of system resources you would need, including the disk space, bandwidth and so forth. With the system resources, you must also decide on the budget that you would allocate to each of them. Adult websites depend heavily on graphic displays of adult content to attract the visitors, which further requires you to have a huge amount of bandwidth to accommodate the adult content with videos, images and flash. If you are planning to offer membership benefits to your clients into your adult website for them to download videos thereon, you would need more bandwidth to support the activity.

Disk storage is another important factor required for the uploading of plenty of content. You would need plenty of disk space to hold large-sized files of videos and images as they take lot of space. The look and appearance of your website will largely determine whether your visitors would stay on your website for long or go.

In addition to the above, a good web hosting solution for an adult website is definitely a dedicated hosting, which enables the hosting of an adult website with much greater flexibility and power. Dedicated servers also facilitate system resources at a reduced cost because they can be shared with other website owners.

Article directory is a source of web content where you can find articles on various categories. Few directories offer these articles free and you can publish the content on your website or newsletter. The idea behind uploading new content is to optimize the visibility of your portal on the Internet. When you add new articles and content that is rich in keyword, it leads to search engine optimization. Let us throw light on these two terms, keyword and SEO (search engine optimization). Keyword is a word used in the article that is relevant to your product or service. For instance, if you sell computer hardware, you may want to include keywords related to the components of computer hardware. Similarly, if you provide some services you will wish to upload content with keyword related to the services offered by your company. Keywords are the words typed by a potential customer in the search engine. When people type a particular keyword, the search engine delivers a list of websites that have information related to the keyword. In order to remain on the top of the list, companies use SEO articles that are rich in keywords. These articles can be sourced through an article directory. There are several advantages of using such directories.

Advantages

There are different categories of articles available. Different authors write the articles so you can be assured of a huge variety. Moreover, more number of authors would mean different writing styles. There is no scope for monotony when different authors contribute articles. In fact, there is a lot of freshness in the content. Apart from that, an article directory also offers quality content. Under each category, there are hundreds of articles to choose from. It can certainly help in creating a visibility on the Internet. SEO and keyword rich content is one of the best online marketing strategies. Here are some of the categories that are available.

Categories

There are several categories of articles available on such directories. Some of the categories are as follows:

*Accounting - This would include content related to auditing, bookkeeping, budgeting, receivables, and so on.

*Beauty - Here the content would be based on fashion, clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, etc.

*Business - The type of content available under this category would be e-commerce, advertising, multimedia, communications, business opportunities, training, team building, partnerships, loans, grants, venture capital, network marketing, human resources, compensation, management, leadership, public company, sales, etc.

*Finance - The article directory will have content related to banking, credit, credit cards, real estate, personal finance, stocks and funds, insurance, investing, leasing, real estate, taxes, wealth building, currency trading, etc.

*Legal - You will find articles related to law, intellectual property, regulatory compliance, cyber law, internet law, patents, etc.

*Lifestyle And Recreation - Under this category there are articles related to entertainment, hobbies, games, movies, sports, camping, hunting, travel and tourism, yoga, alternate healing methods, nightlife, cruises etc.

This is a glimpse of some of the categories that can be found in an article directory. Such directories cover many more topics. There is no dearth of web content and some of the companies offer it for free. So increase your presence on the Internet and upload keyword rich content on your website.

You can do an internet search for cyber-bullying victims who have committed suicide. With the advent of the internet, social media sites, and texting, the school bullies have new tools to intimidate, pick on, tease and harass other students for an anonymous distance. These attacks make their victims feel embarrassed, hurt, angry, fearful, afraid, helpless, hopeless, isolated, ashamed, and even guilty that the bullying is somehow your fault. Cyber bully victims may even feel as in the cases cited above-suicidal.

October is National Cyber security Awareness Month and this article is dedicate towards arming you to deal with these Cyber-monsters.

These Cyber Monsters (or Bullies) are disturbed individuals take perverse pleasure in sending cruel or bullying message to individuals, or habitually embarrassing people in cyberspace with video images, or photo shopped pictures. They do it all with the aid of technology.

There are essentially two kinds of cyber-bullying. The first is by direct attacks. That is harmful or insulting messages sent directly to you or your children. The second form of cyber-bullying is by proxy. That is using or getting others to help cyber-bully the victim, either with or without the accomplice's knowledge. Because cyber-bullying by proxy often gets adults involved in the harassment, it is much more dangerous. These messages range from annoying to frightening to outright threatening. Often in the by proxy method, a harmful message or rumor is sent around to a group of people, who will then by into the message and begin using the content of the message to harass you either in cyberspace or in person.

Unless you feel that you are in personal physical or psychological danger, the most effective response to a cyber-bully is to ignore him or her. In any bullying situation, it is always best to report it to someone in authority and have the incidents documented.. Whether operating in the cyber realm or in real life, most bullies are insecure twerps that are seeking attention or power. If you simply deny them what they are looking for, they will seek a new target.

Know This: it is against federal law threaten, intimidate, or harass anyone in person, by mail, or online. Using a social media websites (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus etc.) - or any other online resource - to threaten or harass anyone will leave evidence that can be used to bring the perpetrator to justice. Doing this illegal activity exposes the Cyber-monster to criminal charges as well as civil lawsuits.

Things you can do

• Don't blame yourself. It is not your fault. You are not responsible on how people treat you, only in how your treat others. No matter what someone falsely says or does, you should not be ashamed of who you are, and who you are striving to be.


• Ignore them- If you reply or respond to a message from a bully, he or she will know what they did worked on you. If you respond in kind, it will just show that you are not better than the bully. So the best thing to do is to print the message, file it, and then delete it from your PC. There is a saying, "Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."


• Contact the Service Provider - If you feel that the cyber bully has gone overboard, then you should already tell the moderator or service provider of the site or service about it. Many of these actions are a violation of their policies of using their service. If cyber monsters are already faking your name or making a profile under your name without your knowledge, you can ask your service provider or moderator to remove the profile or email.


• Change your Online ID -One way to get away from a cyber-monsters is by changing your screen name and email address. Be sure to give the new email address and screen name only to your trusted friends. Also, block any messages from strangers or those that are not included in your contact list.


• Report IT -If you receive threatening emails or if your reputation and credibility is already being undermined, then you should tell your parents and ask your parents to help you report the bullying to the school or even the police.

Why do we need federal laws to make bullying a crime and to require schools to have anti-bullying policies?

The saga of Billy Wolfe should be enough to convince you. Over a year ago, the New York Times reported that Billy was being bullied relentlessly by two bigger guys from his high school in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He was beaten up in a bathroom at school and on the school bus and in shop class and in Spanish class. The bullies put up a Facebook page harassing him. A brother of one of the bullies even recorded on his cell phone camera, the bully getting out of a car, walking up to an unsuspecting Billy, who was waiting at a bus stop, punching him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead and then showing the video around the school.

The authorities did nothing while the violence and brutality went on for three years. Billy's parents tried to get the bully's parents and the school authorities to stop the bullying but the assistant principal, Byron Lynn Zeigler, did nothing to stop it.

Oh, he said it was Billy's fault and immediately suspended him. He blamed the victim. Days later Ziegler watched the recording and showed Billy's parents that their son was innocent. But he didn't stop the bullies.

Billy's parents finally went to court. After almost a year, the court has ruled on whether to keep considering the motions on behalf of Billy.

Why do Billy and his parents need laws? Why do we need to require schools to have anti-bullying policies?

According to the story by Scott F. Davis in the Northwest Arkansas Times, although the court kept intact many of the charges, it ruled that the plaintiffs (Billy and his parents) failed to show that the school had an official policy that led to the alleged problems surrounding bullying.

Let's put that in simple English. Assistant principal Ziegler argued that since the school didn't have an official policy supporting bullying, it wasn't the school's fault that bullying occurred on school premises and they can't be held liable for the bullying. Also, since the school didn't have official anti-bullying policies, Ziegler didn't have to stop the bullying; even that part of the bullying that occurred on school grounds. The court agreed.

Because there are no laws specifically about bullying and beating kids up, Billy's parents had to try to use laws that are on the books against sexual harassment.

Now do you understand the need for laws that would require administrators to take proactive measures to prevent bullying on school grounds and also laws that would require administrators to stop bullying that's brought to their attention?

The teenagers at school all knew what was going on. They saw the cell phone video. They knew that the legitimate authorities had turned their backs and given the bullies a free hand. When the responsible authorities allow bullies to control the turf, they allow violence and scapegoating, harassment and brutality.

Billy may have tried to fight back, but that doesn't make him the problem. That just makes him one child against two bigger kids. And with the size disparity that often happens in middle school and high school, he can't win without adult help. When his parents went to the school, way back at the beginning when it was only threats, the district wouldn't act.

I'm sensitive to principals that don't protect the victims because I'm from Denver. Remember Columbine High School.

Of course, the bullies' parents are to blame for allowing their sons to act that way. But when schools tolerate bullying, the real problems are the administrators (principals and assistants) and teachers.

Have those ignorant, cowardly principals in Fayetteville not learned anything. There are many schools in the country which don't tolerate bullying because the principals won't tolerate it and, therefore, their teachers and staff won't either. And the successful ones have no better statutes to back them. However, they do have consciences.

Whatever the court decides on the basis of law; shame on those adults. They have shamed themselves and their community. They are definitely not models who should be allowed to teach or administer for children.

On an individual basis, parents must teach children how to face the real world in which they'll meet bullies all their lives, even if the children are small and outnumbered. That's independent of the type of bullying - cyber bullying, physical bullying or verbal harassment or abuse. Help your children get out of their previous comfort zones and stop bullies.

True bullies will take empathy, kindness and tolerance as weakness. They'll think we're easy prey. It will encourage them, like sharks, to attack us more. Bullies will show you how far you need to go to stop them.

Read "Parenting Bully-Proof Kids." Get coaching to design tactics that fit your specific situation. Take charge of your personal space

You've got the idea, you've got the drive, and you have the resources...but where do you go from there? Many Internet Marketers never consider the foundation of their business, instead choosing the "fly by the seat of your pants" approach. It doesn't work, and many who have tried this approach fall down in flames or file for bankruptcy. Consider this: you know a little bit about building houses, so you decide to build your own. You build your two story house in 3 days, with only the knowledge you have and with as cheap as materials as possible. How long do you think that house will stand up when the window blows, or a hard rain comes? It won't. Instead, you'll be looking at a pile of rubble asking yourself what went wrong.

What went wrong is you didn't get the right advice from the start. A study done by the National Federation of Independent Business' Education Foundation found that nearly 2/3 of all new businesses start in the owner's home. That is 67%, an astounding number. Of that, only 39% are ever profitable. So what's the secret to the other 61% that were profitable? Planning. A trusted team of advisors. Luck. And sound legal advice.

Internet Marketing generally encompasses any of the following:

- Affiliate Marketing
- Article Marketing
- Blogging
- Pay Per Click Ads (PPC)
- Banner Ads
- Social Media Marketing
- E-Mail Marketing

In truth, there is a lot more than just the above. Internet marketing law involves aspects of business law, internet law, advertising law, and even tax law. The types of questions that usually come about are "Is my blog legal" or "Can I buy this domain name and not get in trouble?". The answer depends on the facts as there is still no clear cut answer. The law has been slow to catch up to technology, so with each passing day more and more questions are being asked and not being answered. So before you jump into the internet marketing business, make sure you contact a trusted advisor.

Due to opportunities presented with the digital age, both good and bad, law enforcement takes on a new turn as cyber crime quickly adds to the statistics. Partly due to lack of knowledge within the general consumer, offenders insinuate themselves into havens previously thought to be safe and sound. As the computer becomes a conduit to a whole new horizon of experiences and information, it can also allow unhealthy elements to enter if proper defenses are not put in place. Individuals, young and old, become targets for all sorts of perpetrators as they unknowingly release information about themselves. It then becomes easy work for the offenders to close in for the kill, so to speak.

In a different slant away from offence to the physical body, property theft in the form of copyrights and identities reign high in the world of cyber crime. To address the former, various laws are formulated to protect the individual's rights. In the event such a violation is detected, due process needs to be carried out in order to prove any illegal doings and consequences thereafter. Phishing is also gaining speed as these crime fighters do the necessary to shut down such activities as well as push the need for the public to be better educated.

Those interested to pursue academic advances in this area need to be well-versed in computers and the like to make effective contributors to lowering crime rates and property theft of the physical and virtual kind. Although the older generation of law enforcers may feel intimidated with the gadgetry and terminology associated with technology, it is an imminent fate for all to join the broadband of brothers. As it complements conventional law enforcement rather than compete with it, study into the field of cyber crime allows one to learn the ways and thoughts of the criminally yet technologically inclined. Records of offenders are entered into computer systems to constantly monitor their activities and enable extensive searches based on their profiles thus resulting in more efficient means of fighting crime.

When the escalating global business world of new products and services saw the benefits of emarketing, web sites, and search engine optimization to attract new business, conventional industries such as law firms stayed back in observation, continuing to sell services the old fashioned way, assuming customer acquisition within their local market was best accomplished and served through building a solid local reputation, word of mouth and the continuation of direct sales methods, mail, and local media.

As time went by, and market share inside all industries diminished as competition grew, law firms observed with increased interest how the web, developing a web site and advertising their law services on-line, may indeed be the key to a potential new and thrilling gateway to business growth within their local community and beyond.

The landscape of the law industry is changing rapidly, and website marketing is now an ever present advertising tool used by all legal companies globally to overcome extreme competition for customer and company legal services. The volume of law fees in the United States is increasing, and the competition for these fees is growing even faster. In this intense competitive environment, one of the top areas to spend advertising dollars to gain new clients is the internet. There are many directories on the Internet that a lawyer can list their services by specialization and location, accessible to their direct market.

Many new law cases involve family conflicts and personal injury cases. In the past, these 2 practice areas have thrived on traditional advertising including yellow pages and TV ads. These methods are no longer as helpful and efficient as they once were. So more and more attorneys have turned their advertising dollars to the internet.

Legal professional internet advertising is mounting rapidly. This marketing avenue offers a lower cost to reach a much wider audience of potential clients. Lawyers need to investigate and establish the varying internet methods in existence and experiment what is suitable for them, in order to guarantee their best return on investment in internet marketing.

The web is now bursting with offers for attorneys to publicize but all too often these cyber opportunities are not offered with regard to the attorney's direct area, specialization and market. Attorneys beginning their own internet marketing are often unaware of which internet techniques should take precedence, which have some value, and which are a total waste of time and money.

Law experts that decide to retain website promoting experts have the advantage of not having to make their own strategy judgments and don't have to expend the time executing the frequently time-consuming search engine optimization work. Even if an internet expert is utilized, legal professionals can do much on their own easily to attract on-line clients and establish the best fit for their ongoing website advertising. An online listing in a directory allowing key content about service specialization to be listed is an efficient low cost method to guarantee a presence online, and an increase in legal professional website traffic.

As with any professional marketing relationship, the connection between a law professional and its website marketing entity should be founded on research and trust. The legal firm needs to be completely conscious of the directory's inclusion of their services within their specialization, what content is needed for them to succeed and isn't doing anything that will damage the firm's website and/or reputation.

The web is a continuously evolving place. Cyber content in each industry is added to the web every second. The most efficient way for lawyer's to stay ahead and on top of the internet advertising roller coaster is to ensure that legal advertisers are constantly listed in the right specialized directories within their market segment.

The internet nowadays has become one of our foremost sources of information, a tool for business, recreation and communication. Everything you would want to know about almost anything under the sun can be found on the internet. Despite of all the positive ways that we can use the internet, it has also become a tool for certain individuals with not so good intentions. These individuals use the internet to do malicious things.

The internet is a power piece of technology. It allowed us to do things that were not possible before the internet. It allowed businesses to compete on the international market which was difficult and expensive before the internet. The internet also allowed individuals to communicate with families and friends no matter where they are in the world. These are just some of the positive benefits of the internet. In the years that followed after the internet was introduced to the general public, individuals of shady characters discovered how to use the internet for their own malicious purpose. The internet has become a playing ground for criminals. Cyber crimes are being perpetrated in earnest ranging from internet scams to gambling, and to this day the law seems to be unable to put a stop to these problems. One of the most prevalent problems on the internet is pornography. It is safe to say that pornography is the biggest problem on the internet today. A number of years ago pornography and pornographic materials can only be accessed through printed media and videos which were strictly controlled by the law.

Back then minors would have a difficult time trying to access such materials. Things have changed a lot since then. Now pornography has become a booming industry on the internet and with little or no control by the law. Now anybody and everybody have access to pornography through the internet. Age restriction as mandated by law for pornographic materials is not in effect where internet pornography is concerned. This level of access to pornographic materials and videos is a threat to children. Another bad side of this booming business of pornography is that the producers of these videos not only prey on women but young underage girls and children for their videos leaving their victims scarred for the rest of their lives. Internet pornography also propagated the rising numbers of sexual predators on the internet who prey on innocent children on the internet.

Pornography on the internet should be kept in check. The government should be some form of control to keep those who use the internet safe. Child pornography should be closely monitored and the sites closed. All laws pertaining to the adult movie industry should be enforced and new laws passed to curb this problem. It is true that we have our rights, but these rights come with responsibilities too. Age restrictions should be fully enforced by the law and parents should be vigilant when they allow their children to use the internet. The internet should be safe for everybody to use whether you're an 8 year old kid or a 50 year old man.

Has your child ever been a victim of a cyber bully? Would you even know if they had? Most parents would not know. Cyber bullying is quite a new trend and most cases are never reported to law enforcement. Polls and surveys are showing that incidents are increasing exponentially, and it is time for parents to sit up and take notice. One in ten youngsters state that they have had an embarrassing photo taken of them via cellphone and that photo was used to publicly humiliate and embarrass them. One in three young people report that they have been the recipient of cyber threats or negative messages via text, email or social network websites. A cyber bully is usually an acquaintance or classmate, who, in response to a real or imagined slight, attempts to take revenge on the object of their malice through a smear campaign using electronic media. The culprit will often enlist the help of other peers to "gang up" on the victim and flood their text and email inbox with negative and even threatening messages. These messages can have a lasting and damaging effect on the fragile psyche of an adolescent child. This type of bullying has been blamed for the rise in teen suicide attempts in recent years.

The victims of malice behaviour can become agitated, withdrawn, depressed and angry. If parents notice a change in youngsters' behavior, they should do their utmost to determine the cause. In previous years, failing grades and mood changes might have indicated drug use. Isolation and depression along with social changes can be an indicator of substance abuse, but can also be the effects of cyber bullying. There is a feeling of shame and embarrassment that goes along with this type of victimization. Parents must intervene at the first sign of anything amiss. Communicating with your youngster about bullying in all forms is crucial to putting a stop to the problem. Reassure your young person that they do not deserve to be treated this way, and that you will do all you can to stop the problem and bring the cyber bully to justice. Help your youngster to take all the steps necessary to rid him/herself of the presence of the cyber bully, and they should help bring this perpetrator to justice so it does not happen to anyone else. Show your child that you are on his side in this matter, and that cyber bullying will not be tolerated.

Cyber bullying can come in many forms and a cyber bully can use a variety of tools to accomplish his/her task including cell phones, computers, and game consoles. The bullying can come in the form of a direct attack or cyber bullying by proxy. In a direct attack the cyber bully is personally responsible for the acts whereas in cyber bullying by proxy the offender coerces others into bullying the target.

Simply talking things over with the bully(s) or their parents may resolve the issue. If this does not work or is not feasible, the next step is to ignore and block the attacks. An attempt should be made to block the offender's email account, phone number, or other means of bullying. If they still attempt to bully through cyberspace then reporting the attacks will be necessary. Report the bullying to the school system, Internet service provider, and ultimately to the authorities.

In reporting cyber crimes to the authorities make sure that you have records of the emails, texts, or messages as proof of the harassment. Do not attempt to lash out as this will only add fuel to the fire and likely leave a trail that could be used to paint you as the bully instead of the victim. Research state laws to determine what legal action can be taken, as legislation on cyber crimes differs from state to state. The key in dealing with cyber bullying is to maintain control and begin with the least confrontational solution, escalating to more extreme measures only as necessary.

For the last several days I've been investigating reports on where a lot of our virus and "phishing" problems are coming from. Would you believe, Brazil? Most of Brazil is poor, with an average wage of less than $500 per month. Even so, many Brazilian cities provide free, wireless high-speed connections for those who have access to a computer.

This is a double edge sword. It's great for entrepreneurs interested in starting new Internet businesses, and it allows programmers the opportunity to market there creations, but it also opens the door to individuals who make a living pirating software and music. Even worse, it allows unscrupulous hackers to setup shop stealing passwords and credit card numbers world wide by running elaborate phishing schemes from private apartments able to receive these signals. One reference said that as much as 80 percent of the world's hackers operate from Brazil!

Basically, because Brazil is a third world country, there are few laws governing Internet usage and even fewer people to enforce them. Some of Brazil's laws don't make much sense to us in the United States. Here's what I mean. In Brazil, it's not illegal to break into someone's website, even if it's a business. It only becomes a crime when someone actually steals money while committing the break-in. Even if credit card numbers are stolen, no crime has been committed until they are fraudulently used.

I mentioned phishing earlier. Many of you may not realize what phishing is...but if you've been on the Internet at all, you've probably already been targeted. Phishing, is a practice cyber thieves use in order to get you to give them your bank account, credit card, or social security numbers. It's pronounced "fishing" and that's exactly what they do. The send out bait in the form of an email that looks exactly like it came from your bank, eBay, or Microsoft. They use the correct logos, wording, even the return address (of course, it's not the real return address) looks authentic. When you fill in the information they've requested, it goes directly to the cyber thief who then steals your money.

Because these people work out of places like Brazil, or other countries (India and Russia are also at the top of the list.) where there's little that can be done about it...thousands of US citizens have lost millions of dollars and continue to do so. Setting up a phishing operation isn't hard. There's a "hacker" magazine in Brazil that prints this kind of information on a monthly basis. Over 20,000 copies a month are sold at newsstands. You can also find them on the web. I don't want to give them any free advertising so I won't print a link to their website, but I did download one of their publications entitled "Phishing for Fun and Profit." Scary!

The governments might be trying to get a handle on things, but with all of the other problems happening in the world today, I'm afraid that cybercrime is just not something that's very high on their 'to-do' list. It's going to be up to you to protect yourself. Keep your virus and spyware definitions current and running at all times. Don't click on suspicious Pop-ups. And most important of all, NEVER give out any financial information to anyone asking for it in an email!

Internet Security has become an umbrella term encompassing everything from hacker detection to anti-virus protection. The focus of this article is on how employee misuse of the Internet can affect your bottom line. One of our company's quickest success stories was a customer who kept losing competitive bids for contracts based on price. Fearing an inside leak, the customer installed our Employee Internet Management software and quickly discovered that one of his employees was being compensated for emailing confidential bid details to a major competitor. Another of our customers, a large hospital, was inundated with viruses -and not the biological sort. Computer viruses were frequently plaguing its systems, rendering them useless at times.

Antivirus and antispyware software tools would successfully clean up defiled systems, but only after they wreaked havoc for users and the IT staff. The hospital installed our solution in order to identify usage patterns and determine and block likely Web sites and users that were the root cause of their issues. The hospital's primary concern was that an employee could inadvertently download a trojan, making an infected computer a gateway to external hackers and providing unauthorized access to patient information.

The fastest growing cyber crime involves the buying and selling of intellectual property-a company's new product designs, proprietary financial information and confidential memos. An increasing percentage of valuable corporate data is being electronically siphoned and sold to the competition. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the biggest threats to information security often don't come from hackers. They come from a company's own employees. The insider threat and internal surrogates are the focus of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division. Malicious acts by disgruntled employees, viruses picked up in e-mail spam or from seemingly innocuous Web sites and corporate espionage are all areas that require conscientious governance. Security risks may also be inadvertent. Take Phishing for example. Here, a phony Web site dupes unsuspecting users by publishing Web pages with the look and feel of the authentic Web site it intends to mimic.

Suppose your accounts payable clerk receives an email from what appears to be your company's bank. She responds to the email which asks her to click on a Web link to update her email address. As expected, her Web browser opens and she is taken to a site that has been built with the exact look and feel of your bank's Web site. As usual, the clerk is prompted to enter her secure user name and password. After entering her credentials, nothing visually happens.However, something very damaging does happen; The Phishing site has captured her credentials and the authors of the phony site can now access your account at the authentic bank Web site. The bottom line is if you are in business and your employees use computers, you need to protect your data against unauthorized access - both internally and external - and the best methods for doing so are always a balance between technology and personnel management.

The next series will discuss strategies for dealing with productivity, liability and security issues caused by inappropriate use of the Internet. Pearl Software provides Internet monitoring, filtering and control products to government agencies,corporations, hospitals, schools and libraries throughout the world. Pearl Software's key patent-pending products include Pearl Echo®, Website-Echo(TM) and IM-Echo(TM).The company also offers browser control software, TakeMeHome(TM) and partners with law enforcement to extend the application of its remote and mobile Internet monitoring and control capabilities. For additional information on Pearl Software or to request a full copy of this transcript.

The Internet, or simply "the Net", has a profound impact on modern society by publicly providing a worldwide source of information, by being a preferred means of communication and by acting as a powerful entertainment tool. However, in the last few years, governments from all over the world are seeing it as a liability and are discussing how to take action to insure that it is not exploited by "cybercriminals". This article evaluates the abstract idea of governmental control over the Internet, by providing potent arguments for both sides of the debate, in an attempt to decide whether this is the right path for prohibiting cyberspace abuse.

It is impossible to accurately calculate the sheer size, use and growth of the entire global system, but it is reasonable to assume that the Internet is the "fastest-growing communication medium in human history". There is controversy over its origin and many people have contributed to the worldwide system but Tim Berners-Lee brought a public face to the Internet with his research in HTML and HTTP at CERN in Switzerland in 1991. By 1995 the Internet had entered the public domain and it had become uncontrollable - "first scientists, then academics and finally the general public" utilised the tremendous capacities for connectivity and communication. Because "the Internet just happened", as asserted by Dennis Jennings, a network pioneer who played a major role in the emergence of the worldwide web, the system appears to the layman as a disorganized distributed network and that governments will not be able to regulate the system fully, even if they aspire to so.

The most popular belief is that as the Internet has no centralised point and that in consequence it is inherently uncontrollable. This is a myth encouraged by a lot of wishful thinking and not a lot of fact. When users visit a website or send an e-mail, Domain Name System (DNS) root servers search their hierarchical distributed databases and translate worldwide unique names, such as a website address and matches them with their corresponding Internet Protocol number. Due to technical constraints the network can only ever have 13 root servers and, because of the informal manner in which the Internet evolved, ten of the root servers are operated by American administrators. This notorious American hegemony seen in most industries illustrates in principle how America has Internet governance and the possibility of surveying most Internet transactions worldwide.

Regulation using DNS root servers is just one example of the diverse methods of surveillance but its not just governmental administrations that wish to record Internet data. The Internet giant Google rules the search engine industry with a 30 percent monopoly, with an average of 200 million searches a day. When a search is carried out using Google the system collects personal information to enhance the service and customise results. However, to achieve this, Google assigns a unique cookie ID number on your computer and then utilises log file cookies, that do not expire until 2038, that have the ability to retain an unprecedented amount of personal information about every search you have conducted using the system. So in principle this data informs Google of what is going on in every user's head, what products you are considering purchasing, where your next holiday will be and even which embarrassing illnesses you have been researching. Privacy advocates are raising concerns about Google, calling the company's records a potential gold mine of information for law enforcement.

Recently, Google has been in a legal conflict with the US Justice Department who have demanded that the company surrenders data about more than a billion searches. The subpoena is part of the Bush administration's attempt to revive a law meant to shield children from online pornographic material. Eventually US District Judge James Ware "emphasized his sensitivity to Google's concerns during a court hearing" and concluded by granting the Justice Department a scaled down request of 50 thousand randomly sampled search requests. Google displayed a staunch resistance to the government's demands, but still the incident shed light on Google's perception of public privacy and they were rewarded with a fall in stock prices.

A randomly generated telephone poll carried out by Ponemon Institute following the subpoena revealed that 77 per cent of users were unaware of Google recording personal information. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt claims their main objective of this huge personal information database is to educate their artificial intelligent system resulting in a "Google that knows more about you." But is it necessary to keep the data for 35 years? The survey additionally revealed that 56 per cent of users said Google should not turn over information to the Government, and only 14 per cent were happy for Google to hand over information even in criminal cases. Hence the public do not seem to want Internet governance by anyone.

Searching through huge databases and finding committed crimes is an example of a systemically impractical regulation technique. However, the Chinese authorities have raised the stakes and have adopted a vast security gateway, comically branded "The Great Firewall of China." The system has been employed so that all Internet traffic entering or leaving China must pass through government-controlled gateways resulting in the government having complete censorship within Mainland China. This is an example of an extreme action where authorities have stopped the future of free expression because they believe it disrupts social stability and jeopardises state security.

One of the latest in a long line of Chinese restrictions on Internet-related activity that has received a large amount of media coverage is the creation of its very own specialised Google search engine. To obey with China's censorship laws Google has created a site that purges any search results of any websites disapproved by the Chinese authority. Examples include sites promoting Falun Gong, free speech in China and any mention of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Google's conduct in China did not go well with the people of the United States, their stocks fell and protestors waved placards outside their headquarters "comparing them to Nazi collaborators". Many protestors such as Julian Pain, spokesman for Reporters without Borders, said that Google's decision to "collaborate" with the Chinese government was a "real shame". When the company went public two years ago, the co-founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page filed submissions with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that they are "a company that is trustworthy and interested in the public good". However, most people see their decision as based solely on financial considerations as the number of Internet users in China currently stands at 100 million and is expected to rise to 187 million in two years time.

The main point to consider about Google's conduct with China is how people all over the world reacted when it came to cyberspace freedom. We have exposed the diverse methods of observing Internet transactions but if other governments decide to follow in China's footsteps and proactively intervene with the industry they will need to present strong arguments for its requirement.

Cybercrime is one of the fastest-growing criminal activities on the planet. It covers a huge range of illegal activity including financial scams, computer hacking (which is now considered as terrorism), child pornographic material, virus attacks, and creation of websites that promote racial hatred. "Given the extent to which computers have become a part of modern life, it was inevitable that some people would see the wired world as an opportunity to make money or cause mischief", said by Home Secretary Jack Straw, is evidentially true as the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer recently put the global figure of illegal cybercrimes at more than $40bn a year.

Spam is destroying the Internet and the benefits of systems such as email and needs to be stopped by legal intervention otherwise the Internet will collapse. Spam accounts for approximately 50 percent of all email and is growing. Many regimes have already legislated to ban Spam and it does not seem unreasonable to envisage in this legislation. However, the best means of intervention in the fight against the Spam plague would be "Self-regulation", as it has worked in many industries, particularly the financial world, and would only require computer owners to take reasonable precautions against infection and illicit use of their machines to distribute Spam, by simply updating anti-virus and filtering software.

Additionally to "self-regulation" authorities should impose higher penalties and more prosecutions, as gangs of organised cyber criminals who launch these Spam campaigns are not going to stop because of the huge profit the illicit activity makes. But for Governments to assert that privacy of e-mail communication should be breached to combat Spam is an immoral decision. If the Royal Mail decided to make photocopies of every letter that went through their service there would be public outburst so why is the situation any different when it comes to the Internet?

However, it is obvious that officials have to address these concerns and isolate the vast number of illegal activities committed but what is the right action to take? Currently President Bush is pushing to ratify the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention (CECC) global agreement that permits Internet surveillance and would pose as serious threat for privacy at home. The President of United States promises it would "be an effective tool in the global effort to combat computer-related crime" and added that it is the "only international treaty to address the problems of computer-related crime and electronic evidence gathering."

But do we really want law enforcement conducting surveillance on people worldwide who have not committed any crimes in order to help enforce the law of some criminal party in Columbia?"

In this article I have considered the Governmental implications for Internet regulation together with the right for free expression. Personally the question has a tendency to pull at me from both sides in the debate and I can see that cybercrime is becoming a huge problem. However I do not believe that regimes all over the world should suppress economic liberalisation due to criminal activity because in a sense an action like that is criminal in itself. The CECC agreement should not be ratified as it is difficult to apply one set of laws which would be universally accepted by different cultures, religious sects or social groups. My final opinion is that authorities should improve upon "self-regulation" so that the Internet becomes a more attractive environment, particularly for children, as they are unable to defend for themselves.

We sure hear a lot about cyber crime, and hackers. In fact, it seems like some company, business, government agency, or other organization is being hacked into every single day. One has to ask; how bad is the problem, and will it ever go away? There are so many hackers, it's hard to tell what they're up to, some are just curious doing it for thrills, some are up to no good, some are hacktivists, and others are actually terrorists, or rogue nation cyber armies purposefully attacking our infrastructure, data, or corporations to exploit us.

That's a scary thought indeed, and our government spends 10s billions of dollars every year securing its data centers, and networks. The amount of money spent on IT security in Washington DC is unbelievable, and some of this is due to Lobbyists, fear, political pet projects, job employment, and an honest assessment in protecting our military computer systems.

There was a rather troubling piece in the Homeland Security Online News recently titled; "Cybercrime statistics wildly inaccurate, says researcher" which was published on June 29, 2011 that stated;

"A cybersecurity researcher questions statistics from government officials & IT sector as evidence of the runaway effects of hackers; Cormac Herley, of Microsoft research states the existing data on the estimated losses from cyberattacks is wildly inaccurate. Analysts have no idea what the problem's economic impacts are; estimates of annual cost range from $560 million to $100 billion to $1 trillion, asks: "How can this be? How can you have estimates of the same problem ranging across three orders of magnitude?"

Well, there are probably a lot of reasons why these estimates are so large, and part of the problem is that not everyone reports all of the hacking or cyber crime, because they don't want to admit that their IT systems are less than fully secure. Of course they do have to by law warn customers when their data has been breached, or now shareholders as well, if anything that has happened, or if a significant amount of pertinent data has been stolen.

Some IT professionals say their systems are hacked into, or attempted on each and every day. And of course there is a little bit of fear in the media, and publicity scare tactics, along with IT Lobbyists, and Cloud Technology Companies looking for big government contracts. The Military Cyber Commands also wish to maintain strong funding, build new buildings, and by more systems. And the hackers love to brag each time they hack into someone else's network, and they are the first ones to alert the media for those bragging rights.

Because of all these factors it's hard to say whose data you can trust, or whose figures are correct. But I believe that Cormac Herley from Microsoft Research is correct, and he puts it in very simple terms. Indeed it appears that no one knows, and anyone who does know, doesn't seem to be telling, or rather their data is being washed out by media propaganda on all sides. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Whether it’s YouTube for videos or Flicker for photographs, the ever increasing demand for entertainment leads to the creation of more and more websites dedicates to displaying amateur “art” in the hopes of widespread popularity. As evidenced by the recent sale of YouTube to Google for $1.65 Billion, once a website gains widespread popularity, riches are not far away. This trend has increased the demand for new and entertaining content. Most times such services rely on self-submitted videos, photos or articles, but as more sites pop up, available supply dwindles. Consequently, a phenomenon commonly referred to as “website hacking” has become more and more popular. This form of hacking occurs when an individual uses some service or sight to put up their own video, photo or blog, in order to share that particular medium with known friends. Hackers looking for new and original content will often hack this information and use it on their own site, in an attempt to gain hits and popularity in the effort to be the next YouTube.

Most times this form of hacking goes undiscovered, or alternatively, if discovered, the true owner of the personal copyright views it as too time or money consuming to go after the hacker. Whether or not you view it as such, this form of hacking constitutes theft. Unlike theft of tangible goods or chattels, this is theft of intellectual property to which only you have the right. When the theft, or hacking, rises to the level of intrusion where it becomes necessary to take action, a person must first determine how to go about putting a stop to the theft. .

The first necessary step is identifying the source of the original theft. When the intellectual property has been stolen for some period of time, this can be a difficult task. Most often the material hasn’t spread to the point where it is difficult to track down the original hacker. However, if you find that the information has spread, you should contact the administrator of each website and identify yourself as the primary source, and most sites will post a correction. If you can at least find a name or business name, you may then use certain directories to track down a mailing or email address [such as [http://www.whois.godaddy.com], http://www.whois.sc and [http://www.dns.com], among others].

The next step, without involving an attorney, is to contact the hacker using the information found regarding their site. You should first make a request that they stop broadcasting your material. The first request should remain polite, in the event that they truly don’t know their site is using your property. If your efforts are repudiated or met without a response, it may be necessary to contact an attorney to take further action.

If repudiated and you decide you would like to press forward, you should contact an attorney experienced in cyberlaw matters. A qualified attorney can help you begin to preserve evidence by creating a paper trail, gather information and properly establish ownership over the stolen material. Once ownership is established the attorney can help you to register your copyright with the United States Copyright office, since in the United States, it is necessary to register a work prior to enforcing your rights with regard to that work. Once registered, the attorney will likely elect to issue an inexpensive Cease and Desist order to the cyber hacker. Based on the Cease and Desist order, you should then contact those who advertise on the hacker’s sight, as well as associated search engines, and demonstrate to them that your material is the subject of a Cease and Desist order. Most search engines will immediately comply since Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act (DMCA) creates a safe harbor for these companies, preventing them from sustaining any liability when immediately pulling material in response to such a request. These steps, supported by the consumer oriented DMCA, enable cyber theft victims to minimize the damage done by the hacker.

If the cyber hacker still refuses to stop using your now copyrighted material, your attorney can properly advise you on how to proceed, and what type of court action may be necessary to ensure compliance with your order, and whether any form of damages may be available to you in your enforcement proceedings. Only an experienced cyber law attorney can efficiently and accurately guide you through the web difficulty which arises when personal content has been stolen by illegal cyber-hackers. Individuals must take steps to keep personal material personal and to ensure that the hackers are not allowed to continue committing their illegal acts.

Bullying is no longer something that happens out in the real world. So many more children and teenagers are now being bullied online through social networking sites. Here is some advice on how to prevent this form of bullying.

Your Online Friends

If you do find yourself being bullied or harassed by someone in social network you can block them or delete. You can always become friends again with them later. This will stop them being able to add rude comments to any pictures or videos you have uploaded and prevents them from be able to post abusive messages on your profile wall.

Identity Theft

Identity theft can happen on sites such as Bebo, MySpace or Facebook. This happens when someone either hacks into your account or pretends to be you when they set up a new account.

Try to pick an unusual password and use letters and numbers. Do not use any part of your name or email address and do not use your birth date either because that's easy for people who know you to guess. Do not let anyone see you signing in and if they do, change the password as soon as you can.

If you do see that someone has created a fake account in your name report it to the customer service department of that particular site.

Rumours and gossip

The worst thing about social networking websites is that anything spiteful, malicious and/or cruel posted about you can be seen by lots of people because it's so public and because the bullies make sure they tell everyone where to find the abuse.

Often these vicious rumours and gossip is spread by people who were once your best friends so it is best to keep secrets to yourself.

Only tell people things if it would not embarrass you if other people found out about them. Posting false and malicious things about people on the internet can be harassment.

Privacy

The great majority of social networking sites allow you to control who can see profile and how much of your profile they can see. You may want to consider only letting family members and closest friends see your photo albums. You could also think about making your entire profile private so that it does not appear in search results.

Threats

Anyone who makes threats to you on the internet could be committing a criminal offence. It is against the law in the UK to use the phone system - which includes the internet - to cause alarm or distress.

It could also be against the 1997 Harassment Act. If threats are made against you then it is essential you tell your parents so that they can alert your school and make a complaint to the police.

If you cannot print out the threats use the "print screen" button to take a snapshot of the computer screen and then save that in a word processing package or in your draft email folder.

We all want fulfillment in life. It is what feeds our soul and keeps us going from day to day. If we don't feel fulfilled we get anxious and even depressed. Here is a list of common sense statements that will help you lead a fulfilled and happy life.

1. Most people operate at far less than their potential. Life up to yours, you will be happier and more fulfilled.
2. People do what they do because they don't see anything more compelling to do. Look beyond the surface and find what really fulfills you and motivates you to live a better life.
3. Most people don't know what they truly want. Don't let this happen to you. Create goals and vision for your future.
4. Tolerations are more expensive than most people think. Get rid of tolerations in your life and you will have more joy and energy.
5. We are all gifted in our own way and we are all in training to know how to share our gifts with others. Work hard to hone your gifts and then share them with the world.
6. The recognition of distinctions helps us see life more clearly and appreciate it more fully. Draw distinctions in your life and you will be able to differentiate good from great.
7. Expressing and living your values brings fulfillment. When you live by your values you are more apt to live intentionally.
8. It is best to understand fear. Don't avoid it or try to overcome it. Understand it, face it and work through it. Then you will be free.
9. Cyber skills are not optional in our lives. Embrace technology and learn to enjoy it. It will enhance your life.
10. The perfect goal naturally motivates a person. Look for the goals that are really right for you and you will not have to worry about being motivated to achieve them.
11. The Law of Attraction approach brings the best life has to offer to you. Align your positive energy with what you want and it will come to you in one way or another.
12. Upgrading your energy sources enhances your life experiences. You will have more zest for life and will appreciate more things as you have the opportunity to experience them.
13. A lifestyle is not necessarily a life. Living intentionally creates the real thing. Create yours today.
14. We react to things we have not added to our lives. Often we don't understand these things and they frighten us. Make an effort to learn about them and figure out how they can enhance your life.
15. People have an unstoppable urge to become. You are in the process. Never stop your quest to become the person you were meant to be.

In 2012 businesses are completely dependent on technology and the web. But as more businesses are realising their dependence, cyber crime is on the rise, and UK businesses are investing in new measures to secure their documents and products. It is vital that the business undergoing the certification has looked into the business they are getting the certification from and ensures it is a legitimate standard. The ISO 27001 is based on the guidelines set out by the 1998 Data Protection Act and developed through the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) and with the British Standards Institute. ISO 27001 works within the law and ensures that companies can keep their data safe and secure.

Many businesses would be brought to a screeching halt if they were struck by cyber crime. Most people in the Western world today struggle to imagine a world without electricity and no access to Internet. For businesses it is vital to be able to access the web and many trade through their website and share company documents on clouds or via email. If struck by cyber crime, valuable information about a company could be sold on to competition, the business could be rob of money or system critical information and procedures.

Many businesses would be brought to a screeching halt if they were struck by cyber crime. The ISO 27001 helps businesses implement an Information Security Management System to secure their documents, processes and overall business.

The certification assesses the risk to the business and thoroughly runs trough your practices and ensures every aspect of the company. A 'gap-analysis' will be performed to assess the gap between the business' current practices and the international standard. This means the business will have a clear list of amendments to make. The certification will mean you are eliminating current dangers as well as preparing for any future threat and continuously updating your processes to fight of cyber crime. The 'plan, do, check, act' process of the ISO 27001 is helping businesses everyday build their defence.

When implementing amendments to your processes and business the certification will help train your staff and ensure that everyone are aware of new procedures. Processes are streamlined and made simpler to ensure the introduction for new staff is smooth, and training time for existing staff will be kept relatively short.

As cyber criminals become more intelligent and find new ways of breaking into systems, documents and businesses, companies themselves must build barriers against the thieves. The web is internationally accessible and the cyber criminals know no borders. The certification is internationally recognised which means it has equal authority all over the world. This can be crucial to businesses who are trading across borders. The increase in businesses adopting Information Security Management Systems can help expand the range of trade and secure Britain as a recognised 'cyber crime free zone'.

When the parents of teenage suicide Jessica Logan called for new laws to stop "sexting," and said that the school was responsible for stopping their daughter and her ex-boy friend and the other bullies who continued harassing her, the focus of discussion shifted from sadness about her suicide to the question of what to regulate and how to regulate it.

Should we have new laws to prevent people from texting nude pictures of themselves? Should schools be the forced to stop the practice?

As much as I feel for Jessica and her parents, they're calling for the wrong methods to try to stop sexting. We shouldn't have laws to stop self-sexting and schools should not be held responsible for stopping it. Either of those paths are over-reactions to the emotions in one situation. They'll lead to morasses and a huge waste of time and money.

The first problem was with what Jessica did. The solutions to that problem don't begin with laws. The solutions begin at home. Whatever the family dynamic was, Jessica sent the pornographic pictures of herself to her boy friend. She didn't have the sense to look ahead. She's not the first, nor will she be the last teenager to do something foolish with a boyfriend. And he's not the first, nor will he be the last ex-boyfriend who strikes back by talking or texting about his ex-girlfriend. Of course, ex-girlfriends also have a long history of doing rotten things to their ex-boyfriends.

That problem is between Jessica and her parents. Do you really think that any seventeen year-old girl hasn't heard that she should be careful about what she sends in digital form, especially to boys? Except for the ease and speed of transmission, that's no different from someone, a hundred years ago, giving a hard copy of nude pictures of themselves to their boyfriend. If someone wants to be that dumb, we can't stop them, anymore than societies have ever been able to stop sex before marriage.

Teenagers have free will. Could any of us stop our teenagers from doing all the things we thought were dangerous? Our six teenagers taught us the futility of that attempt. Could our parents have stopped us completely?

Beyond a short talk about the dangers of exposing yourself in public, schools shouldn't get more involved. We don't need extensive and expensive educational programs.

A second issue is the ex-boyfriend's sending pornographic pictures of someone else, and the subsequent harassment by cyber bullies, especially mean girls. His actions and those of all the other nasty, cyber bullying girls and boys who passed around Jessica's nude pictures, trashed her on Facebook, IM'd her and ruined her reputation can be made illegal. This situation also illustrates the truism that means girls can be much more vicious than boys.

That's different from the previous generation's passing around published "Playboy" centerfolds, where the women had given permission to be seen by everyone.

This is a personal tragedy for the Logan family, but ruined reputations are an age old phenomenon and this problem was started by the person in the middle, Jessica, not by the paparazzi. Our popular culture is no worse than most popular cultures have been, especially during times of opulence, extravagance and excess. You can't legislate morals successfully in such a time.

Our task as individual parents is still the same; to try to talk some sense and caution into our children and teenagers' heads. And many of them won't listen and will learn their lessons the hard way.

I'm sorry Jessica didn't have the inner strength and resilience to resist the bullying and harassment, and to move on beyond the loss of her reputation. I hope the ex-boyfriend and all the other people involved in harassing her also learned some useful lessons that will change their future behavior.

This article provides readers with a brief overview of cyber-crime, a topic that has gripped the world of cybernetics, law enforcement agencies and Justice Departments of late in the wake of hacking of high profile websites across the globe.

A friend of mine once dubbed the internet as the '1st wonder of modern civilization' and its obvious he is not far from the truth.

The internet has come to stay and as mankind evolves through his evolutionary pathway, it is going to play a crucial role in all facets of human endeavor.

Presently the internet is mainly used for issues of commerce and communication.
In future, the healthcare sector is likely to take a bigger share of internet activities as 'e-lab and e-diagnostics protocols' allow DIY screening of illnesses through portable communication gadgets such as the cell-phone or electronic tablets.

As the use of the internet becomes ubiquitous so would the prevalence of cyber-crime increase exponentially!

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty of the topic, let's define cyber-crime.
Cyber-crime includes all crimes committed in any computer network infrastructures or environments.

Let's have a roller coaster ride through types, motives, culprits and victims of cyber-crime. How would you report issues pertaining to cyber-crime, where to report cyber-crime and how to prevent cyber-crime?

Types of cyber-crime

• Computer intrusion or Hacking, Password trafficking.
• Counterfeiting of currency.
• Child Exploitation and Internet Pornography.
• Internet fraud and Spam mailing.
• Internet harassment.
• Internet bomb threats and terrorism.
• Trafficking in explosive or incendiary devices or firearms over the Internet.
• Pyramid schemes.
• Fake lotto and gambling sites.
• Fake immigration assistance sites.
• Fake foreign employment sites.
• Phony online dating partners.
• Copyright piracy.
• Trademark Counterfeiting.
• Theft of Trade Secrets.
• Hacker-maniacs, Pranksters.
• Connection disruption by uploading and sending worms, viruses and botnets.
• Extortion and International Money Laundering, Identity Theft.
• Committing fraud on security funds, inside trading via the web.
• Unauthorized hacking into computer systems, selling counterfeit computer equipment.
• Uploading, running or hosting phony domain websites.
• Phishing and identity theft.
• Online impersonation of individuals or business firms(identity theft)
• Computer programmer in unauthorized computer access.
• Creating and disseminating fake documents, selling counterfeit goods.
• Illegally accessing government computer or bringing it down.
• Domain name theft, illegal gambling offences, sending international botnet to create massive breakdown of computer systems or paralyzing computer networks
• Copyright infringement, trafficking in counterfeit goods or human beings
• Selling counterfeit software.
• Using malicious advertisement to lure people into disclosing their personal information,
• illegal access, illegal interception, data interference, system interference, misuse of devices, computer-related forgery, computer-related fraud, offences related to child pornography and offences related to copyright and neighboring rights.
• Fraud on social networking sites relating with use of false identity.

Motives for cyber-crime

• Staff disgruntled due to low remuneration, infighting within rank and file of work force because of parochial interests.
• Identity thieves and cyber-stalkers trying to make some money.
• Hacking activists or advocacy groups hoping to score political points.
• Hacker-maniacs, pranksters, erring dilettante, malicious users sending viruses, worms or botnet to infect people's computer for the fun and adrenaline boost.
• Cybernetic expert wishing to cash in on vulnerable and lucrative computer networks.
• International cyber-spymasters engaged in espionage and cyber-wars.
• Troubleshooting cybernetic gurus or staff belonging to the Intelligence community.
• Renegade law enforcement staff wishing to cash in on a loophole or sabotage the database for capricious reasons.
• Pranksters and deranged individuals (hacker-maniacs) who love destabilizing any vulnerable computer network.
• Fraudsters who steal money from gullible individuals.
• Inquisitive and adventurous computer nerds wishing to try something new.
• Unemployed techno geek trying to make a living.

The culprits

• Cyber-hoodlums Hackers, fraudsters, cyber-bully, cyber-hypnotist, Internet Pedophiles, cyber-dissidents, disseminators of racists and xenophobic materials, cyber-gangsters and homicide criminals, internet human organ racketeers, internet dating sites scammers, unemployed youth and pranksters.

• Cybernetic insider, phishing group, cyber-extortionist, cyber-blackmailer, cyber-defamer, cyber-stalker and spammers.

• Spymasters, renegade computer experts.

The victims

• Unemployed people.
• Institutions with vulnerable computer networks.
• Lonely individuals who live reclusively.
• Internet dilettante.
• Individuals wishing to get involved in pyramid schemes.
• Public or Private firms that are engaged in eCommerce.
• Public or Private firms with a treasure trove of vital information.
• Governments running databanks with priceless sensitive information.

How to report cyber-crime

• Track, locate and identify culprits by doing a Whois.com search of the IP address
• Contact the Internet Service Provider for detailed information
• Contact your attorney, local sheriff or Police Department, Secret Service and Justice Department
• Contact cyber-detectives or Webmasters

Where to report cyber-crime

Depending on the type of cyber-crime committed, you can report the matter to any of the following agencies,
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• The United States Secret Service
• The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
• The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• The United States Postal Inspection Service
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
• Internet Crime Complaint Center
• The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)
• United States Department of Justice
• Stopfakes.gov
• DMCA agents of various firms and institutions
• Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Coordinating Center
• Attorney's of firms and institutions
• U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (U.S. CERT)
• Your individual government bureau or its appropriate law enforcement agencies and Justice Departments

How to prevent cyber-crime

Governments and citizens must be proactive in the quest to prevent the underworld from taking over the internet to create the same chaos and anarchy they have wrecked on civilization in the real world. This could be achieved by implementing the following suggestions.
• Elucidate international strategies aimed at combating computer and intellectual property crimes worldwide.
• Create a name and shame cyber-crime map website, follow UK example.
• Monitor all ISP transmitting audio-visual messages via the web.
• Remunerate your staff well but snoop on them.
• Form an alliance with national or foreign competitors to share anti-cyber-crime information.
• Conventions and Agreements should have a global outreach and not limited by the parochial interest of a few affluent nations.
• Need for a global attempt at archiving all information of the internet by ISPs so that data could easily be traced. Such services rendered by the ISPs should be paid for by the secret service of the nation under whose jurisdiction the activity took place or where the cloud computing workstation is located.
• Verify identity of internet users before they embark on any financial transaction.
• Harmonize the domestic criminal substantive law elements of offences and connected provisions in the area of cyber-crime
• Clarify code of conduct for internet users and write the penalty in the statute books without any form of ambiguity.
• Involve the United Nations on all internet Agreements and Conventions.
• Need for international co-operation pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cyber-crime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international cooperation? No country can curb cyber-crime alone.
• Need to train more cyber-detectives
• Need to sensitize the public about the dangers of not reporting or conniving with cyber-criminals

Internet-related crimes, like any other crime, should be reported to appropriate law enforcement and investigative authorities at the local, state, federal, or international levels, depending on the scope and enormity of the crime. Citizens who are aware of federal crimes should be compelled to report them to local offices of federal law enforcement agencies.

It has been rightly observed that crimes committed over the Internet pose special challenges for law enforcement. Hence, there is a great need for large number of specially trained cyber-detectives and criminologists.

There is also a need to design new and fair rule of engagement for everyone; otherwise the World Wide Web might be in for a futuristic mutually assured destruction apocalypse.

We should all ensure that there is freedom on the internet in line with all democratic principles. However, we should clamor for the setting up of internet crime prevention and busting organizations to curb the activities of the few miscreants that are sabotaging the World Wide Web rather than advocating censorship.

Massive hacking of high profile website usually create furor in the media and congress. But is censorship necessary in order to curb the scams, thefts, frauds, pranks and cyber attack incidences on the internet?
Should governments censor or democratize the internet?

In conclusion, it would be disingenuous for any cybernetic expert to claim that cyber-crime has no border or the culprits are anonymous. Cyber-crime differs from real time crime because all electronic activities can be traced easily if they are decentralized, enrolled, verified, monitored and archived when any internet transaction occur. If all countries are persuaded to ratify IP Agreements and Conventions, all activities would be traceable.

Then, cyber-crime prevention and busting tactics would be workable.

I hope the internet policy moderators and formulators are listening.