Cyber Terrorism

Nowadays, computer and internet are becoming vital and essential requirements of our life. As a matter of fact, the philosophy behind internet and computer is to create facility and provide a situation for both individuals and governments to make life easier. But internet, like many other facilities, has positive and also negative sides. Evidences show a sharp increase of criminal acts against individuals and governments in cyber space.Although countries spend tremendous money to protect themselves against cyber attacks yearly, every day we can read news about crimes in cyber space.

One of the newest challenges for modern societies is cyber terrorism. According to the FBI definition, cyber terrorism is the premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which result in violence against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.

 In modern world, the definition of many things has been changed. One of the negative aspects of human life which has been changed in term of definition is terrorism. In fact, internet simulates a virtual battlefield for countries to attack against each other. Possible targets for cyber terrorist include the banking industry, military installations, power plants, air traffic control centers, and water systems. 

For example, in first days of 2011, Iran claimed that Israel creates a virus called Stuxnet to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. 

Governments or individuals use cyber terrorism method due to its advantages rather than its traditional method. Terrorism in cyber space affects a large number of people and also they can hide their real personality and location. Also it is very difficult to track action in cyber space. And the main point is that cyber terrorism is cheaper than its traditional way.

The threat of cyber attack has forced countries to doing against cyber terrorism. For example, the Interpol members help each other against cyber terrorism and also train their personnel. Also, ASEAN countries are going to create a regional cyber crime unit.

resource: www.crime-research.org

              www.telegraph.co.uk

Linking

The issue of deep linking presents a number of legal (copyright) issues. It is linking directly to a sub-page of a side rather than the home page. The owners of web sites have concern about deep linking. The problems in this case includes avoiding ads on sites, loss of computer pacity and other problems resulting from deep linking. And also, the use of framing that refers to web pages which are divided into multiple areas that each of those areas can contain material from other remote sites.

To be frank, many web sites owners earn more money from their advertisings. So, bypassing the main and initial pages that have ads will cause to decrease value and also will threaten the profitability of the site.

One example is Ticket Master vs. Tickets.com that some tickets are exclusive to Ticket Master so ticket.com created some links directly to the sales pages on Ticket Master. This arrangement threatened Ticket Master advertising income.

Generally speaking, all site owners should be careful about web pages that confuse the visitors as to ownership and also should avoid web pages that take an unfair advantage of other site content.        

source:http://www.bna.com

Copyright law in Iran

          One of the misconceptions about Iran is that this country has no acts under copyright law. Unawareness of law and maybe weakness in news transmission of related organizations breed lots of infringements in this country. And each year, there are more complaints about violation of copyright law against real and legal personalities in Iran.

          For example, the last case was about a scenario of “Yusuf the Prophet” directed by Farajollah Salahshoor. In this case, Shahbeddin Taheri ,and author, claimed that this film and its scenario was written based on his own scenario without his permission. 

  

It is considerable that court found Salahshoor as guilty and he was condemned to fine.

• But, how law defines the author’s right in Iran?

          High Council of Informatics (HCI) in 1992 prepared a draft of copyright law by devoting 50’000’000 Rials to this study that last as long as 18 months.

In 1995, Majlis Shora Islamic approved computer crime law offered by HCI including information theft, data destruction and program damage caused by viruses, Trojan horses, worms, and logic bombs, hacking and unauthorized access and also, the law of protecting domestic software producers.

          The article 74 of the E-Commerce Law declares that based on protecting domestic software producers, if a person found guilty under this article, he is liable to maximum 50’000’000 Rials and three months to one year imprisonment.

As far as Iran is not a signatory to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the WIPO Copyright Treaty, or a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) this law is not protecting the foreign software producers. Although, if Iran wants to be an official member of WTO, it should implements the copyright law completely in that country.

Source:

·        http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Iran_and_copyright_issues

·        http://www.uplink.com.au/lawlibrary/Documents/Docs/Doc126.html