THE ICFAI UNIVERSITY, DEHRADUN

ICFAI LAW SCHOOL

A PROJECT ON

“CYBER LAW”

SUBMITTED TO: MS. PRACHI MISHRA

SUBMITTED BY

RAUNAK SINHA

BBA LL.B (HONS.)

5th YEAR

ENROLLMENT NO.-1505C00098

SUBMISSION DATE: 31-01-2020

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ORIGIN OF CYBER LAW
3. NEED OF CYBER LAW
4. DEFINITION OF CYBER CRIME
5. CONCLUSION
6. BIBLIOGRAPBY
INTRODUCTION
Success in any field of human activity leads to crime that needs mechanisms to control it. Legal
provisions should provide assurance to users, empowerment to law enforcement agencies and
deterrence to criminals. The law is as stringent as its enforcement. Crime is no longer limited to
space, time or a group of people. Cyber space creates moral, civil and criminal wrongs. It has
now given a new way to express criminal tendencies. Back in 1990, less than 100,000 people
were able to log on to the Internet world wide. 1 Now around 500 million people are hooked up to
surf the net around the globe. Advent of technology not only widens scientific horizon but also
poses constant challenges for the jurisprudence, legal system and legal world as a whole.
Computer, internet, and cyber space – together known as information technology – present
challenge for the law. The courts throughout the world have been dealing with these problems or
dealing with the information technology is termed as ‘computer laws’ or ‘information technology
laws or cyber laws. A computer is a electronic machine that accepts data and instructions as
input, allows it to be stored and manipulated; and processes (computes) the data at high speed
and gives information / data as output (result). Thus computer is material medium. Internet is not
a physical or tangible entity, but rather a giant networks, which interconnects innumerable
smaller groups of linked computer networks. There is no centralized storage location. Control
point, or communications channel for the internet, and it would not be technically feasible for the
single entity to control all of the information conveyed on the internet. Thus internet is a virtual
medium. Cyber space is a virtual location. Anyone with assess to the internet may take advantage
of vide variety of communication and information retrieval methods. These methods are
constantly evolving and difficult to categorized precisely2. But the presently constituted and most
relevant are electronic mail (“e-mail”), automatic mailing list services (“mail exploder”,
sometimes referred to a “listservs”), newsgroups, chat rooms and the “world wide web”. All
these methods can be used to transmit ext; most can transmit sound, picture, and moving video
images. Taken together, these tools constitute a unique medium- known to its users as
‘cyberspace’ – located in no particular geographical location but available to anyone. Anywhere
in the world, with the access to internet.

1
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu visited on 31/01/2020
2
Articles written by Pavan Duggal and Dr. Pratibha Rasal
Computer is a material medium; internet is a virtual medium; cyberspace is a virtual location for
electronic activities. The offences are committed in cyberspace with the help of internet and
computer. Cyber laws are therefore those laws, which have been adapted or reinterpreted to
govern and apply to transactions or interactions in cyberspace. Cyber law also cover those
special enactments, which are specially design to govern or apply to cyberspace for example
information technology legislations enacted in different countries including information
technology act, 2000, enacted by government of India or uniform electronic transaction act
recently approved in the US for adoption by the various us states. Cyber Space Law Right now
there is a very interesting war being waged in the court rooms across America. It is a battle for
the rights of citizens on the Internet. The Internet is a fairly new medium gaining wide popularity
in 1994. Because of it's incredible growth in popularity in a very short amount of time it has been
hard to regulate. The first act to come out regarding the Internet and Freedom of Speech
was PL 99-508 the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act of 1986 . This act consisted
of two parts, title I and title II. Title I - Interception of Communications and Related Matters.
Basically takes the existing laws and updates them to include computers. Where before it was
illegal to intercept private telephone calls, it now says it is illegal to intercept private computer
transmissions. It also includes a provision to make it legal to intercept public radio transmissions
like it is with public radio programs. It also allows Internet Service Providers to keep a log of
who called and their activity on-line to protect themselves. Title II - Stored Wire and Electronic
Communications and Transactional Records Access. This provision adds sections to Title 18 of
the United States Code (USC).3 In section 2701 - Unlawful Access to Stored Communications. It
makes it a federal offense to hack into a computer system. Crux of the issues relating to cyber
law lies in the exercise and experiments and the drill to be employed by the system of
administration of justice to the issues relating to evasion of transactions. Web communication
and relationships in the cyberspace with the help of legal concepts, legal system and existing
legal framework which is applicable to the transactions. Communications and relationships in the
material world in which we live day to day.

ORIGIN OF CYBER LAW

3
Articles- Harpreet Kaur, Gujarat Law Herald
Science the beginning of the civilization, man has constantly adapted himself with the changing
circumstances and scenarios to usher in new eras of development and progress. Every stage of
human history has been important in its own way. Internet has become an all pervading
revolution which is having an immense impact on all aspects of human life and existence.
Internet is a new phenomenon which has set new benchmarks for the entire mankind. Internet is
a global network of computers, all speaking same language. Internet has grown in a very rapid
arbitrary and unplanned manner. Because of this unplanned nature of internet. It was felt initially
internet is a system of anarchy.4 However as time flew, it began to drawn upon netizens that
internet and cyberspace need to be regulated and a regulated cyberspace would be the catalyst for
the future progress of mankind. Herein lay the seeds of origin of cyber law.
The dawning of the 21st century seems to have had a magical effect on India. The Indian
government has taken the emergence of the new millennium as a signal to proceed forward in the
direction of whole heartedly adopting technologies and giving legal recognition to the same and
regulating the same.5 This new chapter began with the passing of India’s first cyber law namely,
the information technology act, 2000.

NEED OF CYBER LAW

1. Coming of internet.
2. Greater cultural, economic, political and social transformation in the history of human
society.
3. Complex legal issues arising leading to the development of cyber law.
4. Different approaches for controlling, regulating and facilitating electronic communication
and commerce.
5. Cyberspace has complete disrespect for jurisdictional boundaries. A person in India
could break into a bank’s electronic vault hosted on a computer in USA and transfer
millions of Rupees to another bank in Switzerland, all within minutes. All he would need
is a laptop computer and a cell phone.
6. Cyberspace handles gigantic traffic volumes every second. Billions of emails are
crisscrossing the globe even as we read this, millions of websites are being accessed
every minute and billions of dollars are electronically transferred around the world by
banks every day.

4
http://grep.law.harvard.edu visited on 31/01/2020
5
http://www.cyberlawconsulting.com visited on 31/01/2020
 7. Cyberspace is absolutely open to participation by all.

DEFINITION OF CYBER CRIME6

Cyber crime spans not only state but national boundaries as well. Perhaps we should look to
international organizations to provide a standard definition of the crime. At the Tenth United
Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders, in a workshop
devoted to the issues of crimes related to computer networks, cybercrime was broken into two
categories and defined thus:
i. Cybercrime in a narrow sense (computer crime): Any illegal behavior directed by means
of electronic operations that targets the security of computer systems and the data
processed by them.
ii. Cybercrime in a broader sense (computer-related crime): Any illegal behavior committed
by means of, or in relation to, a computer system or network, including such crimes as
illegal possession and offering or distributing information by means of a computer system
or network.
Of course, these definitions are complicated by the fact that an act may be illegal in one Nation
but not in another. There are more concrete examples, including
a. Unauthorized access
b. Damage to computer data or programs
c. Computer sabotage
d. Unauthorized interception of communications
e. Computer espionage

CONCLUSION
As we move forward into the 21 st century, technological innovations have paved the way for us
to experience new and wonderful conveniences in the how we are educated, the way we shop,
how we are entertained and the matter in which we do business. Business that have grown to rely
6
Books- justice Yatindra Singh, Dr. R.K Chaubey
upon computerization to collect and assemble sensitive information on their critical resources.
Capacity of human mind is immeasurable. It is not possible to eliminate cyber crime from the
cyber crime from the cyber space. It is not possible to eliminate cyber crime from the cyber
space. It is quite possible to check them. History is the witness that no legislation has succeeded
in totally eliminate crime from the globe. The only possible step is to make laws and try to
prevent them

BIBLIOGRAPBY
WEBSITE REFFERED
 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu
 http://grep.law.harvard.edu
 http://www.cyberlawconsulting.com
  http://cyberlawcases.com
 http://www.cyberlawindia.com
 http://wwwcyberlawindia.net

ARTICLES REFFERED

 Articles written by Pavan Duggal and Dr. Pratibha Rasal

 Articles- Harpreet Kaur, Gujarat Law Herald

BOOKS REFFERED

 Books- justice Yatindra Singh, Dr. R.K Chaubey