Air India Employee arrested for Facebook Post

 Even as outrage over the arrest of two Maharashtra girls for their Facebook post on Bal Thackeray continues, another instance of harassment involving two Air India employees has come to light.

Air India cabin crew members Mayank Mohan Sharma and KVJ Rao were arrested by the cyber crime cell of the Mumbai police in May this year for material they put up on Facebook.

The two are alleged to have shared lewd jokes about politicians, made derogatory comments against the Prime Minister and insulted the national flag in their posts.

India Signs Agreement with UK On Co-Operation in Fighting Cybercrime

While hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games, India watched as online tickets suddenly vanished. But no funds were received, the stadiums were empty and shut-out fans were furious.

The website's cyber security had been breached, leading to losses of around Rs. 1.5 billion ($27.3m). "Somebody played a dirty trick. It was a situation nobody had expertise in handling back then. It cost the organisers a huge loss," National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon told Khabar South Asia.

This month, India signed its first ever agreement with a foreign country – United Kingdom – on co-operation in fighting cybercrime. It was inked on November 9th by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and his British counterpart, William Hague.

The accord, authorities hope, will not only help prevent hacker exploits of the sort that marred the 2010 Games, but will also guard against the dangers posed by internet-savvy terrorists.

"The cyber-security dialogue will seek to reduce the risk of threats from cyberspace to international security and strengthen the bilateral co-operation in tackling cybercrime," the ministers said in a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting.

At the same time, both sides affirmed their commitment to the "core principles of liberty, transparency, freedom of expression and the rule of law" in cyberspace.

According to Deputy National Security Advisor Vijay Latha Reddy, India sees the agreement as an initial step in a longer-term strategy.

Lucknow Lawyer and Social activist Lodged FIR against Facebook

A city lawyer and social activist on Sunday lodged a first information report (FIR) against popular social networking site Facebook, after his profile was blocked.

The report was filed at the 'cyber crime cell' of the Lucknow police by Prince Lenin, a resident of Hussainganj here.

In his complaint, Lenin alleged that although he had long been a user of Facebook, his profile was recently blocked by the site without so much as informing him or spelling out the reasons for such "one sided and unfair action."

Alleging that blocking his profile on the site was against the natural law of justice, the complainant claimed that even though he had brought the matter to the notice of Facebook, he was told that several complaints were pending against him from other users of the site.

The complainant said that his profile was blocked between Nov 11 and 13.

Women Arrested for Facebook post on total Shutdown on Mumbai

MUMBAI, Nov 19 – Indian police said on Monday they had arrested a woman for criticising on Facebook the total shutdown of Mumbai after the death of politician Bal Thackeray, as well as a friend who “liked” the comment.

The pair was due to appear in court later in the day charged under the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act, said Police Inspector Shrikant Pingle in the town of Palghar north of Mumbai.

“The two women will be produced in a local court later this afternoon. They are being charged for hurting religious sentiments,” he told AFP.

They were arrested on Sunday, when a huge funeral procession attended by hundreds of thousands of supporters was held in Mumbai for Thackeray, the divisive founder of the rightwing Shiv Sena party.

News of his death on Saturday afternoon brought the city to a virtual standstill for the weekend, with businesses shutting and taxis going off the roads, amid fears of violence by Thackeray’s supporters.

While his followers mourned, others were angered at the hold Shiv Sena exerted over India’s financial capital. The 21-year-old arrested for her Facebook post was among many who aired opinions on social networking sites.

Israeli Government Websites Under Hacking Attack

 More than 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli government web sites since Wednesday when Israel began its Gaza air strikes, the government said on Sunday.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said just one hacking attempt was successful on a site he did not want to name, but it was up and running after 10 minutes of downtime.

Typically, there are a few hundred hacking attempts a day on Israeli sites, the ministry said.

Attempts on defence-related sites have been the highest, while 10 million attempts have been made on the site of Israel's president, 7 million on the Foreign Ministry and 3 million on the site of the prime minister.

A ministry spokesman said while the attacks have come from around the world, most have been from Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Hacker hacked Into Adobe Servers by Using Virus_Hima

Adobe has temporarily closed one of its user forums after a hacker caused a data breach.

The forum, Connectusers.com, allows Adobe customers to share information and opinions about its Connect online conferencing service, which is used to host Web conferences, e-learning, and webinars.

However, after a hacker hailing from Egypt posted a purported file dump containing user details from the site on Pastebin, Adobe pre-emptively took down the forum and said it will reset the passwords of affected site members.

The file dump, posted by the alleged hacker using the alias ViruS_HimA, apparently contains over 150,000 e-mail addresses and passwords from Adobe employees, the U.S. military and companies including Google and NASA. E-mails ending with adobe.com, .mil, and .gov have only been released as a screenshot, with the Egyptian hacker claiming they are "not looking to ruin Adobe['s] business."

Akash 2 Tablet Launched in India for RS.1130

 BHOPAL: Teaching faculty of city engineering colleges have appreciated the low-cost Aakash 2 launched on Sunday after the concluding session of the two -day Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) nationwide workshop. Coordinated by the IIT-Mumbai under the National Mission on Education through Information and Technology (NME-ICT), eight city engineering colleges were part of 244 in India that were selected as remote centres for "Aakash in Education" programme. President Pranab Mukherjee launched the tablet after the end of programme.

Faculties at Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), IES College of Technology, Sagar Institute of Research and Technology, Rajiv Gandhi Technical University, Oriental College of Technology, Truba, Bansal Institute of Research and Technology and NRI Institute of Science and Technology were part of the programme.

The workshop was organised with the objective of helping faculty improve teaching techniques in engineering institutes with the help of newly-launched low-cost indigenous Aakash tablet. They were trained for the effective use of the device during the workshop.

'Dabangg 2' Ten Second Teaser Released on Facebook

New Delhi, Nov 9 (IANS) The much-awaited look of "Dabangg 2" was unveiled on Salman Khan's official Facebook page and the star says this is to cater to new generation which follows movie news on new media.

Salman, whose Facebook profile has got 6.8 million likes, says he will also use traditional medium to promote his movies.

"There is a new generation following movie news on new media, so we launched the campaign on Facebook. We will continue to use traditional media. It's not about one replacing the other. It's one alongside the other," Salman said in a statement.

RBI warning on phishing mail

                                                                                         
                                                                                             May 21, 2012
It has come to the notice of the Reserve Bank of India that an email has been

sent in its name from mail id: alert@rbi.org and signed by RBI Online offering a 'new

online security platform'. According to the mail, the 'new online security platform'

offers to 'prevent online identity theft in internet banking by asking the customer to go

through a two-way authentication factor before he/she properly logs into internet

banking every time'. The email then asks the recipient to 'download the attachment

and update'.

The Reserve Bank clarifies that it has not sent any such mail. In fact, it does

not have any mail ids with extension @rbi.org. Members of public receiving such

mails should not open the attachment and/or try to download it on their computer. It

could be a phishing mail and downloading the attachment could result in identity

theft.
                                                                                     Alpana Killawala
Press Release : 2011-2012/1849                               Chief  General Manager
Source-RBI

Women Victims of Cyber Crime freely Come Forward to lodge complaints:DGP

Andhra Pradesh has achieved another dubious distinction in crime against women. Addressing the gathering at a workshop on women-related issues at Jubilee Hall here on Thursday, director-general of police (DGP) V Dinesh Reddy said that going by the number of cases registered by the police, the state stood in the second position in crimes against women in the country.

He said dowry and molestation-related offences were on the increase. The DGP said that the police were encouraging women victims of cyber crime to freely come forward and lodge complaints. "We assure women that their identity will be kept confidential and severe action will be taken against the offenders. Objectionable content on websites is being removed," he added.

22 Year Old Gunter Girl duped through Facebook

 HYDERABAD: A person, who duped an MBA graduate to the tune of Rs 20 lakh by posing as a handsome hunk on the social networking site Facebook, was arrested by Cyber Crime sleuths on Tuesday.

On October 17, a 22-year-old woman from Guntur lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime police station of the CID stating that she was duped by one Rajapathi of Hyderabad to the tune of Rs 20 lakh. The victim informed the police that she came in contact with him through Facebook.

By introducing himself as an IIT graduate and a software professional, Rajapathi lured the victim into the trap. Rajapathi, who is actually 3.5 feet tall, had put a handsome man's photo as his profile picture. Thinking that Rajapathi is a good-looking software professional, the victim became close to him. They used to 'chat' frequently and even conversed on the phone. After gaining her confidence, Rajapathi informed the woman that he was suffering from some kidney disease and requested her to help him financially.

Android 4.0 Mediapad Launched by Huawei in 13700

Chinese telecom-equipment maker, Huawei, has officially launched its MediaPad 7 Lite tablet in India. This has to be one of the few budget slates sporting a metal-clad body. Another aspect that sets it apart from the other 7" tablets, is the onboard 3G slot and voice calling capability. On the software front, the MediaPad 7 Lite offers Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) out of the box. Moving on to its specs, you get a 1.2 GHz Cortex A8 CPU, coupled with 1 GB of RAM. Here is the complete list of features:

• 1.2 GHz Cortex-A8 CPU, GC800 GPU, 1 GB RAM.
• 7" LCD capacitive multi-touch IPS screen with 1024x600 pixels, 16 million colours.
• 3.2 mp rear camera, 0.3 mp front-facing camera.
• 4 GB of internal storage, MicroSD card slot (up to 32 GB).
• Wi-Fi with hotspot, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS.
• Micro USB 2.0 (with OTG support), 3.5 mm jack, Gravity sensor.
• Android 4.0 (ICS).
• Voice calls supported; GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz), 3G (2100 MHz).
• 7.6" (l) x 4.7" (w) x 0.4" (11 mm) (d), 370 grams.
• 4100 mAh Lithium Polymer battery, 15 hours of talk time (12 hours on 3G), 5 hours of video playback.
• Package Contents: Charger, Quick Start Guide, Warranty Card, Headset, Data Cable.

Mobile users to grow rapidly on Facebook

Social networking site Facebook anticipates its mobile users growth to outpace PC users growth in "foreseeable" future largely on the back of India, Brazil and the US.

The networking giant has, however, failed to cash in on the growing mobile user base so far. Facebook, in a filing with Securities and Exchange Commission of the US, said it has 1.01 billion MAUs as on September 30, 2012. Users in Brazil, India, and Japan represented key sources of growth in the third quarter of 2012 relative to the prior year, it said.

"While most of our mobile users also access Facebook through personal computers, we anticipate that the rate of growth in mobile usage will exceed the growth in usage through personal computers for the foreseeable future and that the usage through personal computers may be flat or continue to decline in certain markets, including key developed markets such as the US, in part due to our focus on developing mobile products to encourage mobile usage of Facebook," it said.

Mamata Banerjee on Facebook Protest aganist LPG Price hike

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today asked all political parties, including those supporting the UPA government from outside, to build pressure for roll back of hike in price of non-subsidised cooking gas.

"Time is running out. I would appeal to political parties, even those who are extending outside support to UPA-II Government to stand up and be bold to oppose this decision. I assure you to be with you for the sake of the common people," Ms Banerjee said in her latest post on Facebook.

She alleged that the decisions to put a cap on subsidised LPG cylinders and increasing their prices was taken in the "interest of a few petroleum companies".
Dubbing the UPA as a "minority" government, Ms Banerjee alleged that the Centre was using CBI to "terrorise" its opponents.

"Though I have great respect for CBI as an institution, but the way they are being used for political purposes and also unnecessarily made to create problems in every state to control political parties and state governments, is not acceptable. It proves that CBI now stands for 'Congress Bureau of Investigation'," she held.

"I am told from different sources that the present UPA Government has developed a feeling that there is nobody to change their decision," she wrote on Facebook.

India Defence and Development organisation Website Hacked

Websites of key Indian government organisations, including an advisor to the prime minister and the defence establishment DRDO, reportedly came under cyber attacks on Wednesday night, leading to their shutdown for a while, government sources said on Thursday.

The government sources said some 'suspicious and unwanted' activity

was observed on these websites, maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), following which these were shut down for a couple of hours.

"After checking the websites, these were restored," a source said, adding that the information contained by these websites is already in the public domain.