Ready to confess, are you?

Ready to confess, are you?

By Vikas Vaidya

Two lady teachers from a college in Pune were told by their students that they had been posted on Facebook Confession page in derogatory manner. Both were linked to their fellow male professors in an obscene manner. The matter became so serious that these two ladies thought of committing suicide. Somehow, their relatives handled them and they lodged a complaint in a police. Soon the culprits were nabbed.
Now, this is a new menace on Facebook. Though, in India, unlike two years ago, people are deleting their profiles, but still the Facebook mania still has not reduced drastically.
Dr Harold D’Costa, Director, Intelligent Quotient Security Systems (IQSS), Cyber Crime Trainer and Consultant- Maharashtra and Goa Police said, “The origin of Confession Pages seems to have taken the Internet world by storm. The idea of Confession pages is to post one’s secret or feelings, but this seems not to be going in the right direction. Most of the times these pages are focused with many unscrupulous elements putting up character assassination posts on others involving abuse or defamation.”
What are Confession Pages?

Confession Pages, allow people to voice their opinions, grievances or confessions about their school, college, office or locality in a discreet manner through a Google document. These are then transferred from Google to Facebook page where in their peers can read, like or comment on that post.

Purpose of Confession Pages

These pages are a via media for students or individuals to post their complaints, secret or gossiping. These pages can be used to bring back their memories about their schools, colleges, offices etc. Almost 90% of the people post rude, defamatory and hurtful comments about their peers, classmates and also about religions.

Dr D’Costs said, “In last two years around 80 lakh Americans have deleted their profiles from social sites on the contrary in India, two years ago about 1.75 crore added themselves on Orkut, Facebook etc. Because we Indians want to be more socialite. If anyone sends invitation we consider the person as genuine. Research has proved that out of such 10 persons 2 to 3 persons connected to criminals. It is the best medium to get all information without much investment. It can be misused. Any photo posted on social website, cut feature, copy feature, print, are not secured. If I upload my photo on any of this website, anybody can prepare fictitious profile of mine. 72 per cent of internet users in Maharahra put their authentic data on net. This becomes a ground for criminals. But now suddenly Indians too are deleting their profiles. In last two years about 15-20 per cent Indians have deleted their profile.”
One should never give his or her password to close ones also 79 per cent of cyber crimes done by the people who are close ones. Person who receives the e-mail should be able to understand that it is fake. Every e-mail has their particular headers.

Most viewed Confessions Pages in Nagpur

VNIT Nagpur Confession Page
DPS Nagpur Confession Page
GMC Nagpur Confession Page
Raisoni Confession Page

According to Dr.D’costa the confession pages have become a big menace to law enforcement agencies. There is a need for a regulatory body that should keep a check on what’s being posted online. Unfortunately India doesn’t have this. We need to remember that when we post something on an open group, crores of people have access to it. In Maharashtra youngsters using social networking sites commit alone 72 percent of the crime reported. So if these pages cannot be moderated and checked, they should be banned.

You can be caught easily

Any complainant comes across with a facebook confession crime he or she should come along with the name of confession page, date and time as to when the content was uploaded, post number should be noted down. These informations should be given to police. Police can know then who has put this information. The arms of the law are very long. Any person putting any content on facebook confession page can be tracked by police and an offence can be booked under following sections of Information Technology Act. They include Section 66 (c), 66 (d), and also relevant sections of Section 67 (cognizable and non-bailable).

How can I send this SMS?

A woman received an SMS from number of their family friend which is obscene in nature. She told her husband and quarrel took place. The friend was absolutely unaware about such SMS. He told the couple that there was no such SMS in his outbox. Their third tech-savvy friend came to their rescue and he told them that such act is possible through Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) gateways.
Dr Harold D’Costa said, “If one wants to take revenge to create disturbance between two friends, then such things take place. Item-wise list can be the biggest evidence. Item-wise listing is available to postpaid customers. For prepaid customers, Call Detail Record (CDR) can be asked from police.”

Tips for social networkers

Social networking is mostly used by college going students, or say those between the age group of 12 and 25 years.
How one can avoid the ill-effects?

-Do not post Photo
-Put limited information
-do not post e-mail id, mobile number etc.
-Not to put video or photo album
-check the other person’s profile thoroughly after receiving frienship request
-Parent should ensure child’s future by taking corrective action.
-As far as possible people should get out of these website.
-Institutions should ban these websites.
-Parents should put some filter software  like cyber patrol, net 90 in the computer of their children to make their wards unable to access social sites or pornographic site.