Saturday, December 18, 2004

Sex, Technology and Police

Recent news of DPS MMS case, where the director actor duo of the sexually explicit movie are still to be arrested or questioned and on the other hand the arrest of the Avnish Bajaj, CEO of Bazzee.com, and the student who sold the movie on the site could puts our police system in a questionable position.
The legal selling of the material can not be justified, but what do we think when just searching the same on Google or Yahoo gives the same material in return free of cost? Are not they doing their business in India? Why not police takes any action for them? Why not the mobile operator be punished who allowed the transmission of such media across the Indian territory?
This whole drama revolving around money and sexuality needs a fresh thinking of our technological challenges regarding the transmission of such vulgar material over the net or such media.
Ok ,Avnish have supported police to track the culprit down. He may not have other way to escape the episode. But filtering the objectionable material for the specific territory is sure a challenge for the computer professionals as well as managers of the companies who are doing e- business.
Section 67 of the Information Technology Act (transmission of obscene material through electronic media) is quiet a useless law in practical sense. If we don’t get diversify our attention towards the premier educational institutions and their students in this episode, the whole matter needs fresh recapitulation of the IT Act of India and the role of Police in implementing it.