14 DAY TRIAL // Now, this is outrageous! Thinking about security is one thing, but taking the fun part away from the Internet is just too na?ve to work. While taking a look at the Economic Times webpage I learned that a new law is about to be issued in India. I understand that these guys have been facing cyber-security problems, but what they are doing now, to properly enforce it, is a bit too drastic in my opinion.
So, what's this all about, anyway? Well, the new law that could be out soon, would punish anyone providing false information on the web, for creating e-mail IDs. So this means that if you've ever added a fake name, address, personal data etc to your e-mail address, you could be violating this law. This could get you 2 'cozy' years in jail! Surely, it is not out yet and it's only going to be used in India, but till now, people enforcing cyber-security haven't proved too creative, and I bet that this law could be issued in a similar way, if not identically in other countries.
So, why am I saying they're taking the fun away from the web? Well, haven't you ever created an online ID that is different from whom you actually are in real life? The net is offering anonymity, thus you can have a separate life online, different from the real one. And furthermore, I don't think this is going to properly enforce cyber-security, since by providing the real details when creating IDs, you would encourage identity theft via hacking. Should a malicious user hack my personal e-mail, he'd probably find out my name is "Prince Charming" and that I live in "his backyard", thus making it useless. Anonymity is probably the best part of the web, but it could be curbed with such laws.
In addition, people who are using fake IDs to commit cyber-crime will keep on doing so, while the rest of the users, creating fake IDs just for fun will be affected in a bad way by this law.