The frailty of genius is it always wants to push boundaries; moral, social, ethical, personal. A young student sitting in his attic somewhere in England with regular gizmos could get through the firewalls of NASA and Pentagon as a hot knife through butter. While, no one on campus has attempted, or more accurately put, succeeded in pulling off something of this magnitude, the number of cases of hacking has been on the rise.
A harmless hack of Facebook or G-Mail accounts is understandable and can be brushed off as a prank; but incidents have come to light in which the boundaries of ‘prank’ were evidently overstepped.
It is well known that the webmail account is not very secure in the sense that it is easy to get the passwords. However, Facebook and G-Mail accounts seem to be the new targets.
In some incidents that came to light, the Facebook profile and G-Mail accounts were not only hacked, but the information vis-a-vis, emails and chats were stored and anonymous mails were sent regarding the content to disturb the concerned person. On talking to people who understand the jargon of hacking better than the editors, it was told that in most of the cases it is difficult to get to know who hacked the account without involving the authorities which might lead to disciplinary actions. It was also brought to light that IIT-Kanpur with it’s Computer Centre facility gives ample opportunity to wear the garb of anonymity and indulge in such pranks.
It is however to be noted that while people might indulge in a one-off incident involving such pranks, the Computer Centre in the information it provides on the usage of the facilities clearly states that such acts come under “misusing the facilities” and if reported may certainly lead to disciplinary actions. Boundaries can be pushed both ways. So much for online privacy.
This article has been written and edited by Priyank Jaini and Srijan R Shetty, Editors, Vox-Populi.
