Cyber Crimes within Social Networks and Efficacy of Domestic Legislations to Combat against Them

Abstract

As every coin has its two sides, Internet, also contains positives and negatives both. But for all the good it does to us, internet has its dark sides too. Out of all the newest and possibly the most convoluted trouble in the cyber world is Cyber-crime. Cybercrime is an umbrella term that covers a wide array of attacks and scams. Cyber-crime generally refers to criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, target, or place of a crime. In recent times most of the above bizarre crimes are committed via Social Networks. For instance, Face book impersonation, Face book pornography, Blackmailing on Facebook, Hacking of passwords & stealing of information are some of them. In the domestic scenario throughout the last few years Sri Lanka has been experiencing relatively high rate of cyber-crimes supervised under Face book and other social networks. This situation has endangered the social life of the general public, adversely affect to the life of individuals and ultimately tarnish the image of the country. In order to mitigate there are several legislations passed by parliament recently the problem remains whether they are functioning effectively and whether the general public is aware of the existing laws. Sri Lanka is having a high risk in near future in this regard and for the time being this threat has not been a complicated one. But with the availability of resources and with the developing technology over time, there is a potential of being. But our government comparatively or totally hasn't acted in an effective manner to mitigate these risks. This paper is completely focused on cyber crime issue, trends and problem faced by International and Sri Lankan users and how cybercrimes can be minimized by formulating effective cyber crime laws in Sri Lanka and how it happened in other countries. The paper also includes Sri Lankan cybercrime Statistics and much latest news. In order to compare the situation in Sri Lanka with other countries this study further engages with selected jurisdictions of India, USA and China.