ONLINE INTERNET POLICE

Internet police is a generic term for police and secret police departments and other organizations in charge of policing Internet in a number of countries. The major purposes of Internet police, depending on the state, are fighting cybercrime, as well as censorship, propaganda, and monitoring and manipulating the online public opinion.

It has been reported that in 2005, departments of provincial and municipal governments in mainland China began creating teams of Internet commentators from propaganda and police departments and offering them classes in Marxism, propaganda techniques, and the Internet. They are reported to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names. "They are actually hiring staff to curse online", said Liu Di, a Chinese student who was arrested for posting her comments in blogs.
Chinese Internet police also erase anti-Communist comments and posts pro-government messages. Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao has declared the party's intent to strengthen administration of the online environment and maintain the initiative in online opinion.

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Estonia (CERT Estonia), established in 2006, is an organisation responsible for the management of security incidents in .ee computer networks. Its task is to assist Estonian Internet users in the implementation of preventive measures in order to reduce possible damage from security incidents and to help them in responding to security threats. CERT Estonia deals with security incidents that occur in Estonian networks, are started there, or have been notified of by citizens or institutions either in Estonia or abroad.
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell is a wing of Mumbai Police, India, to deal with Cyber crimes, and to enforce provisions of India's Information Technology Law, namely, Information Technology Act 2000, and various cyber crime related provisions of criminal laws, including the Indian Penal Code. Cyber Crime Investigation Cell is a part of Crime Branch, Criminal Investigation Department of the Mumbai Police.
Andhra Pradesh Cyber Crime Investigation Cell is a wing of Hyderabad Police, India, to deal with Cyber crimes.

Dutch police were reported to have set up an Internet Brigade to fight cybercrime. It will be allowed to infiltrate Internet newsgroups and discussion forums for intelligence gathering, to make pseudo-purchase and to provide services
After the 2006 coup in Thailand, the Thai police has been active in monitoring and silencing dissidents online. Censorship of the Internet is carried out by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology of Thailand and the Royal Thai Police, in collaboration with the Communications Authority of Thailand and the Telecommunication Authority of Thailand.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is the only recognised organisation in the United Kingdom operating an Internet ‘Hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online. It works in partnership with the police, Government, the public, Internet service providers and the wider online industry.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as IC3, is a multi-agency task force made up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).

IC3's purpose is to serve as a central hub to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding occurrences of cyber-crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cybercrime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations on the internet. IC3 develops leads and notifies law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, IC3 act as a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.

Criminal threatening is the crime of intentionally or knowingly putting another person in fear of imminent bodily injury.

There is no legal definition in English law as to what constitutes criminal threatening behaviour, so it is up to the courts to decide on a case by case basis. However, if somebody threatens violence against somebody, then this may be a criminal offence. In most countries it is only an offence if it can be proven the person had the intention and equipment to carry out the threat. However if the threat involves the mention of a bomb it is automatically a crime.
In most U.S. jurisdictions, the crime remains a misdemeanor unless a deadly weapon is involved or actual violence is committed, in which case it is usually considered a felony.

Criminal threatening can be the result of verbal threats of violence, physical conduct (such as hand gestures or raised fists), actual physical contact, or even simply the placing of an object or graffiti on the property of another person with the purpose of coercing or terrorizing.

Criminal threatening is also defined by arson, vandalism, the delivery of noxious biological or chemical substances (or any substance that appears to be a toxic substance), or any other crime against the property of another person with the purpose of coercing or terrorizing any person in reckless disregard for causing fear, terror or inconvenience.

"Terrorizing" generally means to cause alarm, fright, or dread in another person or inducing apprehension of violence from a hostile or threatening event, person or object.

Crimint is a database run by the Metropolitan Police Service of Greater London which stores information on criminals, suspected criminals and protestors. It was created in 1994 and supplied by Memex Technology Limited. It supports the recording and searching of items of intelligence by both police officers and back office staff. As of 2005 it contained seven million information reports and 250,000 intelligence records. The database makes it much easier for police officers to find information on people, as one officer who used the system stated in 1996:

"With Crimint we are in a new world. I was recently asked if I knew something about a certain car. In the old days I would have had to hunt through my cards. I would probably have said, 'Yes, I do, but . . . '. With Crimint I was able to answer the question in about fifteen seconds. And with Crimint things just don't go missing.
People are able to request their information from the database under data protection laws. Requests have shown that the database holds large amounts of information on protesters who have not committed any crimes. Information is stored for at least seven years. Holding information on people who have never committed any offence may be against people's human rights. A police officer, Amerdeep Johal, used the database to contact sex offenders and threatened to disclose information about them from the database unless they paid him thousands of pounds.

Along with development of the Internet, state authorities in many parts of the world are moving forward to install mass surveillance of the electronic communications, establish Internet censorship to limit the flow of information, and persecute individuals and groups who express “inconvenient” political views in the Internet. Many cyber-dissidents have found themselves persecuted for attempts to bypass state controlled news media. Reporters Without Borders has released a Handbook For Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents and maintains a roster of currently imprisoned cyber-dissidents

Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao ordered to "maintain the initiative in opinion on the Internet and raise the level of guidance online, An internet police force - reportedly numbering 30,000 - trawls websites and chat rooms, erasing anti-Communist comments and posting pro-government messages." However, the number of Internet police personnel was challenged by Chinese authorities Amnesty International blamed several companies, including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, of collusion with the Chinese authorities to restrict access to information over the Internet and identify cyber-dissidents by hiring "big mamas" .
It was reported that departments of provincial and municipal governments in mainland China began creating "teams of internet commentators, whose job is to guide discussion on public bulletin boards away from politically sensitive topics by posting opinions anonymously or under false names" in 2005 Applicants for the job were drawn mostly from the propaganda and police departments. Successful candidates have been offered classes in Marxism, propaganda techniques, and the Internet. "They are actually hiring staff to curse online," said Liu Di, a Chinese student who was arrested for posting her comments in blogs

Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship.
One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. A government can try to prevent its citizens from viewing these even if it has no control over the websites themselves. Filtering can be based on a blacklist or be dynamic. In the case of a blacklist, that list is usually not published. The list may be produced manually or automatically.

Barring total control over Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea, total censorship of information on the Internet is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.

In some cases, Internet censorship may involve deceit. In such cases the censoring authority may block content while leading the public to believe that censorship has not been applied. This may be done by having the ISP provide a fake "Not Found" error message upon the request of an Internet page that is actually found but blocked (see 404 error for details).

In November 2007, "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf stated that he sees Government-led control of the Internet failing due to private ownership. Many internet experts use the term "splinternet" to describe some of the effects of national firewalls.

Some commonly used methods for censoring content are:

IP blocking. Access to a certain IP address is denied. If the target Web site is hosted in a shared hosting server, all websites on the same server will be blocked. This affects IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP. A typical circumvention method is to find proxies that have access to the target websites, but proxies may be jammed or blocked, and some Web sites, such as Wikipedia (when editing), also block proxies. Some large websites like Google have allocated additional IP addresses to circumvent the block, but later the block was extended to cover the new IPs.

DNS filtering and redirection. Don't resolve domain names, or return incorrect IP addresses. This affects all IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP. A typical circumvention method is to find a domain name server that resolves domain names correctly, but domain name servers are subject to blockage as well, especially IP blocking. Another workaround is to bypass DNS if the IP address is obtainable from other sources and is not blocked. Examples are modifying the Hosts file or typing the IP address instead of the domain name in a Web browser.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) filtering. Scan the requested URL string for target keywords regardless of the domain name specified in the URL. This affects the HTTP protocol. Typical circumvention methods are to use escaped characters in the URL, or to use encrypted protocols such as VPN and TLS/SSL.

Packet filtering. Terminate TCP packet transmissions when a certain number of controversial keywords are detected. This affects all TCP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP, but Search engine results pages are more likely to be censored. Typical circumvention methods are to use encrypted connections - such as VPN and TLS/SSL - to escape the HTML content, or by reducing the TCP/IP stack's MTU/MSS to reduce the amount of text contained in a given packet.

Connection reset. If a previous TCP connection is blocked by the filter, future connection attempts from both sides will also be blocked for up to 30 minutes. Depending on the location of the block, other users or websites may also be blocked if the communication is routed to the location of the block. A circumvention method is to ignore the reset packet sent by the firewall.

Reverse surveillance. Computers accessing certain websites including Google are automatically exposed to reverse scanning from the ISP in an apparent attempt to extract further information from the "offending" system.

One of the most popular filtering software programmes is SmartFilter, owned by Secure Computing in California, which has recently been bought by McAfee. SmartFilter has been used by Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, as well as in the US and the UK.

There are a number of resources that allow users to bypass the technical aspects of Internet censorship. Each solution has differing ease of use, speed, and security from other options. Most, however, rely on gaining access to an internet connection that is not subject to filtering, often in a different jurisdiction not subject to the same censorship laws. This is an inherent problem in internet censorship in that so long as there is one publicly accessible system in the world without censorship, it will still be possible to have access to censored material.

Proxy websites are often the simplest and fastest way to access banned websites in censored nations. Such websites work by being themselves un-banned but capable of displaying banned material within them. This is usually accomplished by entering a URL address which the proxy website will fetch and display. They recommend using the https protocol since it is encrypted and harder to block.

Java Anon Proxy is primarily a strong, free and open source anonymizer software available for all operating systems. As of 2004, it also includes a blocking resistance functionality that allows users to circumvent the blocking of the underlying anonymity service AN.ON by accessing it via other users of the software (forwarding client).

The addresses of JAP users that provide a forwarding server can be retrieved by getting contact to AN.ON's InfoService network, either automatically or, if this network is blocked, too, by writing an e-mail to one of these InfoServices. The JAP software automatically decrypts the answer after the user completes a CAPTCHA. The developers are currently planning to integrate additional and even stronger blocking resistance functions.

Using Virtual Private Networks, a user who experiences internet censorship can create a secure connection to a more permissive country, and browse the internet as if they were situated in that country. Some services are offered for a monthly fee, others are ad-supported.

Psiphon software allows users in nations with censored Internet such as China to access banned websites like Wikipedia. The service requires that the software be installed on a computer with uncensored access to the Internet so that the computer can act as a proxy for users in censored environments

In 1996, the United States enacted the Communications Decency Act, which severely restricted online speech that could potentially be seen by a minor – which, it was argued, was most of online speech. Free speech advocates, however, managed to have most of the act overturned by the courts. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet. Many school districts in the United States frequently censor material deemed inappropriate for the school setting. In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which requires schools and public libraries receiving federal funding to install internet filters or blocking software.[104] Congress is also considering legislation to require schools, some businesses and libraries to block access to social networking websites, The Deleting Online Predators Act. Opponents of Internet censorship argue that the free speech provisions of the First Amendment bars the government from any law or regulation that censors the Internet.

A 4 January 2007 restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein forbade a large number of activists in the psychiatric survivors movement from posting links on their websites to ostensibly leaked documents which purportedly show that Eli Lilly and Company intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation appealed this as prior restraint on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets. It was later held that the judgment was unenforcable, though First Amendment claims were rejected.

In January 2010, a lawsuit was filed against an online forum, Scubaboard.com, by a Maldives diving charter company (see scubaboard lawsuit). The owner of the company claimed $10 million in damages caused by users of scubaboard, scubaboard.com, and the owner of scubaboard.com. Individual forum members were named in the lawsuit as "employees" of the forum, despite their identity being anonymous except for their IP address to the moderators and owners of scubaboard.com. This lawsuit demonstrates the vulnerability of internet websites and internet forums to local and regional lawsuits for libel and damages.