Kela Republic : Girls arrested for Facebook post criticizing Thackeray

[Crookbond]

can they track the address if a person is working on a public Wi-Fi network ?

Yes one can but not 'smart' guys.

If I make a post on Facebook, Facebook would have the IP address the post originated from. From that IP address, the ISP can give the details of the person who made the post. Or do they take the URL of the post and ask the ISP to provide a list of all customers who visited the URL?

All your traffic is logged by your ISP. Currently, they go to the ISP's. Facebook is not an easy customer to deal with due to it's strict (can't believe I'm saying this but yes in the Indian context) privacy policies. Recently, in the US people seeding or downloading illegal software have been sent notices citing DMCA. Here's one such story in Finland Police Raid 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie The Pooh Laptop

One such request for cash landed on the doorstep of an Internet account holder in Finland during the spring. Known locally as TTVK, Finnish anti-piracy group CIAPC sent the man a letter informing him that his account had been traced back to an incidence of online file-sharing. To stop matters progressing further the man was advised to pay a settlement of 600 euros, sign a non-disclosure document, and move on with his life. He chose not to give in to the demands of CIAPC and this week things escalated as promised. Tuesday morning the doorbell of the family home rang around 8am and the man, who works in the hospitality sector, had quite a shock. Police were at his door with a search warrant authorizing the hunt for evidence connected to illicit file-sharing. Surprisingly, the man isnÃÕ a previously unknown Kim Dotcom-related ÅÄo-conspirator? nor does he run a warez site or BitTorrent tracker. He is, however, guilty of having a 9-year-old daughter with a taste for pop music.

http://torrentfreak.com/police-raid-9-year-old-pirate-bay-girl-confiscate-winnie-the-pooh-laptop-121122/

[Tiger80]

Track down IP address and thanks to the non-existent privacy laws in India the ISP is eager in handing over the data to anyone who comes.

Don't think SS or MNS has such a sharp computer experts who can track down IP and then ask for address from IP providers.I think they just locate the person from photo information provided in facebook account

[The Outsider]

All your traffic is logged by your ISP. Currently, they go to the ISP's. Facebook is not an easy customer to deal with due to it's strict (can't believe I'm saying this but yes in the Indian context) privacy policies.

Yeah, all traffic is logged by the ISP but that would mean ISP would only have information on which URLs I visited. However, does the ISP have information on my credit card number, my emails etc.? I wouldn't think so.

[Trichromatic]

However' date=' does the ISP have information on my credit card number, my emails etc.? I wouldn't think so.[/quote'] No and any person refusing to give information to govt can be jailed for 1 year or fined Rs 1 Lakh..

[Crookbond]

Don't think SS or MNS has such a sharp computer experts who can track down IP and then ask for address from IP providers.I think they just locate the person from photo information provided in facebook account

Sherlock - it's the police who consult the cyber police. The police in this case are working in hand with SS or MNS.

Yeah' date=' all traffic is logged by the ISP [b']but that would mean ISP would only have information on which URLs I visited. However, does the ISP have information on my credit card number, my emails etc.? I wouldn't think so.

Yes they do have information on your website history. However, they do not have any information regarding your credit cards or e-mails because you are using a secure connection https (I hope!) to log into those websites. Therefore, they know you have visited lets say HSBC website but they wouldn't know the data (username, password etc.) you are sharing with the website. In any case, this route is too much pain to get your credit card information in India when it is sold in the bazaar for a few hundred rupees. Not to mention one could rather enter your network in stealth mode and snoop in the data but that's a totally different matter altogether.

[The Outsider]

Yes they do have information on your website history. However, they do not have any information regarding your credit cards or e-mails because you are using a secure connection https (I hope!) to log into those websites. Therefore, they know you have visited lets say HSBC website but they wouldn't know the data (username, password etc.) you are sharing with the website.

That's what I thought. In which the ISP would have information that I visited the URL of the Facebook page of the post, but would not have information that I posted that comment instead of just reading the page, right?

[Tiger80]

Sherlock - it's the police who consult the cyber police. The police in this case are working in hand with SS or MNS.

:dontknow: But is written that first MNS workers surrounded the house of boy and then they handed him to police. Are you saying that police secretly consult cyber polie and then hand over the address to SS or MNS?

[Crookbond]

That's what I thought. In which the ISP would have information that I visited the URL of the Facebook page of the post' date=' but would not have information that I posted that comment instead of just reading the page, right?[/quote'] Well, NO. If you post a comment a different http header would be generated by your post. There will be a POST request sent from your browser rather than a GET request while just browsing content. If you are really into it, you can try doing an experiment with Live HTTP header extension from Mozilla. I'm not sure if it would be appropriate but I guess you can guess it. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/live-http-headers/ Previously, researchers have used this data to demonstrate how Facebook advertising system (named Beacon which is since discontinued after huge privacy breaches) can be even used to retrieve sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) [0]. It's a simple paper to read - this is how your cookies etc. are tracked and sent to the advertisers as well - very similar method. The crux of what I'm trying to say is that while you log into a website like NYTimes, or ICF - the advertisers know almost everything about you. So, privacy is long lost on the Internet. However, there are ways to avoid it - * Instead of Google, Bing, Yahoo you can use DuckDuckGo as your search engine [1] * You can install Ad Block Plus [2] * Use a super cool extension called disconnect.me [3] * If you are super worried and want to remain safe all the time, use Tor [4]. Note that using Tor may make your surfing experience snappy HTH! [0] http://www2.research.att.com/~bala/papers/wosn09.pdf [1] http://duckduckgo.com/ [2] http://adblockplus.org/en/ [3] http://disconnect.me/ [4] https://www.torproject.org/ In this case, it looks likely. I know of similar previous incidents, very common in India to share information (any kind) without consulting the concerned person. It's our culture, can't blame it.

[Crookbond]

Here are a list of websites which try to track me when I visit ICF. Try this nice browser extension to know which sites track you. zP79Iwm0xbA

[Trichromatic]

Sunil, a resident of Palghar, reportedly sent obscene messages against Raj to his friend on Facebook on Tuesday evening. The chat messages were brought to the notice of some MNS workers later who then dragged him to the police station. A police officer said the boy had no role in sending those messages as he does not know how to operate Facebook. “But we have sent the IP address and a snapshot of the message inbox to the Thane cyber crime cell,” he said. “We have asked the police to take stringent action against Sunil as we cannot tolerate obscene messages and abusive words against our saheb. The police have assured us that they will take strict action,” said Kundan Sanke, MNS district president. “We have received the complaint and are getting details on Sunil’s background,” said Anil Khumbare, DSP, Thane rural.

:WTF: Chat se ab kya problem ho gaya.

[Tiger80]

In this case, it looks likely. I know of similar previous incidents, very common in India to share information (any kind) without consulting the concerned person. It's our culture, can't blame it.

There are probably thousands of comments written aganst Thackerays from all over India.I don't think Mumbai police can track them all.Most probably action is taken against people which are living in Mumbai and some local SS/MNS worker knew them

[CG]

There are probably thousands of comments written aganst Thackerays from all over India.I don't think Mumbai police can track them all.Most probably action is taken against people which are living in Mumbai and some local SS/MNS worker knew them

I am pretty sure some of the facebook friends might have given the information to moron shivshainiks.

[Raghav_12]

There are probably thousands of comments written aganst Thackerays from all over India.I don't think Mumbai police can track them all.Most probably action is taken against people which are living in Mumbai and some local SS/MNS worker knew them

Yes. That's how it works. There is no ISP tracking or anything. If anybody in known in partiuclar community as vocal suporter of the ideology which is not accepted to dominant group of thta society then they track online posts of that person and try to bully, with help of police, as soon as they get a chance. I guess that girl Shaheen would be known in her area as somebody who is openly against SS. So local people took that opportunity to bully her. To think that SS or MNS is keeping an eye on whatever is being told in online world and detect people using ISP is stupid. They would be targetting only people known to them as somebody having opposite stand.

[Trichromatic]

Govt modifies Section 66A of IT Act to prevent misuse

Iin the wake of its alleged misuse in recent few cases, the government on Thursday modified rules under controversial Section 66A of IT Act. Further details awaited....

SC to hear PIL to amend IT Act

New Delhi, Nov 29 (PTI) Voicing concern over recent incidents of people being arrested for posting alleged offensive messages on websites, the Supreme Court today agreed to hear a PIL seeking amendment to the Information Technology Act. A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir said that it was considering to take suo motu cognisance of recent incidents and wondered why nobody had so far challenged the particular provision of the IT Act.

Facebook row: Police to close case against two Palghar women

[Crookbond]

There are probably thousands of comments written aganst Thackerays from all over India.I don't think Mumbai police can track them all.Most probably action is taken against people which are living in Mumbai and some local SS/MNS worker knew them

:facepalm: Each comment is generated from a unique IP which results in each profile having a unique IP. You know the comment, you know the IP. Simple! Also, in one particular Unix epoch timestamp there would be a handful of people (max. around 100) who comment on Facebook. Since, Facebook does not allow fake profiles ( you have to register with your real name under their rules) it becomes incredibly simple to track down the person even IF there are 100 people posting a comment in a second (although this never happens even for the most viral posts and is a very high estimate). How difficult is to understand that? In this case, it may have been social engineering but it is not always so.

Yes. That's how it works. There is no ISP tracking or anything. If anybody in known in partiuclar community as vocal suporter of the ideology which is not accepted to dominant group of thta society then they track online posts of that person and try to bully, with help of police, as soon as they get a chance. I guess that girl Shaheen would be known in her area as somebody who is openly against SS. So local people took that opportunity to bully her. To think that SS or MNS is keeping an eye on whatever is being told in online world and detect people using ISP is stupid. They would be targetting only people known to them as somebody having opposite stand.

I think you should read once again what I wrote before jumping the gun on how it may have happened. Your explanation sounds plausible but there is another way to do it (which happened in the case of the dude from Chennai who was alleged to write a defamatory tweet against Chidambaram) Step 1 - Lodge a police complaint Step 2 - Police contacts the cyber cell Step 3 - Cyber cell contacts the ISPs (there are very few of them in India) Step 4 - Get the IP and trace the location of the person (very straight forward if you have the mechanism) It is NOT the SS/MNS supporters doing the ISP tracking but the SS/MNS arm twist the local police (due to favors, connections etc.) and get the information. Due to lack of appropriate privacy laws & frameworks in India, it is very easy to get information as required. I have mentioned a few examples in my previous post/

[Crookbond]

:WTF: Chat se ab kya problem ho gaya.

This is the problem in India. Haath maanga, sar lenge; dayre mein rehna toh kisi ne seekha hi nahi. We want SS/MNS/PMS as long as they suit your convenience. We never look at the holistic view but rather are satisfied with myopic gains. It ultimately leads to anarchy and chaos which the rich want to have and the poor are not smart enough to understand the "game".

I am pretty sure some of the facebook friends might have given the information to moron shivshainiks.

In this case, it is indeed possible and looks plausible too. But, that is not the only route as previous cases have shown.

[Tiger80]

Step 1 - Lodge a police complaint Step 2 - Police contacts the cyber cell Step 3 - Cyber cell contacts the ISPs (there are very few of them in India) Step 4 - Get the IP and trace the location of the person (very straight forward if you have the mechanism) It is NOT the SS/MNS supporters doing the ISP tracking but the SS/MNS arm twist the local police (due to favors, connections etc.) and get the information. Due to lack of appropriate privacy laws & frameworks in India, it is very easy to get information as required. I have mentioned a few examples in my previous post/

Dexter . probably thousand of comments are written against Thackerey's all over India on daily basis.Mumbai police police can't register thousands of complaints and cyber cell will need many many more people to track each and every person down. The fact is here action is taken against people which are in Mumbai,this shows that some SS/MNS worker may knew the people. Nobody is denying the information on ISP tracking you have provided and police will use all its means if particular person's blog or facebook comment is annoying some politician.but simply tracking each and every comment against thackeray's is not possible

[ganeshran]

All you need is a name of the person making the post and the locality which he belongs to, to get the address. Getting this from a cursory google search is far easier than requesting the information from Facebook or Twitter who are typically hesitant to share user IP information readily. Most probably the SS goons get the address of the person making the post and then make a police complaint which then files a complaint and arrests the user.

[Crookbond]

Dexter . probably thousand of comments are written against Thackerey's all over India on daily basis.Mumbai police police can't register thousands of complaints and cyber cell will need many many more people to track each and every person down. The fact is here action is taken against people which are in Mumbai,this shows that some SS/MNS worker may knew the people. Nobody is denying the information on ISP tracking you have provided and police will use all its means if particular person's blog or facebook comment is annoying some politician.but simply tracking each and every comment against thackeray's is not possible

:wall: Dude, they are not monitoring. One post gets viral and gets the attention. Now, the post and the profile of the user is known. You need to track down where he lives - if the information is provided on the profile; sweet & easy. If not - social engineering is done like mutual friends etc. If still not, one can go through the ISP. In this case you can say that they knew but there are cases where they don't know the person. I have personally seen some past cases which proceeded via the ISP route.

All you need is a name of the person making the post and the locality which he belongs to' date=' to get the address. [b']Getting this from a cursory google search is far easier than requesting the information from Facebook or Twitter who are typically hesitant to share user IP information readily. Most probably the SS goons get the address of the person making the post and then make a police complaint which then files a complaint and arrests the user.

Ganesh, It is not Facebook or Twitter who decides to share the IP but the ISP. You are right that it is easier but not all cases work that way. In some cases, it is indeed difficult and the cyber police do use IP tracking mechanisms to nail down on your locality.

[Prakat]

The girl's family was a high-profile one in her town, so it's a lot more probable that someone on her friend's list ratted her out. Also, regarding IP tracking done by an ISP using the URL of a Facebook post it a hit and miss at but I am eager to find out how it is done. If I gave you the URL of an FB post how will you as an ISP return an IP address from where it was posted?