November 11,
2008: Pakistan has become increasingly active in fighting Internet based
criminals. Recently, it enacted the "Prevention of Electronic Crimes"
law. In addition to explicitly describing various Internet based crimes, and
declaring them criminal acts, it also defined cyber terrorism, and the
penalties for Internet terrorists. If someone causes the death of another
because of cyber terrorism, the maximum punishment is execution.
Last
year, Pakistan spent $3 million to
establish a Center For Cyber Crime. This, and the new law, are the result of
several trends. First, the national economy is increasingly dependent on
Internet access. Without some kind of national level Internet security, the
country becomes a more attractive target for large hacker organizations.
Second, Islamic terrorists have been making heavy use of the Internet for
communications. American intelligence agencies, working in Pakistan with
Pakistani police, have demonstrated the wide array of unclassified techniques
and equipment available to monitor terrorist use, protect the Internet, and
hunt down criminals using it. The
government does not want to be as dependent on the Americans for these
services.
While the
American help is welcome, Pakistan has a large, and growing, software
development industry of its own. In fact, the first known computer virus, the
"Brain Virus" was written by Pakistani programmers in the late 1970s.
"Brain" was created to help protect software, a Pakistani firm had
created and was selling, from pirating (illegal copies). But, instead, the
Brain virus got out of control, and the rest is history. Pakistan has a lot of
home grown talent for their computer crime center.
Finally,
there is the ongoing "war" between Indian and Pakistani hackers. Most
of this has been little more than vandalism (defacing web pages and the like),
but there have been some more serious hacks. So the government wants to be
ready on the Cyber War front.
