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D. Murali

When it comes to bribes, human nature may be resistant to change. But byte the technology bullet, and there's hope for humanity.

NOT long ago, the National Customs of Bolivia or NCB was considered one of the most corrupt institutions.

"Services provided to traders were directly related to the bribes offered, and almost 40 per cent of the total staff consisted of people who did not receive salaries from the NCB but simply kept a share of the taxes they collected for themselves and for whoever had procured the position for them," narrates Flavio Escobar in Customs Modernization Initiatives: Case Studies, edited by Luc De Wulf and Jose B. Sokol and published by The World Bank (www.worldbank.org) .

A story of anarchy, no different from what we only know too well.

Then, they decide to bite the byte; information and communication technology (ICT) reform was launched to junk the old software called SARA, "which was basically a register of operations", and introduce ASYCUDA++ for Automated System for Customs Data.

Escobar recounts that ICT proved to be an important factor in NCB's transformation.

Physical inspections of imports and exports have been limited to a maximum of 20 per cent of declarations, and "shipments are selected randomly by means of an automated procedure," based on their risk profile.

Move on to Peru. "All customs operations are computerised," informs Adrien Goorman.

"Offices are interconnected through a system of 1,600 computers, 50 servers, and an e-mail network." What's the impact? "Clearance times have been reduced from an average of 20 days to 24 hours for the red channel (physical inspection), 12 hours for the orange channel (document verification), and 1 to 2 hours for the green channel (immediate release). An advance clearance system is in place for operators in good standing." Creditable achievement.

Writing about the Philippines, Guillermo L. Parayno Jr. records how the Bureau of Customs there acquired the first Fujitsu automatic computer in the 1960s, "through reparations for World War II", ahead of even the National Computer Center.

"In 1976, the BOC built a computer centre and a Burroughs 700 mainframe computer became operational essentially to capture transaction data and generate management information.

However, the low value that management attached to the outputs led to the early demise of the system." To resurrect it, however, it took about two decades.

Ideal read for policy makers.

In the name of info security

THINKING of what happened to Bajaj of Bazee many top people lose their good sleep.

CEOs imagine worst-case scenarios of funny stuff hiding in some nook of their company Web sites, escaping due diligence.

To help, here is Naavi with "CyLawCom: Corporate Mantra for the Digital Era," (www.naavi.org) . In the preface, the author, a.k.a. Na. Vijayashankar, castigates the professional and corporate community for breeding cyber crimes through ignorance, and "reluctance to invest in cyber law education".

Alarmingly, "banks doing extensive e-business have been characteristically non-cyber law compliant," he charges.

Ironically, the IT sector is "more interested in HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance tools for the US markets than Information Technology Act (ITA)-compliance tools for India," laments the author.

But what's the solution? CyLawCom, a new programme that information asset owners can adopt as the next snake oil, perhaps, to draw up a "preventive information asset security strategy."

The book explains in different chapters the concept of cyber law, impact of cyber crimes, role of digital signatures in security, information asset insurance, and virtual assets and intellectual property issues.

As expected in any discussion of computer security, there are horror stories such as that of Ranganathan of Xenon Software who gets arrested by the Singapore cops because his company's software is alleged to have malfunctioned and caused a chain of deaths.

Not too differently, the chairman of Green Bird Textiles is arrested in the US because "several photographs on the Web site of the company were used to hide steganographic messages containing instructions for various terrorist activities across the globe."

Thankfully, there are no episodes of maligning mails from Mars or vile porn from Venus.

The author's proposal is for cyber law compliance certification and exams for becoming a "Certified CyLawCom Examiner" by paying Rs 5,000, as I learn from his site.

The process is not easy, for one has to go through five modules, which I'm sure must be quite grilling for sceptics like me.

But there is a qualm if the course could be as half-baked as the book itself despite claims of uniqueness. A risky read, if you can afford it.

Tailpiece

"My optical mouse is missing!"

"Perhaps it's now somebody else's kleptical mouse."

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in

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