The Hindu Business Line : Dangerous waters

Of all the aspects of cyber crime as we know it today what should be of the greatest concern to us is the growing involvement of the young, both as offenders and victims. It is to this segment of society that a computer is the most attractive tool for adventure.

While many use it positively for a widening of their horizon, others employ it mainly to give vent to their negative emotions such as anger and jealousy. Sometimes, greed and its gratification also become part of the motivation for the release of such energies.

A poignant story that goes back to October 2006 which recently appeared in Washington Post is an eloquent testimony to the fact that youth access to the Internet without parental supervision is an invitation to disaster.

Megan Meier was a 13-year-old girl who lived near St. Louis (Missouri, US ). In her childhood she was found to be suffering from an attention-deficit disorder and bouts of anxiety. She was obese and was naturally the target of ridicule of classmates at the West Middle School where she was enrolled. To get away, she moved over to a small parish school where life was a lot pleasanter.

Much to the delight of her worrying parents, Ron and Tina Meier, she started playing volleyball in her new setting and actually shed 20 pounds. She generally seemed to be in good cheer, until one day, the eve of her fourteenth birthday, she hung herself. The parents were naturally devastated and had no clue why their daughter put an end to herself when she had turned the corner and was doing well after her earlier phases of gloom.

Enquiries by the Meiers and subsequent investigation into the incident by the Sheriff’s department and the FBI revealed that Megan’s impulsive action was a sequel to what she saw on her computer a few hours before her suicide. It was also found that neighbours Lori and Curt Drew had a hand in the whole unfortunate episode.

It transpired that the Drews were for some time queasy about Megan’s relationship with their own daughter. Specifically, they believed that Megan was scandalizing their daughter and wanted to know what exactly Megan was saying about her. So they set up a phony MySpace.com account in the name of a non-existent 16-year-old boy called ‘Josh Evans’.

Megan started receiving mails from Josh adoring her. Having felt for long that she was being neglected by her friends who were also derisive about her, Megan was convinced that her fortunes were after all changing for the better and that she had a strong admirer in Josh. Soon she started expressing her own love for him.

This went on for quite a while as the Josh-Megan relationship blossomed. Tina, Megan’s mother, was however not quite convinced about the identity of Josh, and her repeated counselling to her daughter not to be taken in by an absolute stranger, whom she had met only online, fell on deaf ears. Interestingly, a few years earlier, Megan’s private e-mail account had been withdrawn by Tina when she found out that Megan and a friend had set up a ‘hot girl’ account on MySpace. Naturally, Tina suspected that her daughter was once again falling into a trap, but she could hardly do anything about it.

It was against this backdrop that Megan’s suicide came. The last screen on her computer showed that she had received a message from her fictitious boyfriend Josh which read as: “The world would be a better place without you.” Obviously, the sensitive teenager took this remark to heart and was driven to desperation. The question is what was the legal liability of the Drews, whose action in setting up a fictitious character and sending objectionable mails were the primary cause for the suicide.

The FBI which took up the investigation and Federal Attorneys took the position that the Drews could not be prosecuted because their intention was not to harass Megan but only to extract information from her. Ironically, the only charge that was being pressed in the case was the one against Megan’s father, and this was for the act of driving his truck across the lawn maintained by the Drews and causing a damage to the tune of $1000. Can there be anything more outrageous than this?

The Megan episode, which has overtones of ‘cyber bullying’ , is an aberration that is yet to receive full-fledged legal recognition. It has many lessons to offer. It reiterates what I have been tirelessly saying through this column that the Internet is perilous to the young and unguided mind in a world full of intrigue and deception.

Parents will be grossly unfair to their wards if they do not sit down with the latter and talk to them patiently about the pitfalls of surfing without discipline. This becomes especially important when a child is prone to anxiety and there are signs of a need for psychiatric care. The happening demands attention from lawmakers as well on how to deal with misconduct that may not be wholly criminal but is one that reeks of dishonesty and malice.

Finally the occurrence highlights the infirmities of social networking sites which are dime a dozen these days. The craze to get into one of them has become irresistible to many of our youngsters who are walking into them thoughtlessly unaware of its implications. There is hardly any societal campaign against these sites many of which have utterly commercial objectives. The IT Ministry in Delhi has possibly a role here.

(The writer is a former CBI Director who is currently Adviser (Security) to TCS Ltd.)

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