Cyber Security and E-Government

As cyber activities increases, the threats related to cyber activities also growing. The consequence of those threat or attack is sometime small and some time big enough to bring down business or organizational activities. Even thought main objective of e-Government is to serve citizen, businesses and to provide transparent and open government rather than earning profits, the vulnerability to threat and attack is no more different from those of e-commerce or e-business. As e-participation and civic engagement in e-Government activities is increasing. The risk toward public privacy and database and infrastructure security of e-Government is also increasing. Hence there are risks and threats in both sides and the current cyber law couldn’t address all these issues. Since different countries have different ways of implementing e-Government projects and they has devised their own framework for implementation base on their culture, information resources, politics and law, but when it comes to cyberspace they all have same global issues which can be addressed only by creating International or Global Cyber Law because once when the e-Government is deployed it is visible around the world and cannot restrict on the particular geographical boundary. Global Cyber Law will not only make sure that the public or government information asset and infrastructure be protected but also help address the cyber related crime globally. As we have read or heard the issue about wiki leaks and disclose of US diplomatic cable gives every nation an attention how to protect the vital information internally and externally. As it seen that the threat is emerged from outside world, the inside world is also equally responsible for creating cyber attacks and cyber crime. To better protect from vital information discloser to outside world, better cyber security and law is essential and e-Government implementer should recognize those potential consequences which creating and implementing e-Government services. Government should also recognize public privacy and respect public opinions and freedom of speech. The e-Government initiatives will only be successful when the citizens feel free to participate in e-Government activities and enhance the democracy norms and value by actively participating in e-democracy without worrying the government will sneaks and use their personal information or government surveillance.

As we know that every country has its own constitution and statues to protect their citizen’s right and freedom of speech, the e-Government initiatives in those countries should also reflect those constitution and statues and should create transparent, accountable, efficient and open government by engaging civic participation using current web 2.0 based technologies.

As we already discussed that Gov 2.0 presents exciting opportunities to reach out public and citizens, it has also potential to erode public privacy in the ways that undermine the participatory goals of open government. As companies and non-profit organizations have already adopted on-way mirror policies, the government can also use a one-way mirror policy to ameliorate the problem and facilitate democratic discourse without engendering privacy risk.

Further the risk from public and anonymous group can also be lowered by establishing better cyber security infrastructure, law and awareness. Adopting new innovative technologies like cloud computing will not only lower the infrastructure cost of e-Government projects, but also provide secure and scalable infrastructure for successful e-Government initiatives.

The effect of Authentication on Cyberspace Laws

Authenticating a person means to verify his/her identity. In cyberspace, absence of relatively self-authenticating makes it extremely difficult to regulate behavior, especially among the young kids. Like for example, In real space if kids go to watch adult movies or go to buy liquor then he/she will definitely ask for true age and once his age is verified then he/she is allowed to purchase or watch such movies. Also by looking at person, one can easily find the physical attributes of that person like age (most of the time), race, gender and so on. Hence authenticating one's identity in real space makes it really easy to regulate behavior and control the crime and other illegal activities.

But cyberspace lacks such self-authenticating mechanism. Like most of the adult web site has got some sort of authentication like before visiting those site people were ask their actual age but that in fact doesn't make any difference whether the person is kids or adults because he/she is not visible and can't control their behavior. Hence authenticating in cyberspace poses serious issues and sometime that leads to criminal activities also. Like, these days we often heard news that person's identity has stolen or one become victimized or even committed suicide related to some social activities in cyberspace. These types of crime related to cyberspace is very difficult to track since people can use fake identity specially in social sites like my-space, face-book and so on. Almost 1 in 5 young school kids in USA is victimized by some sort of cyber bullying. All of these activities are direct consequences of fake authentication or lack of authentication in cyberspace. Internet architecture or network infrastructure has provided no mechanism to control such activities. All these mechanism has to be implemented at the end of the Internet (which is in application itself) and websites like social networking doesn't provide such mechanism till now.
But in the other hand, activities related to the transactions like online banking, shopping and so on required authentication and authorization about the person's identity. This is mostly achieved by asking person principal/credential and other security related questions. Hence commercial web site has secured their business and transaction through layer of security and authentication mechanism and able to regulate the activities. But cyberspace doesn't only consist of banking, shopping and other commercial web site but also includes other web sites like social networking site and other illegal mature and adult site. Most of these sites are free of cost which is how young kids have access without or with very weak authentication mechanism.

Hence looking at these trends in cyberspace, the proper mechanism of authentications still lack in cyberspace and the kinds of protections for privacy and autonomy are still needed.

Effect of Identity on Cyberspace Laws

Identity is an attribute of a person which define who the person is, what he does and how he looks like. Person's identity in the real space is more apparent because he is visible and people can judge base on one's look. Even though one's identity can't truly find out even in real space but person's gender, age and other attribute can be find out by looking at a person. Hence law pertaining to the identity can be applied to real space based on geographic location. Also one's behavior and attitude toward other person can also be controlled by state law. Hence bottom line is that people activities is mostly regulated by some sort of government and constitutional law and that law is based on his or her true identity. Hence identity has got very significant effect on regulating law in real space.

Now what happens in cyberspace when person's identity is not visible or in other word there are thousands activities happening in cyberspace and no one knows who doing what. Tracking person's activities and motive behind his/her activities in cyberspace is very difficult not only because he is invisible but also there is not geographic boundary. Hence identity become crucial in cyberspace. Few decades before when World Wide Web was deployed, there is not such things as identity in cyberspace because all it has to do is to broadcast the information and don't care who receive what information. As Information Technology advances, commercial and government sites are being deployed in web and lots of monetary related activities/transactions started happening in the web, business and government has felt huge importance and necessity of one's identity to complete the transactions/activities successfully. Without person's true identity, it is impossible to carried out this kind of transactions like banking, online shopping, online bill pay and other online activities that happens in cyberspace. Hence identity in cyberspace become one of the serious global issue these days not only because it involves business transaction but also involve other activities like cyber attack, cyber terrors and identity thief. All these cyber related crime happening because of the identity issues. If one can be identified what he is doing and who is he then it is possible to track the yber related activities. These days innovation and advancement in cyberspace, it is possible to track down who is doing what in cyberspace. Most of the commercial activities like banking, online shopping required identity verification before proceeding online activities, but for other activities it is still major issues like computer hacking, virus spreading etc. At least the technology can help us when these activity started and where is the source of these activity by reverse DNS mapping and IP identification but still the exact location and true identity of who is involved in this activity is very difficult. Hence identity has become serious issue in cyberspace and consequences of these cyber crime is disastrous. The serious in the sense that it is very difficult to apply cyber law because of the geographical boundary and one can't be held responsible if the activities happening beyond the specific boundary and law.
Since it is very difficult to regulate all the activities in the cyberspace but still there are possibilities due to the technological advancement to help find out the exact source of those activities and at least its impact can be minimize and controlled in some way.