The Rajampet

SAFETY FIRST:Kadapa SP Tarun Joshi addressing a meeting of cyber cafe owners in Kadapa on Saturday.
KADAPA: As part of efforts to combat growing cyber crime, internet frauds and ‘phishing' mails seeking passwords, Kadapa Superintendent of Police Tarun Joshi instructed all the 68 cyber café owners in Kadapa city to install cyber café management and security software, to be provided free of cost, maintain log books of users and cooperate with the police in ensuring national security.

In a month from now, all cyber cafes in Kadapa should install the software ‘Clinck Cyber Café Manager' being provided free of cost by Ideacts Innovations, Mumbai, which installed the software in cyber cafes in 260 cities across the country so far, Dr. Tarun Joshi told a meeting with cyber café owners of Kadapa here.
Information Technology Act was enacted in 2000 and amended in 2008 to strengthen it, the SP said. Detecting cyber crime committed from a cyber café was difficult and number of users whose identity was not recorded, he said.

SP's directive
The SP asked cyber café owners to install the software, capture photographs of net users through webcams, generate a unique login password, maintain a log book of users with their names, addresses, mobile numbers and time in and time out, which was mandatory. Smaller cities were becoming havens for anti-social elements in some high-profile cyber crimes and unlawful activities, Dr. Joshi said. Besides maintaining user data, cyber café owners can also keep track of their accounts online.
The data would be stored on a centralised server. Cyber café owners are intermediaries as per Information Technology Act and offenders would be liable under Section 294 IPC and Section 67 (a) and (b) of IT Act.
13 districts in AP

Operations Manager of Ideacts Innovations Shaik Shabbir Nawaz said the free software runs with centralised software, which was being used in 13 districts in Andhra Pradesh including Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.

The software was installed in 11,300 cyber cafes which were being visited by 12 million users in 260 cities in the country. Mails sent for Mumbai terror attack through cyber cafes took two years to be tracked, he said.
The SP and Mr. Nawaz cleared doubts of cyber café owners. Circle inspectors of Kadapa Shaukat Ali, Harinath Reddy, M. Venkatadri and Mahabub Basha participated.