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Bharat Kumar
Raja Simhan T.E.

CHENNAI, Jan. 24

THE chief technologist at eAlcatraz Consulting is dead serious about his job — to secure companies against unwanted intrusion.

So much so that Mr Sriram's own employees cannot enter or leave his room without his releasing a remote-controlled lock at his door! Surely a fine tribute to the company's real-world namesake, San Francisco's Alcatraz - the world's erstwhile, most famous prison.

Ironically, Mr Sriram's expertise at electronic protection came from his ability to break into electronic systems that were thought to be secure.

His prank at age 14 made him a known name in Tamil Nadu police circles - he broke into the wireless frequency of a senior police officer.

Mr Sriram's cheerful voice that greeted a stunned officer triggered alarm signals across the force. Fortunately for Mr Sriram, they recognised that he was a harmless youth and let him off with a warning.

The same police force is now using his skills to crack computer codes in the now famous Dr L. Prakash case.

Dr Prakash is currently under custody of the Tamil Nadu Police on charges of running a porn Web site. This is the first instance in the country when the IT Act, made a law last year, has been applied.

Mr Sriram says that he and his colleagues spent about 10 consecutive sleepless nights cracking passwords that would give the police access to obscene photographs allegedly taken and published by Dr Prakash.

"The first few steps were simple, such as getting the registrant information. Then we traced all his e-mail accounts, including his Yahoo! account."

eAlcatraz then had to break open password restrictions to access files stored in hard disks and in CDs.

Mr Sriram says, "The complexity was not so much in cracking passwords as in doing it within a week."

The challenge existed because Internet service providers (ISPs) typically erase access logs every three months.

Net access logs of ISPs show the identity of the subscriber, the phone number from which he accessed the Net, the sites he visited and the time at which all this happened.

Further, eAlcatraz had to prove that the photos found as attachments sent over e-mail by the accused matched those found on certain Web sites.

Mr Sriram explains: "Publishing, and not merely possessing, a photo is illegal."

Does he see other areas that are festering grounds for illegal activities but where the IT law cannot be used?

"Sure. Internet parlours where the public accesses the Net can be better monitored. Every Net parlour should obtain a licence from the police. Some time ago, a former Chief Minister received a threat over e-mail. That could not be traced because the sender could have walked into any Net parlour, jabbed in the message and sent the mail. If the parlour had been registered, and if it insisted on identity verification of everyone using its services, then some headway could have been possible."

In other words, he says, for any system to be secure, common sense, policies and processes have to be rigidly applied: all the rules that possibly made Alcatraz the most secure prison in the world.

Porn still big draw with Chennai surfers

DESPITE the Dr Prakash episode evoking public interest, sites with pornographic content continue to attract large numbers in small, privately-run Internet parlours.

In a visit to a few such joints in Chennai, Business Line found that over 85 per cent of recently visited Internet links were to porn sites.

The rest were predominantly to e-mail sites such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Sify.

Interestingly, interest in Net access parlours seems high in areas where singles form part of a city's moving population.

Triplicane in Chennai is one such. It has the largest number of `mansions' - or lodges - in the city.

One caretaker did an interesting thing when a request was made to surf the Net: he quickly went to a terminal and deleted all files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, which stored cookies or image files from all sites visited by the earlier surfer.

However, the caretaker neglected to delete the scroll bar links, another giveaway. The desktop even had shortcuts to such sites, and visits to these commanded a premium.

Another cafe owner said that most surfers use time to send resumes. "Some do browse porn sites. It is their wish. We cannot monitor what they do in the cube."

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