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HYDERABAD, June 4

THE fact that cracking a whip is not that easy in the cyber world seems to have dawned on the cops, who seem to be learning the lessons the hard way.

It all started with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) tracking down missing pieces of information in the ISI network that landed up in Hyderabad and learnt that encrypted messages were sent without the knowledge of cyber café owners.

That is when the cops got together and decided enough was enough and it was time to regulate the cyber cafes.

In reality, however, the cumbersome task of regulating these New Economy players was not that easy. The cops did not have a clue as to how many cyber cafes they need to track down and where to begin the task. Nobody knew the number of cafes since the licensing authority was the municipal corporation that grants trade licence valid for one year.

They took up the task to enumerate the number of cyber cafes through their task forces and came up with the number of about 600 cafes. They were, in fact, 100 per cent off-target as it later emerged that the actual number was in excess of 1,000.

Two senior officials of the Hyderabad police establishment convened a meeting of cyber café owners of the central zone expecting about 100 cafes in their zone. As it turned out, there are more than 200 of them and most of them were not even familiar with the IT Act 2000 and that it laid emphasis on the fact that ISPs and cyber cafés have certain responsibilities.

At an interactive meeting with cyber café owners, the Additional Commissioner of Police, Mr A.M. Khan, and the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr C.V. Anand, said that in recent times, some types of anti-national activity through Internet centres had come to light and that some crimes had come to their notice from such centres. "Therefore, we have decided to regulate the operations of cyber centres."

As a first step in that direction, the officials directed that cyber cafes should restructure their centres and must not have closed cabins. And in cases where there are closed cabins, they must be see through types .

In order to check youth and young couples from viewing pornographic sites, they suggested that these cafes load content filter software like `Cyber Sitter 2001' or `Cafezee' which automatically prevent the browsing of many prohibited Internet sites.

They also suggested that these cafes load `Keylogger' software which will enable the computer to record everything which is typed, so that it can be accessed if need be.

While suggesting them to maintain a proper register of the persons coming to use the cyber cafes, they felt that insisting on some proof of identity before allowing them to browse would be better.

That was when Mr Bharat Kumar, a cyber café owner, struck a discordant note. He said that already the café business was under cut-throat competition and many of them were faced with the prospects of closure.

Only those cafes which provide all facilities will be accessed and have visitors. It would be better that the police establishment took up the matter with a dozen ISPs and cable networks who provide Internet access rather than the cafes.

"We will abide by whatever system you create but request you to design a concept which will not affect our business. We are open to open cabins but please do not kill this nascent business which is already facing intense competition and more and more entrepreneurs are getting into the business offering attractive service levels," he pleaded.

Empathising with cyber café owners, the police officials said that suitable guidelines would be evolved shortly.

But what looks like a problem here could be something the other States too will have to tackle along the way.

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