Indian police used information from Google to track down a suspect and make an arrest in an investigation dating back to December 2007, demonstrating a growing trend to use the Internet to fight crime.

 

On Friday, May 16, 2008, Indian police arrested Rahul Vaid, a 22 year-old IT professional from Gurgaon city, Harayana.

 

The case involves obscene comments made about India’s Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on an Orkut community site named “I Hate Sonia Gandhi.” The community contained derogatory comments about Gandhi and circulated messages through emails.

 

The primary email address was registered through Gmail, the email service hosted by Google. In December 2007, India police contacted Google concerning the identity of the email account’s owner.

 

Vaid was arrested on Friday in his home and flown to Pune where he was arraigned on Saturday under charges of violating section 292 of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act. If proven guilty, Vaid could face up to five years in prison and a fine of Rs. 100,000 (about $2,346).

 

Vaid’s case is the most recent example of international authorities using the Internet to track down and build cases against criminals.

 

In February of 2008, the Moroccan government arrested Fouad Moutada and convicted him of creating a fake Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid. The Moroccan government found the impersonation of King Mohammed VI’s younger brother as a contestation of the royal family, though a pardon by the King later freed Moutada.

 

Last year the Chinese government used Yahoo to track down a journalist who criticized the strict communist government.

 

Vaid’s case is the newest example of the World Wide Web being used to enforce laws within a country, fueling the debate over a country’s jurisdiction over the Internet.

 

By Danny Scuderi

In the last few years, the number of Internet users has grown exponentially to 1.3 billion - or 20 percent of the world population, and Internet speeds around the world are hardly keeping up with the rising demands of usage (i.e. Web 2.0).

Now, CERN, the particle physics institute that introduced the Web in 1989, has created The Grid, a new kind of Internet that will operate at a speed almost 10,000 times faster than a standard broadband connection. 

According to a CERN website, GridCafe, “whereas the Web is a service for sharing information over the Internet, the Grid is aservice for sharing computer power and data storage capacity over the Internet.” Ultimately, the Grid is about transcending simple communication over the Internet, and moreover, turning a global network of computers into one large supercomputer.

Geneva-based CERN claims The Grid will be fast enough to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalog from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

Downloading music or movies will take a matter of seconds. It also brings closer the reality of holographic image transmissions; and HD video telephony is likely for the price of a local phone call.

What’s more, experts imagine The Grid will advance online data storage, or ‘Cloud Computing’ – an idea already taking shape in the offices of IBM, Google, and Yahoo! In simple terms, cloud computing within The Grid will allow people to store all their information online and access it from anywhere an Internet connection is available.

How does it work? The Grid uses sophisticated fiber optic cables and modern routing technology, which means there are no outdated components to slow data transmission. It acts on the same level as “distributed computing” where one unified network is powered through the connection of several computers to solve larger computing problems, such as a complicated calculation or downloading large sums of data.

Actually, processing a large sum of data necessitated the creation of the new Internet system set for release this summer. The Grid project was born out of the need for more processing power than would have been available at CERN alone when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), or new particle accelerator, is switched on to recreate the Big Bang. Furthermore, enormous amounts of data will need to be stored to be analyzed by scientists worldwide. Since the estimated amount of data would devastate the current Internet, a better system had to be created. 55,000 servers are already installed and expected to rise to 200,000 within the next two years.

Although the existing Internet can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection, The Grid only connects select high speed academic networks in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia. 

The Grid, however, is poised to follow in the footstep of the present Internet. Though ideally conceived to advance research for academic institutions and research facilities, it seems quite possible that it will eventually become available to the general public thereby revolutionizing the world of information technology.

By Kathleen Clark

The technological rivalry between Microsoft and Google Inc has entered a new forum—website publishing. While Microsoft has SharePoint, a hardware and software program businesses buy and maintain, Google is launching Google Sites as its free, user-friendly competitor. Companies and schools will be able to easily create, edit, and maintain personalized websites wherever there is an internet connection, an important feature SharePoint lacks, but the service is not as comprehensive as that of Microsoft.

 

Targeted at the business and educational market, Google Sites is a simplified version of SharePoint, scaled down in size and cost. It is designed for people in the same company or classroom to easily share digital information without the need for tech-savvy geniuses. Users are able to search and edit information on the website by invitation only, and the service is free or carries a small per-user fee depending on whether the organization has purchased a fuller version of Google Apps. It means that “IT (Information Technology) departments don’t have to do anything except enable users to serve themselves,” says Dave Girouard, general manager of Google’s Enterprise unit.

 

Google Sites is the newest product the company has employed to challenge Microsoft’s dominance in software sales. Over the last two years, Google Inc. has introduced free word processing, spreadsheet, and calendaring programs to rival those of Microsoft. Such programs have compelled Microsoft to bid on Yahoo Inc., Google’s biggest online search and advertising rival.

 

Though easy to use, Google Sites still lacks management features to control poorly maintained or out-of-date websites. Nonetheless, it is attractive to the average consumer or business looking to share information, pictures, or video within a closed network…and free is always a good thing.

 

Danny Scuderi

L’Atelier