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Social media giants should be more proactive

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Worried at the growing trend of educated Indian youths hooking on to the social media, especially on forums that promote hate and terror, India is all set to make a strong demand with Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp etc to get into an agreement to furnish immediate details of internet protocol (IP) addresses of suspicious accounts.

"As getting timely information from these social media giants is a time consuming and tedious process, this is the only way one can keep a tab on youths turning towards the virtual world of Jihad-related terror. If they want they can also install servers here to route the traffic of India-based account holders," said sources.

In the recent case of @ShamiWitness, the purported Twitter handle of ISIS run by Bangalore-based techie Mehdi Masroor Biswas, India failed to get timely information from Twitter about his internet protocol address. Though Indian agencies managed to get him by using old investigation techniques, a quicker response from Twitter could have solved the case much faster.

Indian agencies also end up wasting a lot of time to get information on chat details of top IM operatives like Riyaz Bhatkal who use Yahoo and Nimbuzz accounts and frequently hopping from one proxy server to the other by creating fake IDs in quick succession.

Using diplomatic channels, the NIA finally had to take the help of experts of Computer emergency response team (Cert) of US, UK and also Yahoo and Nimbuzz to break into IM chat details.

While Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp are likely to resist the Indian request citing privacy matters, Indian security establishment is hopeful that glitches can be sorted out through intervention at government level.

"The West is now also getting increasingly apprehensive of the pitfalls of social media and knows that in the interconnected world the threat can merge from anywhere. As India can invest in the capabilities of internet interception that in turn will help the Western countries, they should help us by prevailing over the ridiculous privacy argument," said a source.

They cited successful negotiations with Canada based Research in Motion (RIM) to that finally agreed to install its servers here to keep tabs on BlackBerry's highly encrypted BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service that was found being used not only by terror outfits for secret messaging but also by money launderers and cartels dealing in drugs and other illicit trade.

After much coaxing and finally when served a warning that non compliance could lead to stopping of their services, the RIM yielded and installed their decrypting machines and servers in Mumbai allowing security agencies to get required encrypted data of suspicious accounts whenever required.

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