'Monitoring of internet gateways necessary'

NEW DELHI: The Centre is mulling a request by various security agencies especially the CBI for amending the Information Technology Act to enable the investigating and intelligence agencies to monitor internet network and gateways.

The government is taking this course after an email was received by some media houses serial blasts in Uttar Pradesh that left over a dozen people dead and scores others injured.
    
The email account, sent from Yahoo service provider using a French domain (fr), was created a day before the blasts by suspected terrorists whose apparent aim was not to expose the actual perpetrators of the crime.
    
According to sources,the monitoring of network would help the probe and intelligence agencies in gathering real-time information and take necessary preventive measures.
    
Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), used to transmit voice signals as data packets through the internet, was being misused by some people, posing a serious threat to national security, an internal paper sent to the Government said.
    
"The calling person in a foreign country makes a call through calling cards. Once he or she calls any number to India using calling cards, the call is routed through VOIP gateway in the foreign country where the voice signals are converted into data packets.