Gangrape documentary: Virtually ‘impossible’ to stop viewing of film online, say experts

Armed with a judicial order, the government has stepped in to prevent the viewing of the controversial documentary, ‘India’s Daughter’, on the internet but cyber experts believe it may be virtually “impossible” to block its content.

BBC broadcast the documentary — which is based on the December 16, 2002, gangrape in Delhi — in the UK yesterday and the video has since gone viral on the internet. YouTube has, however, begun blocking it after being asked by the Indian government.

According to cyber crime experts, it is now very difficult to block all the content.

“Once the video is public, it is impossible to stop the circulation of the interview. There are tools which can search a particular content on the web but complete blocking is difficult.

“Government and police can at the maximum ask the hosting site to block it, but in the cyber world, it will keep popping up,” said Ishan Sinha, a cyber expert who imparts cyber crime training to various state police forces.

The controversy surrounding the interview increased the curiosity among the general public and, following the UK telecast of the 60-minute long video, the film went viral on Youtube, social media and torrent sites even though a court has banned its broadcast in India.

Experts claimed that cops will also have to struggle in finding the origin of video uploads as most of the servers are located abroad.

“Most websites, including the social media ones and WhatsApp, have their servers outside India and they are reluctant to share their logs with the police. As the interview is available on many websites, it is only going to spread further even though the sharing and transfer of a banned video is a violation of the IT act,” said advocate Prashant Mali, a Mumbai-based cyber law and cyber security expert.

The video is already circulating on social media websites and WhatsApp.

Source:: Indian Express