COMPUTER EMERGENCY RESPONSE SYSTEM

  • Recently, the Github, an open-source software repository service was used to create and share an offensively named app that sexually harassed a women in India.
  • The app used pictures of the women stolen from their social media handles and invited “users” to bid for them.
  • GitHub has blocked the user, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In)has been asked to form “a high-level committee.
  • GitHub:
  • GitHub is the world’s largest open-source developer community platform where users upload their projects and code for others to view, edit, and tweak.
  • The platform uses the software Git, which was created in 2005 by Linus Trovalds, the developer of the open-source operating system Linux, to track changes in a set of files and for coordination in software.

Important points:

Underlying Principles: Open source projects, products, or initiatives embrace and celebrate principles of

  1. Open exchange,
  2. Collaborative participation,
  3. Rapid prototyping,
  4. Transparency,
  5. Meritocracy, and
  6. Community-oriented development.

Open Source Software: Open source software (OSS) is software that is distributed with its source code, making it available for use, modification, and distribution with its original rights.

  • Source code is the part of software that most computer users don’t ever see.
  • It’s the code computer programmers manipulate to control how a program or application behaves.
  • OSS typically includes a licence that allows programmers to modify the software to best fit their needs and control how the software can be distributed.
  • The idea of making source code freely available originated in 1983 from an ideological movement informally founded by Richard Stallman, a programmer at MIT.
  • Examples of Linux, Mozilla Firefox, VLC media player, SugarCRM, etc.
  • Closed Source or Proprietary Software: Closed source software is software that holds the source code safe and encrypted.
  • Meaning, the user can’t copy, modify, or delete parts of the code without some type of consequence.

Way Forward

The government must take urgent, exemplary action against the perpetrators. Simply taking down the app, without imposing costs on such criminal behaviour, will lead to encouragement of impunity.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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