Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law

This section gives you details on the Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law.Below are some  topics you need to learn under the Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law. Click on each link to learn more concerning the topic.

1.Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law : What is Internet and Cyberspace Law? 
2. Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law :Terms Used in Cyber Crime 
3.Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law : Understanding Cyber Crime in Kenya 

More articles on Internet and Cyberspace Law coming soon.

Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law : What is Internet and Cyberspace Law?

Internet and Cyberspace Law
The Internet brought with it news ways of conducting business, but also presented a number of new situations which the existing legal structure was ill equipped to handle.Foremost among these new challenges is the digital age's unprecedented ability to gather andmaintain large amounts of data. In the past, these mundane pieces of information -- addresses, birthdays,photos, shopping habits -- were notnecessarily private but were very difficult for one person to find. However, computers can store incredible amounts of information, and data mining algorithms can use this information to create complete individual portraits. Manylawmakers are currently evaluatingpolicies that seek to maintain privacy while still allowing some people to extract useful information from the data.Computers and the Internet affect many other areas of law. The ability to quickly, cheaply, and accurately copy and disseminate copyrighted works presents new challenges for intellectual property lawyers. Consumers habitually agree to arcane End User LicensingAgreements without truly understanding them in order to useimportant websites and online services. Finally, the Internet allowspeople from different states and nations to conduct business and communicate with ease, which brings transactions that were typically the domain of one government into the domain of several different governments.

Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law :Terms Used in Cyber Crime

Hacker- someone involved in computer security/ insecurity, specializing in the discovery of exploits in systems or in obtaining or preventing unauthorized access to systems through skills tactics and detailed knowledge.
Phishing- is an attempt to criminally and fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication pay pal, e-Bay and online banks are targets. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mailor instant messaging and often directs users to enter details at a web-site although phone contact has also been used.
Spamming – the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media instant messaging spam.
Botnet – a jargon term for a collection ofsoftware robots or bots they run autonomously and automatically, on groups of zombie computers.
Email spoofing – a term used to describe fraudulent e-mail activity in which the sender address and other parts of the e-mail header are altered to appear as though the e-mail originated from a different source.
E-mail spoofing is a technique commonly used for spam e-mail and phishing to hide the origin of an e-mail message.
Cyber Terrorism - is unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Cyber espionage- it involves the unauthorized probing to test a target computer`s configuration or evaluate its system defenses, or the unauthorized viewing and copying of data files.

Kenya Internet and Cyberspace Law : Understanding Cyber Crime in Kenya

Introduction
The crimes committed against computerand the airspace has become bizarre and enormous in Kenya. A few countrieshave placed a legal framework to combat the crimes in order to install sanity in our media. The computers haveproved to be unsafe to conduct businesssince hackers have become rampant in the world today. Kenya especially lacks specific laws which govern the use of computers .Where gaps exist governments should draw on the best practices from other countries and work closely with industry to enact enforceable legal protections against these new crimes. Self protection, while essential is not sufficient to make cyberspace a safe place to conduct business. The rule of law must also be enforced. Today computers are being misused for illegal activities like e-mails espionage, credit card, fraud, spam’s software piracy and so on which invade piracy and offend our senses. Therefore there is need to take action ensure that computers do not interfere with everything we worked for a fortune. Cyberspace has developed since the 1990s and the impact on the societies has been so fast and enormous, that codes of ethics and the common sense of justice and penal laws have kept pace. In order to establish ethical standards in the cyberspace, penal laws must be enacted with clarity and specificity as possible, and not rely on the vague interpretations in the existing legislation. With cyber laws, perpetratorswill be convicted for their explicit acts and not by existing provisions stretched in the interpretation, or by provisions enacted for other purposes covering only incidental or peripheral conduct. Cyber crime laws will also ease the evidentiary burden for law enforcement and prosecutors and courts will be able to participate in the process of establishing precedents and ethical standards more significantly through their ruling and sentencing. The nature of cybercrime and legal issues are global.Ensuring that the dual criminality requirement is fulfilled may provide for an efficient global prosecution of cybercrimes. Such an approach is especially vital in the investigation and prosecution of attacks against the infrastructure of computer systems and networks.