Zain Qaider And The Sixty Year Rule
The UK Obscene Publications Act was pushed through Parliament in 1959. To this day, the act bans any material containing what is considered to be harmful to the public, or as the act itself states “to provide for the protection of literature.” To that end, Zain Qaiser might have felt he was doing a public service.
The former computer science student operated out of his parent’s house in Barking, East London. Under the pen name K!NG, Qaiser made himself seem like a legitimate businessman buying up large swathes of advertising space on adult websites.
From there, he was able to extract a purported $4million from unsuspecting victims.
The idea itself was simple. Users would click on one of the advert spaces Qaiser paid for and would then be redirected to a fake webpage from local law enforcement demanding money by way of a fine for trading in obscene material.
The execution, however, involved a highly sophisticated computer virus known as an Angler. It is at this point that Qaiser’s links to organized crime began to take shape.
With the help of contacts in Russia, Qaiser was able to spread his virus across at least 20 countries and, to date, generated a multi-million pound cottage industry.
Across the globe people would see the bogus penalty notice and pay, the standard fee was $1,000. Many thought thata price worth paying rather than have everyone know the seedier depths of their browsing history.
The scheme even turned on the advertisers themselves, any company that didn’t turn a blind eye to his activities was threatened with cyber-attacks that included having indecent images of children posted on their website. Qaiser was a teenager when his onslaught started. He is now 24 and faces six and a half years in prison. But the duration of his crime spree demonstrates a key blind spot in how users understand their rights. No-one came forward to report the bogus malware that Qaiser used. The project relied on the fear that a victim would feel if their search history would become public.
It was this fear that allowed Qaiser and the organized crime network he associated with that allowed him to operate unabated.
Most people are unaware of the Obscene Publications Act, it pre-dates the internet and so now is rendered uneforcable in an age where content, no matter how despicable, can be disseminated easily. But Qaiser has shown that the social auspices under which it was created remain.
That his and his affiliates were able to make millions from an industry that legitimately makes billions demonstrates that, despite the ever-evolving online world which society inhabits, social mores are still to catch up.
Sentencing Qaiser, Judge Timothy Lamb stated “The harm caused by your offending was extensive, so extensive that there does not appear to be a reported case involving anything comparable.”
It has been sixty years since pornography has been officially taboo but it seems that it is only now that cyber criminals like Zain Qaiser are brought to justice for exploiting it.
By: Jackdon Mardon-Heath
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