"SPOOFING" should it be banned ??

"Spoof" was a game involving trickery and nonsense that was invented by an English comedian, Arthur Roberts, prior to 1884, when it is recorded as having been "revived." Webster's defines the verb to mean (1) to deceive or hoax, and (2) to make good-natured fun of.
On the Internet, "to spoof" can mean:
1) To deceive for the purpose of gaining access to someone else's resources (for example, to fake an Internet address so that one looks like a certain kind of Internet user)
2) To simulate a communications protocol by a program that is interjected into a normal sequence of processes for the purpose of adding some useful function
3) To playfully satirize a Web site.

Spoofing attacks primarily include
Email spoofing·
SMS spoofing·
IP spoofing·
Web spoofing.

E-mail spoofing is a term used to describe fraudulent email activity in which the sender address and other parts of the email header are altered to appear as though the email 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.

SMS spoofing is emerging as a menace and might hamper the growth of the mobile industry. For the uninitiated, with SMS spoofing a cyber criminal can send an SMS to anyone on the cell phone without touching it. This also implies that if the person (who receives the message) goes to the reply mode of the phone and writes any reply text after receiving the spoofed SMS, it will again come back to the same person. This has serious security ramifications and the scope for misuse is enormous.

A technique used to gain unauthorized access to computers, whereby the intruder sends messages to a computer with an IP address indicating that the message is coming from a trusted host. To engage in IP spoofing, a hacker must first use a variety of techniques to find an IP address of a trusted host and then modify the packet headers so that it appears that the packets are coming from that host.
Newer routers and firewall arrangements can offer protection against IP spoofing.

Web spoofing is the act of secretly tricking your Web browser into talking to a different Web server than you intend. How? By attacking the DNS (domain name system) that maps the "www.site.com" in a URL to a network address, or by modifying a Web page to have a bad URL, or by tricking your browser as it interprets CGI data, JavaScript, etc.

There are seemingly 21 ‘cyber’ issues ranging from Malicious code, Cyber Terrorism to spamming and spoofing, overtly it may seem to cover all aspects of the new digital era but a closer and detailed look shows quite the contrary, allow me to explain, as novice trying to decipher Zahid’s excellent explanation (For those bored by the technicality head down to the Call for Action section at the bottom)
Practically in all issues the government has gone the extra mile to reinvent a new definition, significantly deviating from the internationally accepted norms leaving more grey areas for confusion / exploitation within the law
There seems to be an elaborate play of words within the document, which does nothing, but allow room for the regulating body (FIA) to confuse and entrap the innocent people, a ‘book ‘em up’ charge sheet on all counts.

Should It Be Banned ??
Although one of the bad aspects of banning spoofing is that the privacy of any person or we can say the anonymity is lost, I think that spoofing should be banned . Spoofing should be a part of cyber crime law seeing its dangerous aspects and effects.

References :
[1] http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci213039,00.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spoofing
[3] http://www.crime-research.org/news/19.08.2005/1440/
[4] http://www.washington.edu/computing/windows/issue22/spoofing.html
[5] http://dbtb.org/2007/09/08/draconian-cyber-crime-law-in-pakistan/
[6] http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/IP_spoofing.htm

T h e F u t u r e o f I d e a s, Lawrence Lessig

The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the revolution has produced a counterrevolution of potentially devastating power and effect. Creativity once flourished because the Net protected a commons on which widest range of innovators could experiment. But now, manipulating the law for their own purposes, corporations have established themselves as virtual gatekeepers of the Net while Congress, in the pockets of media magnates, has rewritten copyright and patent laws to stifle creativity and progress. Lessig weaves the history of technology and its relevant laws to make a lucid and accessible case to protect the sanctity of intellectual freedom. He shows how the door to a future of ideas is being shut just as technology is creating extraordinary possibilities that have implications for all of us. Vital, eloquent, judicious and forthright, The Future of Ideas is a call to arms that we can ill afford to ignore.Reviewing the first chapter “Free” Lessig shows how the door to a future of ideas is being shut as technology is creating extraordinary possibilities. The creativity is clogged, as no one has freedom of ideas and freedom of speech. The blindness will harm the environment of innovation. It gives some indication as to why innovation activities and their results are so very limited. As going digital: digital technologies create and replicate reality much more efficiently than non digital technology by decreasing production cost. The great difference between capitalism and socialism was thus perceived as the mere elimination of the private property character of capital, or as the complete monopolization of capital under centralized government control, which would serve no longer the specific interests of the capitalist class but the whole of society.Free resources have always been central to innovation, creativity, and democracy.Production and consumption are sides of a coin, the essence of balance. They form the basis of economics – without consumption, production is pointless, and vice versa, examples:In labor, the producer enjoys the effort which makes the holiday possible, the consumer enjoys the holiday itself.In troubleshooting, the producer enjoys getting to the root of the problem, the consumer enjoys it when the problem is solved.Free resources have been crucial to innovation and creativity; that without them, creativity cripples.