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Last week, this blogger commented on the “mother of all deals” - the one that the Mumbai police “signed” with Google and went to town about how it is going to stamp out Internet hate.

Google spokeswoman Victoria Grand issued a statement today in relation to this (text via Boing Boing)

The reporting tool that was offered to authorities acts as a hotline to Google Inc., allowing the authorities to communicate requests for removal of content to us. The reporting tool does not give the police any privilege other than a speedier vehicle to notify Google Inc. about flagged users or communities.

Authorities have no access to user data and can not remove content themselves by using this tool. The tool is not used to provide authorities with user information such as IP addresses. Google investigates reports received by the authorities via the reporting tool to determine whether a user or community has in fact violated orkut’s terms of use.

Authorities may use the reporting tool to ask Google to preserve user identifying information for a certain period of time (in anticipation of serving formal legal process for such information), and we will preserve the information accordingly. But no user data is turned over to the authorities absent valid legal process.

But… but.. but… the Mumbai police thinks it is getting IPs. What were they smoking?

We reached a working agreement whereby Orkut has agreed to provide us details of the ip address from which an objectionable message or blog has been posted on the site and the Internet service provider involved,” said DCP Enforcement, Sanjay Mohite.

In fact the Mumbai police thought this was true because of the encrypted code that was going to be used by Google to verify their authenticity.

That the measure is fool-proof is evident from the fact that an encrypted code has also been agreed upon for such communication to prevent people from posing as the Mumbai Police and laying their hands on such information from Orkut.

Ha! Encrypted code! Yes, from what I understand, this is what the Mumbai police has been instructed to do. They should go to “www.orkut.com” and press the CTRL, ALT, DEL, Page Down, F5 and Esc keys all at the same time (thrice) till a special window pops up for them to enter their confidential encryption code (which is actually their favorite type of doughnut)! Once their encryption code has been authenticated, the window will display -

Good maamu! Unlimited doughnuts for you!

Then the policeman would be sent to his own profile page where he could add similar minded maamus and try to “mack fraandship” with the well endowed blond K-9 officer from Athens (Ohio). Additionally, he could use this picture (or for that matter, this one) of the “Karuppu MGR”, Gaptain Vijaykanth as his profile display picture and mention “Bakistan Derrorists” as his “turn offs”. And he could upload this video on to the “Videos” section of his profile too. And he could do all this (and more) to “impress” the aforementioned K-9 officer, thereby making a fool of himself. Much fun!
But little do the Mumbai police know that they have been punk’d! Those sneaky little geeks, Larry and Sergei! How dare they punk our honest maamus!

But it IS funny. I wish I could see the policemen’s faces when they find that all they have gotten is a glorified version of the “Report Abuse” link. It would be funnier if they have actually gotten an Orkut profile and the encrypted code they have been talking about is just their Orkut id and password! I am however a wee bit sad too. Bah! Here I was, hoping to see an end put to all the Surya and Salman wannabes! *sigh*

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 2:40 pm and is filed under For laughs, India, Life, Orkut.