Category: IT

By Shannon Teoh | TMI

KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — The Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) today reiterated the 1 Malaysia email accounts project is a private sector initiative — despite a report that the government had invited bids last November for a RM50 million government services internet solution.

Within 15 minutes of the clarification going live on its Twitter account, @etp_roadmap, Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin questioned if the private investment to fund the project was being guaranteed by the government.

The government’s Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu) invited bids for the project last November, according to documents sighted by The Malaysian Insider.

It is understood as many as five companies were invited to pitch for the project by Mampu although it was unclear why the task was given to a civil service unit that manages the public service.
Continue reading “Pemandu takes fire as hostility grows over 1 Malaysia email a/c”

By Yow Hong Chieh | TMI

KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — Computer security experts have questioned the rationale behind the 1 Malaysia e-mail initiative and whether the Najib administration can keep the service secure and affordable.

Open source expert Colin Charles said he did not think it was a good idea for Malaysians to use an e-mail account controlled by the government as there was no guarantee its contents would remain safe.

“The worst that can happen is that someone in the government can read your e-mail,” he told The Malaysian Insider.

“My general advice is: don’t use the e-mail account to write about anything you care about.”
Continue reading “Experts doubtful of 1 Malaysia e-mail security”

By Jahabar Sadiq
Editor
The Malaysian Insider
April 20, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, April 20 — Several firms were invited to bid for the 1 Malaysia email project last November and demonstrate a 100 per cent take-up rate for the service, contradicting the Najib administration’s statement that the account is not compulsory.

The Malaysian Insider understands the key performance indicator (KPI) for the project was a 50 per cent take-up rate for those above 18-years old by 2012, before increasing to 100 per cent by 2015.

The winning bidder also had to demonstrate how it would get 50 per cent of the email account holders to use its value added services such online bill payment and public record searches by 2020, according to a document seen by The Malaysian Insider.

However, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who announced the project yesterday, clarified early this morning that the email account is entirely voluntary. Continue reading “Government says voluntary, but 1 Malaysia email KPI 100pc by 2015”

Tweets @limkitsiang:

Are Malaysians so IT-backward? http://bit.ly/ggwc0K All Malaysians to get official 1 Malaysia email a/c (TMI)
04/19/2011 02:26 PM

Will 1 use of 1M a/c get a 1M burger, 2nd use IM-Tshirt, 3rd use 1M-Tupperware? http://bit.ly/ggwc0K All Msians to get 1M email a/c (TMI)
04/19/2011 02:29 PM

Najib’s 1Malaysia circus plumbs new depth – Big Brother-ism gone mad! http://bit.ly/ggwc0K All Msians to get 1M email a/c (TMI)
04/19/2011 02:30 PM

Results Najib’s 1M circus (1)Msians more divided bcos of rhetoric race/religion under UMNO patronage (2)birth new army of 1M fortune hunters
04/19/2011 02:33 PM

Wow! Ripoff of the century! RM50 million 4newfangled 1M email a/c 4Msians that nobody wants. Couldn’t Najib put RM50 million 2better use?
04/19/2011 03:09 PM
Continue reading “Najib’s 1 Malaysia circus — 1 email for every Malaysians”

via Malaysiakini Facebook

A cyber attack beginning at 11am today shut down Malaysiakiniservers simultaneously, making the website inaccessible to readers.

The Malaysiakini technical team has determined it to be a denial-of-service attack, where an attacker uses computers in different parts of the world to swarm Malaysiakini servers to the point that they are unable to cope with the massive traffic.

Both our servers, which are hosted at two data centres – TM Brickfields and Jaring – have been affected by the attack.

Malaysiakini has posted all of today’s reports in Facebook. Readers can access Malaysiakini in full via Facebook Notes.

We will soon be making our reports, especially those on the Sarawak election, available on WordPress, Blogspot and other publishing platforms.

Malaysiakini is also working to bring up a new set of servers.

We apologise for the technical problem and we will keep readers informed of developments via Facebook and Twitter.

Malaysiakini alternative sites :

1. Malaysiakini Facebook Notes

2. Malaysiakini blogspot

3. Malaysiakini wordpress

By Charles Arthur
Friday 28 January 2011
guardian.co.uk

Most of the major internet service providers in Egypt are offline following week-long protests

Egypt appears to have cut off almost all access to the internet from inside and outside the country from late on Thursday night, in a move that has concerned observers of the protests that have been building in strength through the week.

“According to our analysis, 88% of the ‘Egyptian internet’ has fallen off the internet,” said Andree Toonk at BGPmon, a monitoring site that checks connectivity of countries and networks.

“What’s different in this case as compared to other ‘similar’ cases is that all of the major ISP’s seem to be almost completely offline. Whereas in other cases, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter were typically blocked, in this case the government seems to be taking a shotgun approach by ordering ISPs to stop routing all networks.”

The cutoff appears to have happened around 10.30pm GMT on Thursday night.

Only one internet service provider appears to still have a working connection to the outside world: the Noor Group, for which all 83 routes are working, and inbound traffic from its connection provider, Telecom Italia, also working.

Protests in Egypt at the government’s rule have been building all week, and Friday was expected to see the largest demonstrations so far.

An analysis by Renesys, which provides real-time monitoring of internet access, says that “every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, internet cafe, website, school, embassy and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air.” Continue reading “Egypt cuts off internet access”

Facebook, Google, Hotmail and Twitter among services blocked by government, report users

Charles Arthur, technology editor
Guardian UK
26th January 2011

Internet sites such as Twitter and Facebook were cut off within Egypt today as the government of President Hosni Mubarak tried to prevent social media from being used to foment unrest.

Many sites registered in Egypt could not be reached from outside, according to Herdict.org, a website where users report access problems.

Twitter, YouTube, Hotmail, Google, Chinese search engine Baidu and a “proxy service” – which would allow users to evade obvious restrictions – appeared to be blocked from inside the country, according to reports on the site.

Twitter said blocking was intermittent and some users were able to tweet while Bambuser, a Swedish site for streaming video from mobile phones, said it had been blocked after being used by some protesters this week. Continue reading “Egypt blocks social media websites in attempted clampdown on unrest”

Who are telling the truth – or who are telling lies – about the government’s proposed censorship of online news?

Could one of the country’s top civil servants like the Home Ministry Secretary-General Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam be openly and blatantly telling a lie when he was reported by Bernama yesterday as saying that the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984 would be amended to expand its scope and include publications posted online and “plug loopholes”?

Mahmood had said that the Home Ministry was looking at the definition of “publication” and whether it should include Internet content, blogs or Facebook to expand the Act due to the changing landscape of the digital era.

Expressing the hope that the amendments will be tabled in Parliament by March this year because “we need to overcome weaknesses, especially those involving multimedia content”, Mahmood said the ministry was working with the Attorney-General’s Chambers to study the proposed amendments.
Continue reading “Who are telling the truth – or who are telling lies – about government’s proposed censorship of online news?”

By Clara Chooi | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 — Opposition lawmakers piled criticism today on the government’s plan to regulate online media content, predicting that the move would see severe voter backlash and hamper investor confidence in Malaysia.

DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang told The Malaysian Insider today that the Najib administration’s latest attempt to quell online dissent was a clear violation of the Barisan Nasional government’s pledge not to enforce censorship on the Internet.

The promise, he noted, was made under the 10-point Bill of Guarantees (BoGs) of the Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor launched in 1996.

“They should be aware of this violation and if they proceed with this, they will frighten away investors.

“If the guarantee is not honoured, investors will view Malaysia as losing its credibility,” he said when contacted.
Continue reading “MPs say press law changes will drive investors away”

(Thanks to “Ewe Paik Leong, The Wordslinger ” for forwarding the following blog):

Thursday, November 4, 2010
Lim Kit Siang’s blog tops in number of hits

“Cubestat [cubestat.com] is a free and perfect tool for website value calculation, estimations and information. How does it work? You simply enter the domain url [in the box], our unique algorithm will calculate and estimate the website worth, daily pageviews and daily ads revenue of the present domain.”

Out of curiosity, one evening, I reckoned the number of hits for the blogs of our country’s more vocal politicians selected at random. Here are the results in descending order of pageviews:

No. 1
Name: Lim Kit Siang
Website Address: limkitsiang.com
Site age: 4 years
Website Worth: $44,472.33
Daily Pageviews: 20,307
Daily Ads Revenue: $60.92

No. 2
Name: Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Website Address: cedet.co.cc
Site Age: N/A
Website Worth: $26,028.15
Daily Pageviews: 11,885
Daily Ads Revenue: $35.66

No. 3
Name: Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahin
Website Address anwaribrahimblog.com
Site Age: 4 years
Website Worth: $25,699.65
Daily Pageviews: 11,735
Daily Ads Revenue: $35.21

No. 4
Name: Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak
Website Address: www.1malaysia.com.my
Site Age: N/A
Website Worth: $13,210.08
Daily Pageviews: 6,032
Daily Ads Revenue: $18.10 Continue reading “Lim Kit Siang’s blog tops in number of hits”

Tuesday, October 26, 2010
by Wong Choon Mei
Malaysia Chronicle

When my hand-phone alarm woke me at 5am this morning, it was with reluctance and a heavy heart that I opened my eyes. At the back of my mind the whole weekend was my 11am interview or interrogation by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

And true enough, it turned out not to be a pleasant experience.

Less than 10 minutes into the meeting at the MCMC headquarters in Cyberjaya, my lawyer Latheefa Koya was ‘booted out’ from the room by none other than the director of the enforcement department, who personally came to ‘collect’ her.

And in doing so, he denied me of my fundamental right to legal representation. Continue reading “Malaysia Chronicle denied basic right of legal representation by MCMC”

Latest score of “No Mega Tower” fb campaign – 157,264 @ 8.30 am today, 25/10/10.

Forty-eight hours ago, it was 113,205, an increase of 44,059 or about 1,000 addition per hour.

In contrast, the support Mega Tower fb campaign recorded 1,585 at 8.30 am 25/10/10, an increase of a miserable 960 in the past 48 hours or 20 per hour – as it was 625 previously.

(Opposition to the RM50 billion 100-storey Najib Tower in the “No Mega Tower” facebook campaign reached 113,205 people at 8.30 am this morning after breaching the 100,000 mark at 9.20pm last night.

In contrast, the facebook campaign in support of the Najib Tower, “Kami Sokong Menara Warisan”, has collected a miserable
625 supporters.)

Anti-Warisan Merdeka Facebook campaign hits 100,000 mark
By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 22 — As at 9.20pm tonight, more than 100,000 in a week have signed on to a Facebook campaign opposing the Najib administration’s Warisan Merdeka skyscraper.

The proposed 100-storey building in the city, has stirred up spontaneous grassroots opposition, moving the issue to the front and centre of current Malaysian politics.

More so impressive is the pace of recruitment — that only seven days ago Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the plan, during his budget speech. It is clear the groundswell opposing it is considerable and now has shaped into a major political minefield for the Barisan Nasional(BN) government. Continue reading ““No Mega Tower” fb campaign reached 113,205 at 8.30 am – 625 in support”

The rise and frequency of instances of racial and religious slurs in the public domain particularly on the social media and the Internet must be a matter of grave concern to all Malaysians.

All right-thinking Malaysians regardless of political affiliation should join hands to call and work for a return of civility, reason and rationality in public discourse and an end to any form of racial or religious slurs particularly on the social media and Internet.

The quality of Malaysian public discourse must not be degraded and sullied by lies and falsehoods, racial bigotry and religious intolerance which can only undermine and subvert the very fabric of Malaysian society.

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has called for speedier action by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) against those who post racial or religious slurs and misuse the social networking websites.
Continue reading “Call for return of civility, reason and rationality in public discourse and an end to any form of racial or religious slurs in public domain particularly on the social media and Internet”

Letter by Chuah Siew Eng

Dear Editor,

I wish to draw to the attention of the public of a possible glitch in the e-census. An answer I clicked for the category “religion” revealed to be different in the PDF copy I printed. Thinking I may have made a mistake, I reviewed my answers and confirmed that it was not my error. When I sought an explanation, the supervisor of the census takers for my area confirmed receiving another complaint over the same problem two weeks ago, adding that she had reported the problem to the Statistics Department. If that were true, why wasn’t it corrected for a whole two weeks? How many more people would have unwittingly assumed the computerised process would record their answers faithfully, as I almost did were it not for a note at the final page prompting a PDF check before submitting the form?

While my problem was eventually rectified (I received a polite call from the Department asking me to try the e-census again and this time it recorded what I inserted), I wonder whether it has been truly corrected in a fresh form.
Continue reading “E-census error – how can it happen?”

by P.C. | The Economist

SOME sort of a deal seems to have been thrashed out over the weekend, according to reports from Saudi Arabia, under which its spooks will be able to snoop to their heart’s content on messages sent over BlackBerrys within the kingdom. All last week, as it negotiated with the Saudi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Indian authorities over their demands for monitoring, the smart-phones’ Canadian maker, Research In Motion (RIM), was dodging journalists’ demands for proper explanations about what exactly is negotiable about the phones’ security. The Economist asked five times in four days for an interview, and got nowhere. Other news organisations had a similar experience.

The best we could get from the company was a series of tight-lipped statements, of which the least cryptic was this one: Continue reading “Spies, secrets and smart-phones”

By Eli James | e27

In the spring of 1999, Businessweek ran a cover story titled ‘Mahathir’s High-Tech Folly’, on the challenges plaguing the then Prime Minister’s plan to set up a regional ‘Silicon Valley’ within Malaysia. The plan was ambitious: it detailed the development of a large economic zone, stretching 750 square kilometers, and promised fiber-optic networks, research facilities, tax breaks, and new ‘cyberlaws’, protecting any multinational setting up shop in the country. The economic zone was named the ‘Multimedia Super Corridor’(MSC), and the city in which this development was supposed to happen – Cyberjaya.

For a while, all was good. Mahathir had managed to convince Silicon Valley luminaries Bill Gates (Microsoft), Lawrence Ellison (Oracle) and Scott McNealy (Sun Microsystems) to sit on a 41-member advisory panel to the project. They lent the MSC immediate weight and credibility. In talks during a 1997 global tour to sell Cyberjaya, Mahathir called the city his ‘gift to the world’, and promised that it would be a ‘global bridge to the Information Age.’ The praise poured in. Businessweek reported that Mahathir was ‘regarded as something of a visionary in high-tech circles’. Microsoft then announced that it would make MSC its regional headquarters. For a brief moment, it seemed as if Malaysia — with its cheap land and inexpensive, English-speaking workforce — was set to become the region’s go-to choice for multinational technology companies.
Continue reading “A Quick Look at Cyberjaya – Malaysia’s ‘Silicon Valley’”

BBC News

Finland has become the first country in the world to make broadband a legal right for every citizen.

From 1 July every Finn will have the right to access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection.

Finland has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.

In the UK the government has promised a minimum connection of at least 2Mbps to all homes by 2012 but has stopped short of enshrining this as a right in law.

The Finnish deal means that from 1 July all telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide all residents with broadband lines that can run at a minimum 1Mbps speed.
Broadband commitment
Continue reading “Finland makes broadband a ‘legal right’”

By Lee Wei Lian | The Malaysian Insider
June 02, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — Over 1,000 UniFi customers are exposed to a potential security risk of attacks from hackers and spying when using the high speed broadband service from Telekom Malaysia.

The security risk comes from a second administration account on routers that UniFi customers have to use.

The routers have the option for remote management enabled and customers were not informed and therefore unable to reset the password.

Security consultant Dinesh Nair, who has seen the second administration account, said that it appeared to be for maintenance purposes and allows Telekom Malaysia to troubleshoot UniFi problems remotely.

But he added that the password was “guessable” and with the remote management option turned on, it left the router vulnerable to unauthorised access and abuse such as forcing dropped connections and listening to the setting up of email passwords.

“It’s a security risk,” said Dinesh
Continue reading “Unifi ‘backdoor’ allows hacking, spying”

Letters
By Ganesh

Yet again, Malaysians are misled with false promises. For months there was so much hype to the Government’s initiative to provide cheaper, affordable and yet very fast broadband.

Yesterday, it came as a shock to Malaysians that the so called affordable and fast broadband service starts at RM149 and ranges up to RM249. To many Malaysians, this sum is a huge commitment. Many were expecting prices from RM50 onwards.

To make matters worse, the Star reported today that in Singapore, one could get 1Gbps for RM200. Mind you, RM200 to a Singaporean is small money. Don’t just convert, see the GDP per capita. Most Singaporeans are earning 5 times more than Malaysians as Malaysia has one of the lowest GDP per capita in the region.

Thus RM200 for a 1Gbps line is small change to a Singaporean. But our mere 5Mbps at RM149 is big money to the average Malaysian. To some, its money to feed the whole family for a whole week. Continue reading “Broadband Shock to Most Malaysians”