A collection of post I’ve written about intellectual property and censorship
A notice posted on the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) Facebook page said the decision was made to block websites that “promote, spread information and encourage people to join the Bersih 4 demonstration“, on grounds that this will “threaten national stability”. I cannot then tell you to join Bersih and call for free and fair elections...
Our newly appointed Communication Minister has come out all guns blazing in directing the The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to ask social media giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter soon to block “false information and rumours” on their platforms. That in itself is quite frustrating, but what really got me scratching my head was his claim that “that social...
Sarawakreport, a website covering sensitive political topics in Malaysia was blocked today by the countries most prominent ISP, Telekom Malaysia (TM). Internet users using TM’s Domain Name Server (DNS) reported that the website was inaccessible, and I’ve confirmed that is an intentional block by TM. Here’s a quick primer on DNS. The internet works on this marvelous set a rules...
What’s the price of falling in love? What are the consequences of being head over heels, mindless crazy in love with someone? I would say the price of falling in love is the possibility of getting hurt. Sometimes the person you fall in love with doesn’t love you back–and that can cause significant emotional pain and grief. But that’s a price we’re more than willing...
Today I attended an Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) event about the TPP. Among the panel members, included Michael Froman, the US trade representative and chief advisor to President Obama on issues of International Trade and Investment. (big shot!!) For those you don’t know, the Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) agreement is a trade deal between 12 countries including...
It’s now almost two years on, since that fateful day at the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong when Edward Snowden divulged secret NSA documents detailing unlawful and on-going spying programs carried out in the name of security. Sure we knew the government had ‘a’ spying program, and we’ve all seen Hollywood movies with fictional technology that allowed governments to carry out un...
Last week was a pretty exciting week for me–it was my first time on TV. A TV show called VBuzz that was hosted on a Astro Channel 231 called me to be a guest to talk about Cyber Security, obviously I make it point to try new things and let’s be honest….how many of you would turn down a chance to be on TV? I mean this is Television, if you’re on it you must be good right...
Environment News Service, an environmental focused news website this week accused Malaysian government hackers of attacking it after it ran a story implicating Sarawak governor Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud of corruption and graft. As a result, the site was down for 2-hours, before the site manage to re-gain control. “The attack on our site came from a Malaysian government entity as identified by...
There’s a general perception that illegal downloads of movies, music or books is akin to stealing the works of the artist, singers and authors. But downloads are more akin to trespassing than it is stealing–they’re nothing like stealing and if you take some time off to think about it, you’d figure this out too. When you steal something, you’re denying the victim...
Tun Dr. Mahathir now says he’s change his mind about internet censorship. To quote him “Not knowing the power of the Internet, I promised that we (speaking as the Prime Minister of Malaysia) would not censor it. But today I have changed my mind.” Of course, everyone has a right to change their mind–but in this case Tun went from being absolutely spot-on (the internet...