Saturday, July 14, 2007

Prosecute cyber criminals!

In the wake of an information bureau staff of Parti Keadilan's arrest, Nathaniel Tan (Nat), this is not the actual drama that I'm about to underline here. I'm still waiting for the real story behind this DSAI's aide being held by the cops while the rest of the party members are left wondering about his actual location. One source reported this has something to do with the doctored picture being made public and the other saying it has something to do with Nat's blog entry, commenting on the ruckus between Datuk Johari Baharum and Tan Sri Musa Hassan.

This is somewhat annoying. Who is telling the truth?

It is an understatement to say a blogsite plays an integral part in channelling information to the people nowadays, especially to the youth community. However, taking Nat's arrest as an example, with a lot of people giving information, whose is exactly telling the truth?

The original concept of blogging is letting the people express their feelings jotting down their everyday life with little much of drama, hoping people around her would care. However, nowadays, this is another way to publish your own opinions to be made for public consumption. However, the 'emotion' and 'feelings' are there to stay. Some bloggers fail to care for other people's feelings when expressing theirs or touching on the current issues.

Although the number of people giving misinformation and spreading lies are not that alarming, this 'small' number of people apparently became famous for their tales in their personal blogs. Take Salman Rushdie for example. He was a lowly-rated writer until when he came out the controversial Satanic Verses that spilled the anger among Muslims and finally was bestowed for knighthood-ship about a month ago. I strongly against this idea! The point is, Salman got famous since by causing disharmony and this is clearly being followed by Syeikh Kickdefella for example, although not to that certain extreme. However, I truly believe in the end, they fear for their lives for what they cowardly wrote.

I am particularly delighted if Malaysia could be more open-minded. Freedom of speech is one part of democracy. However, I am strongly against the idea of spreading lies and degrading certain people of any backgrounds. For me, I always try to give a fair view and as being said earlier in my previous post, expressing the other side of the story. What really agitates me is when people misuse the technology to pursue their quest on being famous.

Come on, admit it. Bloggers do want to check their blog stats everyday!

I am sad that some webmasters boldly published young Muslim girls having intimate moments while wearing the hijjaab. Their reasons for that they wanted to sort of give real examples of our rakyat nowadays and not actually trying to 'aibkan sesiapa'. It is so irritating they gave out that kind of statement. Why can't you tell the truth that you want people to visit your websites and pocket some money from adverlets or google ads? At least you are telling the truth! As far as I know, to show off these acts is also a BIG sin according to Quraan! And the number of videos obtained is increasing exponentially for some bizzare reasons. No thanks to you.

Of course there will be a lot of people watching the videos. Me included. I know those 'amateur Malaysian porn actors and actresses' are mere fools as well but is this how you correct things? I think it was their boyfriends who are the culprits. Most men love watching porn and now they want to have their own movie. Later, they plead their girlfriends to be on the cast and voila, you will have Malaysian porn movies on mykakis and sabul after stupidly recording and distributing the videos. Or maybe they forgot to delete the files when sending their camera-phones for repairs. Some got lucky when their faces are not shown in the videos. Some are not that lucky. One case even took her own life after realising her kissing video being distributed.

Since now we have the evidence of the people who made the video, why not look for these people mostly students and prosecute them? Or atleast they can stand for trial for making and distributing porn videos. As for the webmasters, there must be a way where we can alarm blogspot and wordpress providers about this matter. Or check their I.Ps or servers? Sorry I'm not an I.T expert but for what matter, these cyber criminals must be prosecuted.

On the other hand, I urge bloggers not to provoke disharmony in this country. You can write what you want but you must make sure what you write is true. Not something that you heard from a biased writer, for example. I like people writing something more diplomatic, not emotional, giving constructive ideas in improving Malaysia. I know that would sound uncontroversial. But atleast a friend of mine, Nik Nazmi can do that! He is DSAI's political aide if you ask me. You can still write in the 'sopan-santun' way you see. Isn't that not OUR Timur culture.

I know there will be obstacles when alerting a good cause and doing it is another mountain to climb these days. Good people are thought to be weak. Aggressive and emotional people are thought to be strong. Inilah dia akhir zaman.

Commenting on the doctored picture of Altantuya, DSNTR and Razak Baginda, some might find it hilarious and wasn't intended to hurt anyone. For me, I think it's heartless to even come out with the idea. I do not know who made the picture and I don't really care. Tian Chua or Soi Lek it doesn't matter at the moment. What matters is, find the culprit. It is an act of a cyber crime because while the hearing is still ongoing, why do you have to take the opportunity to sell your political agenda? I bet Altantuya's family will be hurt, with her being imposed that way. DSNTR's family will also be hurt. The accused Najib Razak's family as well. I call this a cowardly act because he or she never cares for the feelings of the people depicted in the photos. The feelings of Altantuya's family who are still grieving her death. You have the guts to think it was funny? You still think you did nothing wrong? What if I, a stranger to you, made a super-imposed picture of your dad doing indecent acts with a China-doll? Will you simply laugh at it then? O.k. That might sound a bit extreme. Ok lah, just one picture of your dad sipping a coffee with a beautiful lady from China. Will that be still ok to you? Will your mom be happy with that as well? No, right? How about the neighbours? Will they not talk about your dad and making up stories?

There will still be limits in life. If everything is free and very liberal, why not transform Malaysia into Holland, then? Legalise sex, cheap booze, gay marriages, marijuana and others. That will only add more crimes to the worrying numbers in Malaysia already, isn't it?

Freedom of speech is fine. But of course there must be limits.

7 comments:

Mohammad Ihab Ismail said...

I STRONGLY AGREE with EVERY SINGLE WORDS you jot down for this entry.. Nothing to add, but loads to support!!

Cyber crime IS STILL A CRIME worth prosecuting ;)

Madeku367 said...

tq for your comment.

we came to the point where we need to indoctrinate the people. Not corrupting their minds with hate and they'll end up having a negative mind.

Then, they also spread the lies.

Anonymous said...

I agree that cybercriminals should be prosecuted. After all, all bloggers are still subject to the laws of the country where they operate in.

The question remains, however, how some quarters are so adamant at prosecuting cyber crime but ignoring more dangerous and fundamental crimes being committed - corruption, misuse of power, etc.

As for Nat's case, the reason mentioned now is in relation to Johari Baharom's corruption stories coming up on the Internet and OSA. As far as I know, Nat didn't have anything to do with that issue, but Johari now announces he wants to act forcefully against cyber slanderers, and actually, if one is to take a strict interpretation of the OSA, anyone including Nat can be prosecuted.

That's the problem. All the unjust laws must be amended since it does not meet the basic tenets of justice such as the presumption of innocence. Furthermore, the implementation of the law must be reformed to allow it to be implemented for the sake of justice, and not politics.

Madeku367 said...

the thing is though, the authority sometimes fail to prioritise when making investigations. this is a very common trait in Malaysia itself.

Or maybe, it was the work of the media failing again and again to highlight more important cases as perceived by the rakyat.

We still have a long way to significantly reduce the number of corruptions and misuse of power. Since many cases were reported lately few years back, I suspect it has somehow resulted in the corruption index to increase as well in the global stats. Not like before where cases were not reported nor being taken care of.

Based on this observation, I hope the future is brighter for us.

Let us battle corruption.

That will make us competent and efficient.

Madeku367 said...

*that = succeeding it

Jih Ying 致颖 said...

I do agree that to certain extent bloggers need to be more responsible in what they wrote.

At the same time, the government should be more transparent in its operations.

As far as I can see, instead of coming up with proper explanations to all the questions and issues raised by oppositions, blogs, the current government is more interested to clamp down on the voices of some average rakyat. Either that they'll come up with some naive and irrelevant excuse to brush off or cover up these issues or making sure that these news do not get published in the mainstream media. It makes them look very guilty, don't you think?

PM Abdullah has pledged to rid of corruption from the government but to date there is nothing to show in his report card while we are all aware of the riches of many of our BN politicians who were from humble background before joining BN.

We should also question the intention of bloggers. Many of them are just average rakyat like you and me. They are just blogging their frustrations based on their daily encounters and observations - these are the voice of the rakyat, probably the more tech savvy and educated group of rakyat. Compare this to our rich politicians who became rich through goodness-know-what method, they will definitely have more to hide.

If we were to really prosecute cyber 'criminals' then the same rules have to be applied to corrupt politians too. If double standards are applied, what is the point? The government will just become more autocratic by shutting up anyone who is against them whether wrongfully or rightfully, while corruption will be unchecked and worsen.

As long as our government continue to behave in an opaque manner, dissents will continue to increase. As the education level of the nation increases, the rakyat will demand more accountability and transparency.

Anonymous said...

Yes I agree with you freedom of speech (FOS) and democracy must have its limits. If you want respect and sensitivity toward others to be incorporated into FOS and democracy, I salute to that also. Unfortunately, there has been no voice for the non-malay and non-muslims to go to. For too long, respect and sensitivity has been mixed with forced silence by UMNO and the police. No one can blame this sudden rush of Malaysians venting their frustrations which have been kept for so long under injustice policies whichever side you're on. But I do not condone it either, because I respect sensitivity, but I understand. If you truly want to know why these people are crying out such frustration, I ask everyone all Malaysians this: Where are the good malays when some UMNO extemists wage verbal war against minorities, just so that they get elected for another term, by feeding the people's egos at anothers expense? Where were the just malays when in recent years, the Malay population has grown to a much larger majority that some small sections of malays start becoming adventurous to exert their own interests and pump themselves up by wrong means through putting others down and taunting them with warnings not to mess with anything Malay? Where were the muslims who understood the freedoms enshrined in this country, whereby Islam's is the official religion but that doesn't mean it is above other religions? If you know where they are, and if you are one of them, then it is time to show everyone who you care about, for all that is right, not just for your race, and religion, but for all that is just and right. As the majority, wouldn't it be more commendable to make sure that smaller groups are not bullied and that equity and equality are ensured?