Friendster’s Fate: Sold to Malaysian E-commerce Giant

Just a few days ago we heard rumours about the imminent sale of Friendster, one of the first-generation social networks that originally kicked off the craze. Through self-reinvention the site has managed to stay relevant to a large audience in Asia, although its influence has notably diminished in the West over the years since its founding in 2002 and heydey in 2003-4.

There aren’t too many details emerging yet, but Business Times is reporting that the deal is finalized with a sale to MOL Global, a Malaysian e-commerce company that Friendster has been working with since October to power its payments platform. MOL Global CEO Ganesh Kumar Bangah took the stage at a signing ceremony today in Kuala Lumpur to announce an expected influx of $110 million yearly revenue from the acquisition.

This deal makes sense given Friendster’s audience and the current playing field for social networking in Asia, where Friendster has more monthly uniques than any other network. We expect this combination of assets to lead Friendster deeper into a microtransaction-type revenue strategy, perhaps involving a greater focus on social gaming moving forward.

Social gaming is becoming a significant revenue play for social networks worldwide, in the U.S. with companies like Zynga, EA’s Playfish and Playdom pulling down multimillions in annual revenues from games on Facebook and MySpace , and in Latin America where hi5 is aggressively pursuing its successful social gaming strategy as well.

It’s difficult to judge just how much the deal makes sense until we see the actual financial numbers, but it could be a decent exit for Friendster after a long and challenging road.

source: Dec 9th, 2009 | by Barb Dybwad

A Cyberwar In Malaysian Politics

FEB 19 — Once upon a time, before the Internet became as common as the television in Malaysian homes, public figures made local speeches that were tailored to suit the audience that was physically present.

This worked well for politicians wishing to entertain the parochial tendencies of the audience of the day without jeopardising their prospects of becoming nationally relevant.

Today, however, such speeches quickly leak into the wired world of the Internet, putting things into a different context, and revealing the speakers' supposed real values to the world.

Playing local politics with the awareness that the audience is always the whole wide world is no easy task, especially for those who have been in politics and in power long before the Internet changed everything.

The dominant Umno learned this the hard way three years ago when it decided to telecast "live" its national assembly. The parochialism and racism expressed by its candidates on that occasion for the nation to hear soon forced it to backtrack.

Defensive arrogance does grow out of the inability to evolve.

The attempt to block access to Raja Petra Kamarudin's controversial Malaysia Today website last year managed to stop traffic going to that site, but did not stop access to its contents. Mirror sites sprung up immediately to nullify the censorship.

The police decision in September 2008 to use the Internal Security Act to jail Raja Petra, along with prominent opposition politician Teresa Kok and journalist Tan Hoon Cheng, merely backfired. The de facto minister of law, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, soon resigned in protest.

Publicly calling female bloggers liars, as then Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor did in March 2007, is also not a very smart thing to do. The negative reaction on the web on that occasion was tremendous.

Opinions expressed for local consumption becoming national news is part and parcel of a revolution in information technology which carries enormous consequences for the near future. Some are positive, and some will certainly not be.

Through the Net, you can sell old useless books you have under the stairs on the world market; you can get to know strangers on the other half of the world merely by being on chat sites; and you can arrange an entire holiday to the south of France without talking to any salesperson at all.

In Malaysian politics, we have witnessed how SMSes, videos and phone cameras have come into play. While these can uncover abuse of power, as in the case of the woman forced to do ear-squats naked while detained by the police in December 2005; reveal dubious practices, as in the case of the Lingam Tapes released in 2007 showing a prominent lawyer boasting about his ability to fix top judge appointments through political connections; and contribute to court cases, as in SMSes supposedly sent by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to a lawyer, discussing the detention of a close associate then charged with involvement in the murder of a Mongolian woman.

The latest political incident involving IT innovations concerns the circulation of nude pictures of prominent opposition politician Elizabeth Wong, secretly taken on a phone camera.

The case of Wong (also a blogger), who has offered to resign from her position as state assemblywoman for the opposition-held Selangor, adds worrying dimensions to the political use of modern IT.

First, it is not only the line between the local and the national that is being erased. The line between the private and the public is fading fast as well.

That is worrying indeed. Most urbanites in Malaysia of all races, especially in the Klang Valley where Wong lives, would undoubtedly consider Wong the victim. Mass media attempts to class the case as a "sex scandal" — and this happened on both sides of the Causeway — smack of shameless sensationalism, journalistic amateurism and political opportunism.

In the sanctity of her home, surely she is allowed to walk scantily dressed, sleep half-naked, even shower nude, and yes, have sex without clothes on. The culprits deserving punishment are those who facilitated the publicising of those pictures, regardless of whether they were taken with her permission or not.

The fact that she is an unmarried woman, and not a man, has had a serious impact on how the incident is being interpreted. Should a male politician, married or not, such as former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Khir Toyo, for example, have been photographed in the nude while asleep, the fallout would have been minimal, even comical.

The Wong case also shows the disturbing shrinkage of moral space when the private and the local are technologically subsumed under the public and the national.

Moral values do differ geographically, individually, culturally and according to lifestyle. This diversity is denied when such a case gets politicised, and here, the supposed sensitivities of the vocally most religious, most parochial, most traditional and most rural are allowed to define the national public norm. Wong is being sacrificed to appease illiberal elements within the opposition. Surely, this is not what the Pakatan Rakyat is fighting for.

A political cyber war has started in Malaysia. While we thought that the old would be at the mercy of the new in such a showdown, it is time to realise that, in truth, the more desperate and more immoral has the edge.

sources: Ooi Kee Beng, Institute of Southeast Asian Studie. (themalaysianinsider.com)

Russia and US in secret talks to fight net crime

The potential for online warfare has become a hot topic after a string of major incidents in recent years.

American officials have been holding secret talks with Russia and the United Nations in an attempt to strengthen internet security and rein in the growing threat of cyberwarfare.

The effort, first reported in the New York Times, is a virtual version of the nuclear arms talks being held between the two nations in Geneva – but rather than focusing on bombs and missiles, the discussions are aimed at curbing the increasing level of attacks taking place online.

With a rising tide of strikes by hackers on major institutions – including banks, businesses, government agencies and the military – diplomats are attempting to forge an international consensus on how to deal with cybersecurity problems.

"Both sides are making positive noises," James Lewis, a senior fellow at the centre for strategic and international studies and a cyber security expert, told the Guardian. "We've never seen that before."

The potential for online warfare has become a hot topic in recent years, after a string of major incidents. Large-scale cyberattacks took place during last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia while the Estonian government came grinding to a halt after an internet assault in 2007.

Critics have said the scale and impact of such incidents may be overstated, but experts accept there are serious dangers from criminal gangs operating online – as well as the rapid growth of state-sponsored espionage conducted over the internet.

Earlier this year, some of the plans for a new £2bn fighter aircraft being developed by the US, UK, Netherlands and Israel were stolen when hackers broke into American computers. Two years ago, it was revealed that hackers thought to be linked to the Chinese People's Liberation Army had breached computer security systems at the Pentagon and Whitehall.

The latest discussions are thought to be an attempt to broker some sort of cross-border agreement over a number of issues related to internet security. Russia is said to be seeking a disarmament treaty for cyberspace, while the US hopes to use the talks to foster greater international cooperation on cybercrime.

Lewis confirmed that a Russian delegation met with officials from the US military, state department and security agencies in Washington about five weeks ago. Two weeks later, the White House agreed to meet representatives from the UN committee on disarmament and international security, the New York Times reported.

There are numerous sticking points however, not least the fact both the US and Russia – as well as most advanced militaries around the world – have sophisticated cyber warfare capabilities they are reluctant to document. Although the dangers of virtual conflicts are recognised, neither country is keen to hinder any future deployment by revealing the technologies they have developed, Lewis said.

Despite that, the talks mark a distinct turnaround from the approach of the Bush administration, which had resisted engaging with Russia and the UN over the prospect of a treaty on cyber weapons. Instead, it focused on dealing with cyber threats by economic and commercial means, rather than through the military.

Earlier this year, however, President Barack Obama identified cyber attacks as a "national security priority" and pledged to appoint a top-level White House adviser to co-ordinate responses..

"Cyberspace is real, and so is the risk that comes with it," he said in May. "From now on, our digital infrastructure will be treated as a strategic asset."

However, the post remains unfilled six months after the announcement., with disagreement inside the administration over how to coordinate the appropriate level of response. While some presidential advisers want the White House to take oversight of the issue, other top Obama aides prefer to let the commercial market handle cybersecurity. The US military and intelligence officials, meanwhile, prefer to pursue their own security programmes without direction from the White House.

Many American experts are more concerned with the financial threat of cybercrime and internet-based fraud, particularly since international enforcement efforts have been weakened by an inability to track and arrest the hackers responsible, many of whom are based in Russia and China.

Online crime is now a multibillion pound business worldwide, with criminal gangs across the globe conducting sophisticated cyber attacks to steal money from banks and disrupt commercial websites.

Last year, hackers broke into the Royal Bank of Scotland, using information gathered from to create cloned bank cards that were then used to withdraw more than £5m from cash machines in dozens of cities.

This August, an American man, Albert Gonzalez, pled guilty to his role in an attack that netted millions when an international hacking ring – largely based in Russia and the Ukraine - stole 130 million credit and debit card numbers from some of America's biggest retailers.

Despite knowing the identities of several individuals linked to Gonzalez, however, the lack of international cooperation means that the other culprits remain beyond the reach of US prosecutors.

source: Daniel Nasaw, Bobbie Johnson. (guardian.co.uk)

cybercrime cases

More than 4,000 cybercrime cases reported in Malaysia within two years

JOHOR BARU: More than 4,000 cyber complaints, mostly concerning cyber crimes have been lodged with Cybersecurity Malaysia in the past two years.

Its chief executive officer Lieutenant-Colonel Husin Jazri said that the complaints, mostly consisted of hack threats, fraud, denial of services and other computer problems such files lost or corrupted by viruses.

“We have received about 2,000 complaints in 2007.

“Last year, a total of 2,123 cases were lodged with us,” he told pressmen after the presentation of five computers to a school in the Kampung Simpang Arang Orang Asli settlement.

Science, Technology and Innovation secretary-general Datuk Abdul Hanan Alang Endut presented the computers on Saturday.

Lt-Col Husin explained that the agency’s services catered for individuals, as well as companies, who faced computer related problems.

“Our consultation services are free but we will charge any work that needs to be done such as repairs.

“The charges varies on a case by case basis,” he said adding that the agency rarely charged students or those from the lower-income group.

He said that the agency’s 150-strong staff was dedicated to solving computer problems as they aimed to serve the needs of the public.

“We have an emergency response team that caters to the complaints.

“Among our other services are digital forensics, security assurance, security management and best practices,” he said.

He added that the agency’s main objective is to be a one-stop coordination centre for all national cyber security initiatives.

“Among the initiatives are reducing vulnerability of ICT systems and networks and nurture a culture of cyber security among users and critical sectors,” he said.

Lt-Col Husin said the public could contact the agency at 03-89926888, fax at 03-89453205 or email at info [at]cybersecurity.my.

“People can also contact our hotline at CYBER999 to report any problems.

“Our office in Seri Kembangan is open from Monday to Friday,” he said.

He said that the agency was also working closely with enforcement agencies such as the police in solving and curving cybercrimes in the country.

By FARIK ZOLKEPLI in Star online

WHITE-COLLAR CRIME IN MALAYSIA

definition of white collar crime in malaysia:

Sutherland (1949:9) first coined the term “white-collar crime”. According to
him, white-collar crime may be defined approximately as a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his or her occupation’. He went on to say that white-collar crime referred to crime committed by business managers and executives.

there were several influential attempts by criminologists to expand the definition beyond a narrower focus on the high- status criminals. Edelhertz (1970: 3) suggested that Sutherland’s definition was far too restrictive. In his definition, Edelhertz not only dropped any reference to social status, but also the restriction that these offences must occur in an occupational setting. He defined white-collar crime as ‘an illegal act or series of illegal acts committed by non-physical means and by concealment or guile, to obtain money or property, to avoid the payment or
loss of money or property, or to obtain business or personal advantage’.

The most influential attempt to distinguish among different forms of white-collar crime has been that of Clinard and Quinney (1973: 188). They divided white-collar crime into 2 types: occupational crime and corporate crime. Occupational crime consists of offences committed by individuals for themselves in the course of their occupations and offences of employees against their employers. Corporate crime, on the other hand, is defined as the offences committed by corporate officials for their corporation and the offences of the corporation itself’.

Terms like economic crime, commercial crime and business crime are used interchangeably to denote a variety of white-collar offences, though they are rarely defined. However, economic crime has been defined by the Interpol to cover business and commercial crime and in fact, all
fraudulent operations conducted to the detriment of individuals or society in general, and constitutes a form of crime which seriously affects the economy of many countries.

CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORIES AND WHITE-COLLAR CRIME:

When Sutherland first wrote about white-collar crime, he maintained that it was best explained by his theory of differential association. For Sutherland, the law-breaking behaviour of businessmen, professionals and politicians (as well as all other law violators) was the product of a learning process. Violators encountered examples of law-breaking among those with whom
they worked and they drifted or jumped into such patterns of behaviour as part of their routine indoctrination into the requirements of their job. In time, they found that the definitions they encountered favourable to violation of the law overruled those encouraging law-abiding behaviour (Brown et al. 2004:533).

There are some empirical supports for Sutherland’s argument, in respect of corporate crime. Geis (1967) examined evidence given during hearings of illegal price-fixing activities of The Heavy Electrical Equipment Antitrust cases in 1961 in America, and found that people taking up new posts tended to find price-fixing to be an established practice, and picked it up themselves as part of learning their job. Baumhart (1961) found that businessmen’s unethical behaviour was influenced by superiors and peers. Both studies suggest that learning process is reinforced by rewards and punishments, which are the characteristics of corporate culture.

Some criminologists have tried to explain white-collar crime in terms of the concept of “anomie’ of Merton (1949) which stated that the disjuncture between cultural goals of success and legitimate means to achieve these goals as a possible source of crime. The cultural system of
society enjoins upon all men to strive for goals by means of normatively regulated or approved forms of behaviour. However, opportunities to reach these goals through socially approved means are unequally distributed. Crime or deviant behaviour ensues when social structure restricts or completely closes a person’s access to the approved modes of reaching
these goals. Corporate fraud, insider trading and criminal breach of trust are some notable examples. In relation to this, Neil Shover (1998) states that some white-collar crimes are committed as a result of the pressure to meet self-defined or externally imposed standards of successful performances. When medical scientists experience pressure to produce research
breakthroughs, or when business owners see their profits decline, the odds are increased that they will resort to criminal resolutions.

The “Techniques of Neutralization” described by Sykes and Matza (1957) can also be used to explain white-collar crime. The criminals may claim that no one was actually harmed, either physically or financially, to rationalize their acts. Embezzlers typically insist that they were only
borrowing the money and that they intended to repay it after they dealt with other financial demands that were vexing them. Antitrust violators may maintain that they are seeking to stabilize an out-of-control market situation when they conspire with others to fix prices. Rarely will there appear a white-collar offender with the refreshing honesty to admit: “I was deliberately engaged in crooked business dealings” (Brown, 2004: 528). Rather, they blame their violations on personal problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction, financial speculations or marital difficulties.

CAUSES OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME

According to Dr. Yusof Nook (1993) and Joseph Eby Ruin (1996), there are 3 main causes of white-collar crime:

1. Opportunities to commit crime,
2. Situational pressures on the individuals, and
3. Issues pertaining to integrity.

A decision to commit fraud is known to be influenced by the interaction of all these three causes. Opportunities include increasing individual knowledge of a company’s operations, advancing to a position of trust, and becoming the only individual who knows a particular procedure (for example, correcting or modifying a computer programme). An organization could also provide opportunities for its staff to commit fraud by having a complex structure, allowing related party transactions; condoning weak internal control systems policies and procedures; or by frequently
switching its legal or accounting firms.

Situational pressures refer to the immediate pressures a person experiences within his environment, and the most overwhelming of all situational pressures are the unusually high personal debts or financial losses. Situational pressures might also be generated by official directives from leaders in the organization to achieve unrealistic performance objectives at any cost, or even by strong peer group influences. There are times when situational pressures encourage people to perpetrate fraud for their corporation rather than against their corporation such as the threat of losing a business license, delisting from the stock exchange, loss of employment or a cash shortage.

Personal integrity factors refer to each individual’s personal code of ethics. While this element appears to be a straightforward determination of a person’s honesty, the issue is actually more complex than it seems. A person ought to acquire a general definition of honest and dishonest
behaviour, and know which principles to adopt when developing a general trait of honesty. On top of that, a person needs to be consistently reinforced for honest behaviour before internalizing a standard of honesty and being intrinsically rewarded for honest conduct.


source: http://mpk.rmp.gov.my/jurnal/2005/whitecollarcrime.pdf
Supt Lim Hong Shuan

malaysian law

Federal law and state law

The Malaysian Parliament Building.

Federal laws are made by legislators (members of Parliament and senators) sitting in the Parliament of Malaysia and applies nationwide. Federal laws are known as Acts (of Parliament). State laws are made by assemblymen sitting in the State Legislative Assembly (Dewan Undangan Negeri) and only applies in the particular state. In Peninsular Malaysia state laws are known as enactments, while in East Malaysia they are known as ordinances. Article 75 of the Constitution states that a federal law shall prevail over any inconsistent state laws, including sharia laws.

East Malaysia

The states of Sabah and Sarawak joined Malaya and Singapore to form Malaysia in 1963, and there are special laws applicable only to these two states. An important area in this regard is the immigration law. Other areas of law peculiar to these two states is land law. Generally, land matters and natural resource management is a federal law matter. However, there are special provisions in the Constitution allowing for the states of Sabah and Sarawak to create separate legislations. For example, in the Peninsular, the National Land Code governs most of the laws relating to land. In Sabah, the main legislation is the Sabah Land Ordinance; and in Sarawak, the Sarawak Land Code.

Common law

The laws of Malaysia can be divided into two types of laws—written law and unwritten law. Written laws are laws which have been enacted in the constitution or in legislations. Unwritten laws are laws which are not contained in any statutes and can be found in case decisions. This is known as the common law or case law. In situations where there is no law governing a particular circumstance, Malaysian case law may apply. If there is no Malaysian case law, English case law can be applied. There are instances where Australian, Indian, and Singaporean cases are used as persuasive authorities.

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building used to house the apex courts of Malaysia.

The application of English law or common law is specified in the statutes. Section 5 of the Criminal Procedure Code states that English law shall be applied in cases where no specific legislation has been enacted. Similarly, in the context of civil law, Sections 3 and 5 of the Civil Law Act allows for the application of English common law, equity rules, and statutes in Malaysian civil cases where no specific laws have been made. In 2007, the then Chief Justice of Malaysia, Ahmad Fairuz Abdul Halim questioned to need to resort to the English common law despite Malaysia having already been independent for 50 years^[4] and proposed to replace it with Islamic law jurisprudence or sharia law.^[3] However, the Malaysian Bar Council responded by saying that the common law is part of Malaysian legal system and that there is no basis to replace it.^[5] Court appeals to the Privy Council in England have already been abolished in 1985.

The principle of stare decisis also applies in Malaysian law. This means that any decisions by a court higher in the hierarchy will be binding upon the lower courts.

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Malaysia

LAW

these are rough idea or definition about law base on the first lecture.

definition of law (from dictionary.com):

• the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision.
• any written or positive rule or collection of rules prescribed under the authority of the state or nation, as by the people in its constitution
• an act of the supreme legislative body of a state or nation, as distinguished from the constitution
• any rule or injunction that must be obeyed

definition of law (from mr. sonny notes):

• Any set of uniform principles
• govern and regulate human behaviour
• rules, sovereignty, and enforcing power

basically thera are 2 types of law, which is public law and private/civil law.
constitutional adminstrative criminal is under public law, while cases involving contract,
tort, property, trust, family, etc are under the private/civil law.

hierarchy of courts in Malaysia;