Archive for category IT
Tanjong Piai will be the WhatsApp by-election in Malaysia
There had been an exponential increase in lies, fake news and hate speech in the past few days, which will be small fry when compared to the explosion of lies, fake news and hate speech that will take place in the two weeks of the Tanjong Piai parliamentary by-election from Nov. 2 to Nov. 16.
In fact, the Tanjong Piai by-election will be the WhatsApp by-election in Malaysia.
Already, there is in circulation on the social media a purported Pakatan Harapan WhatsApp poster for the Pakatan Harapan candidate Karmaine Sardini, calling on the Tanjong Piai voters to “Undilah Calon Melayu & Islam”, which is clearly designed to spook and antagonise the 42% of the Chinese voters and 1% of the Indian voters – as the Barisan Nasional candidate will be MCA’s Wee Jeck Seng.
A news portal article today headlined “Fake news one of top 3 factors set to cost Pakatan Tg Piai seat” reported:
“A VIRAL WhatsApp message shared in Tg Piai recently claimed that Budget 2020 has funds for men who want to marry more than one wife and this has voters hopping mad.
“It’s one of the main reasons that 48% of Tg Piai voters want to reject Pakatan Harapan in the by-election, a survey by think-tank Institut Darul Ehsan (IDE) shows.
“The message is one of many fake news items and misinformation spread among villages and community circles in Tg Piai – a predominantly agricultural constituency at the southern-most tip of the peninsula.
“The spread of fake news is one of the top three factors that will determine whether PH can hold on to the seat in the November 16 by-election, IDE said.”
In the United Kingdom, even before the date of its General Election was fixed for December 12, British national newspapers were full of articles like “Will fake news wreck the coming general election?” Read the rest of this entry »
Malaysians must give serious attention to the latest Oxford Internet Institute (OII) Report on “The Global Disinformation Order: 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation” as it gives a timely warning of the national risks if fake news and hate speech to incite inter-racial and inter-religious polarisation in Malaysia are allowed untrammelled licence
Malaysians must given serious attention to the latest Oxford Internet Institute (OII) Report on “The Global Disinformation Order : 2019 Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulaiton” as its give a timely warning of the national risks if fake news and hate speech to incite inter-racial and inter-religious polarisation in Malaysia are allowed untrammeled licence.
Fake news and hate speech are evil influences by themselves, but when coupled with the agenda to incite inter-racial and inter-religious polarisation in plural Malaysia, they become exceedingly toxic and destructive which must be checked if the fabric of Malaysian society is not to be torn asunder.
The latest OII report finds that organised social media manipulation has more than doubled since 2017, with 70 countries using “computational propaganda” to manipulate public opinion.
Facebook is the platform of choice and is used in formally organised campaigns taking place in 56 countries.
The report states that such tools are used in 45 democracies, by politicians and political parties, to amass fake followers or spread manipulated media to garner voter support. Read the rest of this entry »
PAS-UMNO Himpunan Penyatuan Ummah (HPU) is not about Malays or Muslims but about saving UMNO from oblivion and keeping UMNO leaders out of jail and giving PAS the opportunity to be Big Brother in a PAS-UMNO alliance and for PAS President to have a shot to be Prime Minister of Malaysia
Himpunan Penyatuan Ummah (HPU) PAS-UMNO bukan tentang orang Melayu atau Islam, sebaliknya tentang menyelamatkan UMNO daripada dilupakan dan untuk mengelakkan pemimpin UMNO daripada meringkuk di dalam penjara dan memberikan PAS peluang untuk merasa menjadi Abang Besar dalam gabungan PAS-UMNO dan untuk Presiden PAS mencuba nasib untuk menjadi Perdana Menteri Malaysia
Himpunan Penyatuan Ummah (HPU) PAS-UMNO di Pusat Dagangan Dunia Putra UMNO Sabtu lalu, bukanlah tentang Melayu, Islam atau Raja-raja Melayu tetapi untuk menyelamatkan UMNO daripada dilupakan, malah untuk mengelakkan pemimpin UMNO daripada meringkuk di dalam penjara sepanjang hayat mereka dek kerana amalan rasuah dan salah guna kuasa semasa mereka berada di dalam kerajaan, dan memberikan peluang untuk PAS merasa jadi “Abang Besar” dalam gabungan PAS-UMNO dan menjadi penyelamat kepada UMNO yang kleptokratik — inilah sebab mengapa ia digelar sebagai klepto-teokrasi — dan untuk memberikan peluang yang julung-julung kalinya buat Presiden PAS untuk menjadi Perdana Menteri Malaysia setelah dinafikan peluang berkenaan semasa berada di dalam gabungan Pakatan Rakyat.
Untuk mencapai objektif-objektif berkenaan, gabungan PAS-UMNO perlu mencipta suasana yang dipenuhi rasa ketakutan, cemas dan kebencian yang tidak berasas dan diada-adakan di kalangan orang Melayu dan Islam, yang merupakan majoriti pengundi di Semenanjung Malaysia, dan untuk pertama kalinya setelah merdeka, kaum Melayu dan agama Islam kononnya berdepan krisis eksistensial, menepikan tiga fakta asas berikut:
Pertama, siapa yang berada di dalam kerajaan sejak enam dekad yang lalu dan bagaimana mungkin untuk kerajaan Pakatan Harapan memperbetulkan masalah yang diciptakan UMNO dalam tempoh masa satu, dua atau lima tahun sedangkan hegemoni UMNO dalam kerajaan telah bersarang selama enam dekad lamanya, yang agenda sebenarnya bukan untuk mengangkat taraf kehidupan bumiputera tetapi sebaliknya untuk mewujudkan UMNO-putra yang hari ini telah menciptakan kleptokrat global Malaysia pertama yang menjadi watak penting dalam skandal rasuah membabitkan 1MDB. Pakatan Harapan tidak akan menghapuskan apa yang baik untuk negara, tetapi akan melaksanakan pembaharuan terhadap apa yang buruk dan menjejaskan negara;
Kedua, fitnah terbesar bahawa DAP kononnya anti-Melayu, anti-Islam dan anti- Raja-raja Melayu, sedangkan DAP telah berulang kali menegaskan, di dalam Parlimen dan di dalam dokumen dasar sejak lima dekad lalu, dan di dalam pengumuman dasar asas gabungan politik DAP, sama ada Gagasan Rakyat, Barisan Alternatif, Pakatan Rakyat dan terbaharu Pakatan Harapan, menegaskan dan menegaskan semula sokongan dan komitmen DAP terhadap perkara asas dalam Perlembagaan Persekutuan, terutamanya berhubung bahasa Melayu sebagai bahasa rasmi, Islam sebagai agama rasmi dan sistem raja berpelembagaan di Malaysia.
Ketiga, realiti demografi di Malaysia yang memberi jaminan bahawa orang Melayu tidak akan kehilangan kuasa politik, tak kira apa jua yang akan berlaku terhadap UMNO atau PAS dalam pilihan raya umum akan datang. Read the rest of this entry »
“Alliance of Civilisations” on the domestic and international fronts the best antidote to the rise of hate, fear and intolerance through the abuse of social media
Posted by Kit in Fake News, IT, nation building, Sedition on Friday, 23 August 2019
Inisiatif UNAOC di peringkat domestik dan antarabangsa adalah penawar terbaik untuk kebangkitan sentimen kebencian, ketakutan dan tidak bertolerasi yang semakin menjadi-jadi melalui penyalahgunaan media sosial
Semalam, Indonesia telah menyekat akses Internet di Papua berikutan kebimbangan bahawa kenyataan perkauman dan jelek yang dimuat naik di dalam talian (online) akan mencetuskan lebih banyak protes keganasan di wilayah tersebut.
Tunjuk perasaan dan rusuhan menyebabkan beberapa bandar di Papua lumpuh minggu ini, dengan bangunan-bangunan dibakar dan pertempuran antara polis dan penunjuk perasaan tercetus di wilayah paling timur negara Indonesia itu.
Pemberontakan terhadap pentadbiran di Jakarta telah berlarutan untuk beberapa dekad di wilayah kepulauan tersebut, yang mana berkongsi sempadan dengan negara Papua New Guinea.
Indonesia memperlahankan perkhidmatan internet beberapa hari lalu bagi mengelak penyebaran berita tidak benar, komen provokatif dan perkauman yang menyasarkan populasi etnik Melanesia di Papua. Namun, ia hanya disekat sepenuhnya pada lewat malam semalam.
Awal bulan ini, apabila Perdana Menteri India, Narendra Modi bertindak memansuhkan Perkara 370 Perlembagaan India yang memberikan Jammu dan Kashmir (J & K) status istimewa dalam Kesatuan India, akses Internet disekat untuk kali yang ke-53 tahun ini.
Di India, tahun lalu, terdapat 65 sekatan dilakukan, manakala 176 sekatan berlaku sepanjang lapan tahun lalu, termasuk larangan selama enam bulan pada tahun 2016. Read the rest of this entry »
Why did MSC fail but Bangalore succeed in becoming a second Silicon Valley?
When I visited Bangalore or Bengaluru, the thought that struck me was: Why did Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) fail but Bangalore succeed in becoming a second Silicon Valley when both set out to be a second Silicon Valley over two decades ago?
This is a question Malaysians should focus on if we want to build a New Malaysia of a top world-class nation of unity, freedom, justice, excellence and integrity which is respected and admired by the international community.
One explanation is that Bangalore became India’s Silicon Valley because of the following factors:
a) Large pool of techies. The city has the highest number of engineering colleges than any other city in the world.
Karnataka is a prime centre of learning, with 16 universities,133 medical training institutions, 134 engineering colleges, and 712 general colleges.
b) Research based platform: It is the ‘science centre’ of India with over 100 R&D centres. Read the rest of this entry »
Call on President Trump to abandon his “bully tactics”, end the US-China trade war and co-operate with Beijing to secure a “win-win” solution for 5G development of the world
Posted by Kit in China, globalisation, IT on Saturday, 1 June 2019
I call on the US President Trump to abandon his “bully tactics”, end the US-China trade war and co-operate with Beijing to secure a “win-win” solution for the 5G development of the world.
Fifty years ago in 1969, the United States won the 14-year-old space race with the Soviet Union since the first successful launch of the first Soviet Union Sputnik artificial satellite in 1955 by landing the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11.
Today, the United States is virtually conceding defeat in the race for technological supremacy with China when US President Trump exercised the “nuclear option” and added Huawei and 68 of its non-US affiliates to a blacklist, officially called the Entity List, on May 16 restricting the Shenzen-based company’s ability to purchase hardware, software and services from its American hi-tech suppliers without approval from the US government.
This marked a tech cold war and it could slow down or dramatically alter the rollout of the 5G technology and infrastructure likely to define the future of the Internet for the next decade and intertwine factories, power plants, airports, hospitals and government agencies. Read the rest of this entry »
Touched by David Choi’s apology to Taiping farmer Lee who was arrested and remanded in Kuantan for two days as a result of MCA Youth police report for sharing a video deemed insulting to deputy minister Chong Sin Woon
I am touched by the news report of the Pahang MCA division leader who was suspended from party positions for apologising to a Taiping farmer Lee who was arrested as a result of a MCA Youth police report for sharing a video deemed insulting to deputy education minister Chong Sin Woon, following the latter’s “deity” jibe after the Penang floods, and was brought to Kuantan and remanded for two days.
David Choi was stripped of all party positions in the Indera Mahkota division, including as its public complaints bureau chief, committee member, and GE14 operation room, banner and pamphlet chief.
It is reported that the MCA division will write to the MCA central disciplinary committee to decide on Choi’s party membership.
Very aptly, Choi said in Chinese: “Man doing, heaven watching”. Read the rest of this entry »
By clumsy and Luddite block of Steam because of “Fight of Gods” computer game, Salleh has caused greater global embarrassment to Malaysia than all the five Prime Ministers put together in 60 years
By his clumsy and Luddite block of Steam because of “Fight of Gods” computer game, the Minister for Multimedia and Communications Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak has caused greater embarrassment to Malaysia than all the five Prime Ministers put together in 60 years.
Yesterday, Salleh ordered that the popular gaming provider, Steam, be blocked over its failure to prevent Malaysians from downloading the controversial new computer game “Fight of Gods”.
The block order to Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) was rescinded by Salleh this morning.
In this period of blockade of Steam, Malaysia came into the radar of consciousness of hundreds of millions of youth in the world, who otherwise have never thought of Malaysia, but unfortunately in the most embarrassing and worst possible light – with Malaysia the butt of global outrage and frustration by tens even hundreds of millions of computer gamers, reinforcing the impression that Malaysia is very intolerant and has a closed mentality, totally contradictory to an open, inclusive and tolerant approach.
Isn’t it possible for Salleh and the MCMC to carry out their duties under the Communications and Multimedia Act without causing such colossal damage to Malaysia’s international standing and reputation – as if the country’s infamy and ignominy in the last two years as a global kleptocracy as a result of the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal is not bad enough!
Malaysia needs a Minister and IT experts to man the MCMC who are savvy enough to know the far-reaching implications of every move to ban or block Internet communications, and not to have a Minister for Multimedia Communications or those who helm the MCMC to behave like bulls in China shops. Read the rest of this entry »
What do Malaysians think about a Cabinet Minister who can blog the following?
Two days ago, last Saturday, I issued a statement entitled: “I weep for Najib – with 1MDB billions, can’t he find smarter and more intelligent propagandists, publicists and cybertroopers?”
Today, I should issue a statement: “I weep for Malaysia for having a Minister of Communications and Multimedia who could blog…..”
My attention has just been drawn to Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak’s blog yesterday: “What a dictatorship really means” which said:
“The argument that there cannot be two dictators at the same time is also not true. Russia had Stalin and Lenin both dictators at the same time while during the French Revolution both Robespierre and Napoleon emerged as dictators of France. And China saw more than two dictators at the same time while, in Cuba, Che Guevara abandoned the revolution because he did not want to be a joint-dictator with Castro.”
My hair stood on end when I read Salleh’s blog.
What do Malaysians think about a Cabinet Minister who can blog the above? Read the rest of this entry »
A week ago, Google returned 255,000 results in 0.42 seconds on “1MDB” search – today it returned 4.41 million searches in just 0.32 seconds!
Posted by Kit in Corruption, Financial Scandals, Gerakan, IT, MCA, Najib Razak, UMNO on Wednesday, 25 January 2017
I wish to report that in the first 24 hours from 12 noon yesterday till 12 noon today, neither MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai nor the Gerakan President Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong had contacted me in response to my public offer yesterday that I am prepared to meet with them, individually or collectively, any place any time in the ensuing 72 hours to discuss how we can co-operate in the larger national interests to purge and cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy.
I had asked whether Liow and Mah would have to get UMNO approval before responding. We will wait and see what happens in the rest of the 72-hour offer.
Already, there is a strange political phenomenon. In yesterday’s press, I was the target of massive attacks from all the top MCA and Gerakan leaders for offering during my “Jelajah Desa” at Sungai Gelugor in Penang on Sunday to co-operate with PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang to save Malaysia from becoming a global kleptocracy and a failed and rogue state.
Read the rest of this entry »
Guardian ranked second most secure online news site
Alex Hern
Guardian
16 December 2016
The listing, produced by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, was topped by the US site The Intercept
The Guardian has been listed as the second most secure news publication on the web, according to a ranking produced by the American non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Points were awarded for supporting technologies which protect the privacy and security of visitors, with a focus on using HTTPS, a web protocol that allows for encrypted connections.
The ranking was topped by the US news site The Intercept, created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. It gained the highest score of A+.
The Guardian, rated as A- along with TechCrunch and ProPublica, scored highly for having a valid HTTPS version of its website, and for defaulting to that connection for all visitors. Read the rest of this entry »
Pokemon Go Turned One Couple’s Life Into ‘A Nightmare.’ Now They’re Suing.
Lauren C. Williams
ThinkProgress
August 16, 2016
A Michigan couple is suing the game’s co-creators Nintendo, Niantic, and Pokemon Co. for turning their street into “a nightmare.”
Scott Dodich and Jayme Gotts-Dodich live on what used to be a “peaceful, quiet, and safe” suburban street directly across a small public park in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. But since Pokémon Go was released July 6, the couple’s quaint neighborhood located outside of Detroit, has turned into “a nightmare,” according to court documents.
The Dodiches filed a class-action lawsuit with the U.S. District Court of Northern California alleging that the augmented reality mobile game’s co-creators— the developer, Niantic software company, Nintendo, the owner, and Pokémon Co., which licenses the game—are responsible for player trespassing private property and threatening homeowners in pursuit of catching Pokemon.
The residents of Revere Street had their lawns trampled. They were yelled at for calling the police, according to the complaint, and were threatened by players visiting the popular Pokéstop and Pokégym or hangout in nearby Wahby Park. Players also peered into the windows of residents’ homes, hiding in bushes after dark to wait out the police.
Pokémon Go players “are on our lawns . . . looking right into our windows to catch a Pokémon,” the Dodiches said in the complaint. As residents “[we] don’t feel safe sitting on our porch.” Read the rest of this entry »
The dangers of Pokémon Go: Kids’ brains are vulnerable to virtual and augmented reality
NICHOLAS KARDARAS
Salon
AUG 12, 2016
Immersive and interactive games that are fine for adults can cause a blurring of reality in younger users
A few weeks back I was sent a link to an article about Pokémon Go—the latest craze that has been sweeping not only our native Manhattan, but seemingly the entire country. The person who had sent me the article thought I’d be interested in this latest tech development because of my work: I’m a psychologist and professor who specializes in treating addiction and working with adolescents; and I had just written a book called “Glow Kids,” which explores some of the uncomfortable clinical realities of too much screen time.
Two days later I was sent yet another link. This latest article from a major national newspaper waxed poetic about kids and the new Pokémon craze. According to that article, Pokémon Go is a parent’s dream, a video game holy grail: a game that actually got kids up off the couch and outside exploring and interacting with the real world—albeit while staring at a screen and pursuing an illusory augmented reality hologram.
That small detail aside, I had to ask myself: well, is this the game that finally proves the screen alarmists wrong? After all, kids are going outside to play the game and collaborating with others to find clues in their digital scavenger hunts. Aren’t those good things? In that same pro Pokémon Go article, a child and adolescent psychologist interviewed for the piece, was quoted saying “it gets kids out in the world and promotes socialization. It seems that kids are using it as a tool to connect to each other and the world around them.”
All that sounds perfectly reasonable, but my research and clinical work indicates otherwise. If you’re a child or pre-teen, there may be a price to pay. To be clear: If you’re an adult, have at it! Pokémon Go to your heart’s content; wander the streets looking for the little augmented reality buggers. Just be careful you don’t walk into oncoming traffic or light posts, but Pokémon your days away if you like.
But children have additional vulnerabilities when they interact with interactive and immersive screens; their brains and what psychologists call “reality testing”—the ability to discern what’s real and what isn’t—are not fully developed yet. That’s why researchers who study the effects of immersive and interactive video game experiences have coined the term “Game Transfer Phenomenon” (GTP)— a reality-blurring psychotic-like feature that young people who are chronic gamers experience. Read the rest of this entry »
The future of Pokémon Go: more human interaction or advertisers’ top target?
Toby Barnes
Guardian
14 August 2016
The game has built its success on a largely single-player experience – but to really leave a mark on players, developers should focus on the interpersonal angle
A location game overlaying the city, with players able to hunt monsters, capture stations, battle each other, build guilds. A virtual imagined world connected to the physical one by a database of locations and human “check-ins”.
It’s not Pokémon Go. It’s Chromaroma, from the UK games company Mudlark. And it’s not from this year. It was released in 2010.
Augmented reality games have been in development for the last 15 years, and I ran Mudlark from 2005 to 2011. Our biggest success was Chromaroma, which overlaid London and connected with players’ Oyster cards, letting people battle with fantastical weapons and armor. It was part Risk, part Monopoly, part Foursquare. But we made games and experiences – we called them mixed reality and transmedia – that, honestly, we struggled to explain to people.
Fast forward and the global hit Pokémon Go hits the “transmedia” sweet spot perfectly: a license that combines 90s game nostalgia, Japanese color palettes, full spectrum imagination and friendly competitiveness.
I asked my young son why he thinks the game has struck such a chord and he replied that he considered it the manifestation of every Pokémon player’s dreams. Perhaps not realizing what he was saying also applied to the game designers, he added: “The game is basically letting us all do the things we have been imagining for years.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Pokémon Go influence on new tech
Dr. Roger Smith
Crunch Network
14.8.2016
Pokémon Go has changed the trajectory of the world on a scale just slightly smaller than Google Search and Facebook, but still to a magnitude that will be felt through all industries in the coming years. To many, it looks like a very simple game that incorporates a few unique and compelling features. But this game has taken technologies from niche research and gaming communities and thrust them into the world’s consciousness.
Suddenly everyone understands what “augmented reality” means and how an artificial digital world can be mapped onto the real physical world. Neither of these is new, but they garnered little attention until they appeared in a concrete, compelling and simple free game for every cell phone in the country.
Augmented reality is a technique for layering data from one or more virtual worlds onto the real physical world. It has been demonstrated and used in military situation awareness and aircraft maintenance applications for years. But it has barely escaped these kinds of niche communities.
Overlaying virtual and physical worlds seemed like a plaything for nerds until it was coupled with the ubiquitous cell phone. Then it became a way of enhancing how we interact with everything on the planet, from entertainment and emergency response to education and healthcare, to name but a few. Read the rest of this entry »
The story that is dividing Malaysia’s media
Posted by Kit in Financial Scandals, IT, Media, Najib Razak on Tuesday, 19 April 2016
Listening Post | 19 Apr 2016
Al Jazeera
For much of the past year, the biggest news story in Malaysia has been the so-called ‘1MDB’ corruption scandal – a story of millions of dollars of public money allegedly funnelled into the bank accounts of Prime Minister Najib Razak.
The online investigative magazine Sarawak Report broke the story last June and many in the mainstream media, who have links to the government, were slow to follow up.
Only a small number of online outlets, such as Malaysiakini, followed the corruption investigation closely. But the government is keen to keep this story out of the public eye. The Listening Post spoke to Malaysiakini editor Steven Gan about the 1MDB scandal, the limitations of Malaysia’s mainstream media and the growing threat to online freedom of the press.
Steven Gan, editor-in-chief of the Malaysiakini website, speaks about the 1MDB scandal, and the growing threat to online freedom press [Will Yong/ Al Jazeera]
The Listening Post: The corruption scandal swirling around the prime minister has been a huge news story in Malaysia. What is the significance of this story? How much has it dominated the news and what impact is it having?
Read the rest of this entry »
The Panama Papers’ Sprawling Web of Corruption
Posted by Kit in Corruption, IT, Media on Thursday, 7 April 2016
by The Editorial Board
New York Times
APRIL 5, 2016
The first reaction to the leaked documents dubbed the Panama Papers is simply awe at the scope of the trove and the ingenuity of the anonymous source who provided the press with 11.5 million documents — 2.6 terabytes of data — revealing in extraordinary detail how offshore bank accounts and tax havens are used by the world’s rich and powerful to conceal their wealth or avoid taxes.
Then comes the disgust. With more than 14,000 clients around the world and more than 214,000 offshore entities involved, Mossack Fonseca, the Panama-based law firm whose internal documents were exposed, piously insists it violated no laws or ethics. But the questions remain: How did all these politicians, dictators, criminals, billionaires and celebrities amass vast wealth and then benefit from elaborate webs of shell companies to disguise their identities and their assets? Would there have been no reckoning had the leak not occurred?
And then the core question: After these revelations, will anything change? Many formal denials and pledges of official investigations have been made. But to what degree do the law and public shaming still have dominion over this global elite? A public scarred by repeated revelations of corruption in government, sports and finance will demand to know. Read the rest of this entry »
Inside Cyberjaya, Malaysia’s failed Silicon Valley
by NICOLE KOBIE
Wired
05 APRIL 16
It’s past three in the morning, and our cab driver is lost – not only had he never heard of the city of Cyberjaya, but he also couldn’t find our hotel at its centre, the wonderfully named Cyberview Lodge Resort, built twenty years ago when ground was first struck at this would-be Malaysian Silicon Valley.
As we swung around yet another empty roundabout in the middle of the jungle, naked of any buildings or road signs, it was hard to fault the driver.
Ask government officials and developers, and Cyberjaya is a success, the heart of its knowledge-based economy: 85,000 people live there, they say, and dozens of multinationals have offices – and in a few years the train lines will reach out here, too. But ask a taxi driver in capital city Kuala Lumpur, only thirty minutes’ drive away, and they haven’t a clue what you’re on about.
Even those embedded in the tech industry might not be aware of Malaysia’s early attempt to jump on the digital bandwagon; I first heard of it via a now obscure story by Canadian journalist Chris Turner, who visited Cyberjaya in 2000, three years after its press launch. Read the rest of this entry »
The Panama Papers: Here’s What We Know
Posted by Kit in Corruption, IT, Media on Wednesday, 6 April 2016
by Liam Stack
New York Times
APRIL 4, 2016
A group of global news organizations published articles this week based on a trove of leaked confidential documents from a law firm in Panama. They exposed how some of the world’s most powerful people were said to have used offshore bank accounts to conceal their wealth or avoid taxes.
The documents, known as the “Panama Papers,” named international politicians, business leaders and celebrities in a web of unseemly financial transactions, according to the articles, and raised questions about corruption in the global financial system. Many of the figures named in the leak have denied in the strongest terms that they had broken any laws.
This explainer has been tracking significant developments resulting from the disclosures. Among them:
• The prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, resigned Tuesday.
• Gonzalo Delaveau Swett, the president of Transparency Chile, a branch of a global anti-corruption group, stepped down on Monday. Read the rest of this entry »
How a Cryptic Message, ‘Interested in Data?,’ Led to the Panama Papers
Posted by Kit in Corruption, IT, Media on Wednesday, 6 April 2016
by Nicola Clark
New York Times
APRIL 5, 2016
PARIS — The leak of millions of private financial documents linking scores of the world’s rich and powerful to a secretive Panamanian law firm peddling in shell companies and offshore bank accounts began more than a year ago with a cryptic message to a German newspaper from an anonymous whistle-blower.
“Hello, this is John Doe,” the source wrote to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based newspaper that had worked on several investigations into tax evasion and money-laundering scandals. “Interested in data?”
“We’re very interested,” replied Bastian Obermayer, a veteran of several investigations into financial scandals. Read the rest of this entry »
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