Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Phishing Scam Poster

Phishing scam is getting common within the society nowadays. Basically, phishing scam sends an email to attack someone with purporting to be from a valid financial or eCommerce provider. The email often uses fear tactics in an effort to entice the intended victim into visiting a fraudulent website. Then, the victim is instructed to login to their account and enter sensitive financial information such as their bank PIN number. The information is then sent to the attacker who will uses it to engage in identity fraud. It is really important for us to be aware of those genuine websites.

Here are the posters which i've created which regarding the phishing scam:


Potrait Version


Landscape Version

Cybercrime

Cybercrime is basically any act that would be against the law in the physical world that takes part on the internet. Based on Criminal Justice Cybercrime Categories (Professor David L. Carter – 1979), Cybercrime can happen as the computer are always the target, for example computer intrusion, data theft, technovandalism. Besides, computer is also another medium of of the Crime, such as Credit card fraud, telecommunications fraud, theft. Moreover, computer is also incidental to other Crimes, like drug trafficking, money laundering, child pornography.


Image taken from: http://www.britannica.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/cybercrime.jpg
In January, 2009, there were more than 4,000 cyber complaints, mostly concerning cyber crimes have been lodged with Cybersecurity Malaysia in the past two years. (reported by the star online). 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.
In Malaysia, there is an enforcement agency --> Cybersecurity Malaysia,which cater the service of digital forensic, security assurance, security management and so on.analysing evidence and providing expert witnesses for relevant cases. In order for enforcement agencies to fulfill their roles, they require processes, role players, technical support and specialist centres to aid in analysing and solving technical problems to help the judicial process.

image taken from: http://www.cybersecurity.org.my/properties/images/services/011.gif
Colonel Husin even quoted that, if in the future they cannot cope anymore, we may need to have a cybercourt! It can be used to speed up the prosecution of cyber criminals, encouraging more specialized judges and lawyers. According to CYBERSECURITY MALAYSIA, a very challenging issue in cyber crime investigation is the gathering of evidence. If there is a cyber court, there will be a need for a provision on how the court can facilitate and give empowerment for evidence collection in a much, much easier way. The setting up of the court must take into consideration the bottleneck and how it can help ease evidence gathering.
It is due to the fact that the country's cyberpopulation is increasing, the number of online transactions or other activities will increase in tandem, which will likely mean more incidents of cybercrime. Advancement of broadband and wireless enable everyone of us to make full use of Internet. However, such medium can also be used as cybercrimes where the more criminals taking advantage over the situation, conducting crimes online. The situation will definitely get worst when the global economy is facing recession, as everyone wish to earn more money than others! And this is one of the "short-cut" for the criminals, without realising the consequences of it.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Power Abuse


image taken from :http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-4025743/stock-photo-malaysia-th-police-day.html


During 202nd of Police Day, there was a new slogan "Tegas, Adil dan Berhemah(Firm, Fair and Courteous”) for it. According to newly appointed state deputy police chief Datuk Jalaluddin Abdul Rahman, he mentioned that "Integrity Is Our Practice" which would help to enhance the performance and authority of the force.

However, some negative perceptions have applied towards the police. For example, in 2008, there was a case of "Strong case against officer over alleged rape" from The Star. The cop raped a 17 years old girl in the station in Subang Jaya after he instructed the couple to go to police station after knowing that the guy does not pocess the liscence. During the investigation session, two of them were separated, and here was the time where the cop forced the girl to perform oral sex before she was rapped. After the case, the cop was suspended and faced disciplinary action. However, this incident has left a bad impression for the public towards the image of police. Public starts to wonder the so-called integrity characterisctic of police. If we could not even trust the police, who can we depend on? They are the entity that suppose to protect our public's safety!



image taken from : http://jonathanmelleonpolitics.blogspot.com/2007/10/daniel-e-bosley-hypocritical-big.html

On the other hand, according to SUARAM " Ongoing Abuse of Police Power Must End!", there was a latest news where the police misuse their power in the arrest of Hindraf leader, S Jayathas, on the grounds of wearing an anti-ISA badge when Hindraf had a prayer ceremony, 13 December 2009 to mark the Internal Security Act (ISA) detention of five Hindraf leaders two years ago.
The police did not inform S Jayathas of the grounds of arrest even after they were asked.Such action indeed lead the police committed the violation of Article 5(3) of the Federal Constitution which states that when "a person is arrested, he shall be informed as soon as may be of the ground of his arrest..."
Moreover, according to Article 10(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution states that every citizen has the right to freedom of expression. S Jayathas has the right to express his opinions under the protection of constitution and his arrest is a violation of his constitutional right.
Police should carry out the job effective and efficiently, however, in this situation, it seems to be opposite. If such situation continue to happen, i believe this will definitely lower the confidence of public towards the accountability of police. If none of us put faith in cops, this will threaten the safety of our country, as we all know that cooperation between public and cops are essential in the effort of reducing the crime rate. Without the help between one another, not only the safety innocence public will be affected, but also disrupt the development of our country!

It is the time for the Government to intervene in the matter, enforcing the Police Reform Act 2002. It is basically "An Act to make new provision about the supervision, administration, functions and conduct of police forces, police officers and other persons serving with, or carrying out functions in relation to, the police; to amend police powers and to provide for the exercise of police powers by persons who are not police officers; to amend the law relating to anti-social behaviour orders; to amend the law relating to sex offender orders; and for connected purposes". Besides, police must be more committed to perform their tasks/jobs, dispel negative perception in order to restore the public confidence towards the force.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Defamation





Defamation can be defined as express words that may lower another person's reputation in the public. In Malaysia, defamation law is protecting people's reputation from unfair attack. Acording to Defamation Act 1957, section(5), in an action for slander in respect of words calculated to disparage the plaintiff in any office, profession, calling, trade or business held or carried on by him at the time of the publication, it shall not be necessary to allege or prove special damage whether or not the words are spoken of the plaintiff in the way of his office,
profession, calling, trade or business. Hence, with the existance of Defamation Act, we are able to sue those who say/publish wrong or malicious comments. The defamation case can go to court, with a hearing before a judge. However, the majority of cases are settled. This included a published apology, sometimes a payment or sometimes none of it was applied.


Image taken from: http://www.topnews.in/files/Anwar-Ibrahim1.jpg


In November 2009, there was a case regarding Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim who won a civil suit against publisher New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd and its former group editor-in-chief over a defamatory article published by its newspaper in 2002. Anwar had filed defamation suti agaist NSTP and its former group editor- in- chief, Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad in 2003 where the article enttitled, " Anwar's link to US lobbyist" which published in 2002. The accuracy of articles was left in doubt as the editor only looked at various previous articles as her source and relied on the article in the New Republic magazine as she claimed that the magazine is a credible, reputable, magazine on political and social issues in the United States. Supposedly, the editor should obtain the response through other publication of article or even seek enquiries from Anwar's family. In the end, high court ordered two defendants to pay RM100,000 as compensatory damages to Anwar. From this case, we can know that it is important to seek the element of fairness when you are going to publish any articles or information about someone.


image taken from: http://the-malaysian.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

According to the Law of Defamation Act 1957, section (3), broadcast statement, stated that for the purpose of the law of libel and slander the broadcasting of words by means of radio communication shall be treated as publication in a permanent form. Hence, the information which published will be well-known by the public out there. If the source/information was not credible, it will surely defame a person's reputation and status within the society.

There was also another case where the famous blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin claimed that Dr Nordin, who is the vice chancellor of University Utara Malaysia, was a plagiarist on the Malaysia Today website and in the 98th edition of Suara Keadilan in November 2006. Such claim was not true which lead to High Court ordered Raja Petra Kamaruddin to pay RM7million to Dr Nordin for libel.

In conclusion, whenever we want to say something about someone, we must make sure that it is accountable and there was prove to be stated. One can defend onself by saying that what he/she said was true, however, you must prove it right! Else, if you are expressing your opinion/comments towards a particular subject/object, you must be sure that it's a fair comment which it is reasonably accurate.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

It is an OFFENCE -- Plagiarism!

According to Gary Slapper from the Times Online, the word plagiarism comes from the Latin plagiarius — someone who abducts a child, a kidnapper. Today, a plagiarist can be seen as having snatched the work to which someone else has. Students commit plagiarism if they put into their work the academic ideas of someone else without acknowledgment — commonly by copying from another student, downloading material from the internet or paying for an essay to be written by an essay-writing firm.

There was a study by Duke University (reported in The Star, Oct 2, 2006) found the percentage of students confessing to cheating to be 56% for MBA, 54% for engineering, and 45% for law and about 85% of university students felt they needed to cheat to excel. As stated on Plagiarism.org: "Plagiarism is quickly becoming part of our educational culture".Some students are lazy in conducting the research, what they do is just surf the Internet, copy others works and paste it for the use of their assignments purposes.

For some people, they do not even realized that they have actually use the exact same sentence of others works until they were notified. This is so-called unintentional of plagiarism. One interesting question that you must ask yourself is "Would I know this if I hadn't read it on that website/in that book?" (cited from http://kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/school/plagiarism.html) So, if the answer is "NO". Remember to cite the source, acknowledge the author's work rather than risking yourself into trouble.

Image taken from :http://www.buzzle.com/articles/detecting-plagiarism-on-the-internet.html


There was a hot issue which arise recently,"UPM duo in plagiarism scandal" involving two academicians (a professor and one who recently received her PhD). She produced a reference book entitled, "Writing an Effective Resume" meant for management students on writing impactful resumes that would attract potential employers. However, this book was suspicious of having plagiarised materials have plagiarised materials of several American university websites, including Harvard and Albion College.

Higher Education Ministry director-general Prof Datuk Dr Radin Umar Radin Sohadi stated that plagiarism in higher education environment is certainly can not be accepted. Hence punitive action would be taken under the Universities and University Colleges Act and Statutory Bodies (Discipline and Surcharge) Act (Act 605). Investigations headed by UPM's Legal Department concluded that among the actions to be taken are that they repay royalties to the university, as well as a "severe reprimand on their personal file". One of the author who has just completed her PhD stated that since the source was from Internet, so she thought the source was for public domain and such she did not cite the source. Not citing the source, is the price that she has to pay, it may be unintentional but the printers suffer the biggest loss as the books could not be sold.

Actually, students should treat the writing as part of their enjoyment instead of copy others work. When you have put in effort in completing it, the pride of being honour is even higher, as hard work pays off! Simply copying and paste is easier task, even a kids without education can do so, just by few clicking. However, being an educated person, we must not attempt in doing so, as no one likes their work to be copied and claimed as theirs. If this situation happen, the person who commited in plagiarism will suffer from the effects all by him/herself. Not only reputation of ones will be degraded, even the level of education/certification will be doubtful for others.
Since the technology is evolving around, Internet might be the good source of getting information, which others might use it as a way to plagiarise others work. It also provides the essential tools for us to detect the plagiarism issues as well. According to eHow.com, there are ways for a professor to detect students work.


Step One: Submission
What he needs to do is just inputs the assignent into a plagiarism detector. These software programs perform detailed checks automatically. While there are many different systems available, all operate in the same general way.
Step Two: Search
Once an academic work has been fed into a plagiarism detector, the system goes to work.
Plagiarism detection programs use search algorithms. The algorithms scour the Internet for sources that are similar to the submitted work. It can search for the hundreds or thousands of sentences that make up a paper! Besides from Internet sources, the tools may even detect the sentences which may not be public on the web.
Step Three: Report
Finally, the plagiarism software will create a detail report, listing the textual similarities that have been found. Links of original content are also provided, so professors can view the original articles clearly. Then, the copy percentage is also calculated, ranking the chances of being plagiarized.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

License and Permit

In Malaysia, direct selling industries has contribute over RM 5.5 billion worth of sales in 2008 and offers business opportunities to Malaysian public. However, it also appears as the top of the list of complaints at the National Consumer Com-plaints Centre. There were 2,339 complaints in 2008, a substantial increase of 21% as compared with the 1,933 complaints in 2007. Normally, the complaints are related to scratch-and-win scams, credit card payments, cooling-off period (time given to consumers to reconsider the purchase), lack of information and defective products offered.

Malaysian Direct Distributors Association (MDDA) president Datin Sylvia Koh pointed out that out of 100 complaints of cheating lodged with the Domestic Trade, 90 were found to be committed by unregistered companies. Consumers now are sceptical about direct selling companies.

As stated in The Malaysia Government's official portal, in order to carry out activities in the manufacturing industry, a business is required to obtain a premise license as well as business license. In addition, special licenses are also required for manufacturing of specific products depending on the type of materials used.

According to Local Government Act 1976, section 107(5) every person to whom a liscence has been granted shall exhibit his liscence all the time in some prominent place on the liscence premises and shall produce such lisccence if required to do so by any officer of the local authority authorized to demand the same. Besides, under section 107(6), any person who fail to exhibit such liscence under subsection (5) shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding five hundred ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

The Star newspaper reported that, on 3th of December 2009, there were four companies and four directors were fined RM203,700 by a magistrate’s court here on 28 counts of illegally conducting a direct-selling business. The companies are Waterdrops Holding Sdn Bhd, Waterdrops Sdn Bhd, Waterdrops Ventures Sdn Bhd and Waterdrops Corporation Sdn Bhd were fined RM52,500 for the seven charges they faced. They were pleaded guilty for selling Smart Kiosk products, water vending machines, and R.O. Water Machines via direct-selling.



In addition to the issue, MDDA (Malaysian Direct Distribution Association) will launch its homepage which will be officiated by Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob. This homepage enables consumers to check whether the products/services offered to them are registered or legal direct selling companies as the site will provide a full list of MDDA members for them to counter-check.

So, if anyone of you are interested in starting up a business, don't forget to apply the license before operating the business. This is not only a legal document giving official permission to do something, but also to determine the specific obligations of your new business. By knowing all the qualification, is one of the basic elements of expanding your business from scratch. Malaysia is currently ranked 12th in terms of sales in direct selling business worldwide. Hence, the potential of direct selling business is huge and this can prosper in future, with the requirement that each of the direct selling operators must obtain the permits in order to eliminate the unecessary court cases.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Law on PDP and Cybercrime Tutorial Exercise

a. Linda was stunned in front of her PC when she received an electronic mail, in a chain of senders and receivers, telling bad things about herself, her crazy shopping habits, her domestic problems and her involvement in superstitious activities with a bomoh (magician) allegedly for gaining her more wealthy and fortunes. She is now thinking to pursue legal actions for the unfavorable email against her. With reference to the above case, explain the meaning of online defamation, and discuss the legal remedies available for Linda.

Suggestion:

According to The Electronic Frontier Foundation, defamation is a false and unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to someone's reputation, and published "with fault," meaning as a result of negligence or malice. Libel is a written defamation while slander is a spoken defamation. It is also a false statement, presented as fact either deliberately intended to harm your reputation or as the result of negligence. The elements that must be proved to establish defamation are included


1. a publication to one other than the person defamed;
2. a false statement of fact;
3. that is understood as
• a. being of and concerning the plaintiff; and
• b. tending to harm the reputation of plaintiff.
4. If the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she must also prove actual malice.


Linda can actually take the case to court, but she has to consult online reputation expert to help her as well. She is actually being protected under the law of defamation which concerned with protecting the reputation of individual, corporation or other legal person from the harm caused by the communication of untrue statements to a third party. All the claims from the email can consider as a publication of permanent form as, according to the Law of Defamation Act 1957, Section (3) For the purpose of the law of libel and slander the broadcasting of words by means of radio communication shall be treated as publication in a permanent form. As for the severance of defences, in Section (19), Whenever in any action of libel the plaintiff sues more than one defendant, whether jointly, severally, or in the alternative, each defendant may file a separate statement of his case and appear at the trial by separate counsel or if he thinks fit, apologize or pay money into court or make other amends, whatever may be the defences set up by his co-defendants, and the plaintiff may accept such apology, money, or other amends and settle or compromise the suit and discontinue the action as between himself and one or more defendants without reference to the other defendants: Provided always that the rights and interests of the other defendant or defendants shall not in any way be prejudiced thereby.



b. Tommy, a Multimedia student at MMU, was caught by University authority after it was found that he had cracked the University’s information system, defaced the front page of University’s official website and stolen a bulk of confidential data regarding students’ academic records. It was also discovered that he had attempted to break several lecturers's computer system but without avail. On the investigation he said that all his action was just for fun exploring the system weakness and without any criminal intention. In this case, advice the University regarding Tommy's liabilities arising from his actions with reference to the law of computer crimes in Malaysia.

Suggestion:
Tommy had cracked the University’s information system which can lead him to guilty as base on CCA Section 3(1): A person shall be guilty of an offence if (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer; (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorized; and (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case. If Tommy is guilty under this section, he is liable to a maximum RM 50,000.00 fine or to 5 years imprisonment or to both.

Another wrongful act which Tommy defaced the front page the University’s official website and stolen a bulk of confidential data regarding students’ academic records can actually lead to punishable with a maximum RM 100,000.00 fine or to 7 years imprisonment or to both as according to CCA Section 5(1): A person shall be guilty of an offence if he does any act which he knows will cause unauthorized modification of the contents of any computer. If the act is done with further intention of causing injury, Tommy can be punished up to RM 150,000.00 fine or 10 years imprisonment or both.

Although Tommy said that all his action was just for fun exploring the system’s weaknesses and without any criminal intention. However, base on CCA Section(3), recreational hacking, unauthorized access to computer, computer system and computer network, computer cracking to explore loopholes in the system and system intrusion are the acts which prohibited in the provision as well.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Human Trafficking



According to Wikipedia, Human Trafficking refers to the practice of people being tricked, lured, coerced or otherwise removed from their home or country, and then compelled to work with no or low payment or on terms which are highly exploitative. The victims of human trafficking can be used in a variety of situations, including prostitution, forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage) and other forms of involuntary servitude.

It is not a fresh issue of seeing human trafficking all around the world. Most of the ethnic immigrants tend to seek for a proper job when they move out their village. However, luckless victims might met the sex brokers, becomes one of their source in human trafficking. The so called "agents" can even be the people they know, for examples aunts, uncles or friends by telling them a fantastic story life, enticing them to leave their home. There was a case which a woman from Vietnam, arrived in Malaysia by valid means with the purpose of finding jobs. However, it turned out to be a nightmare where she was taken away by a human trafficking syndicate to a house in Taman Usahawan in Kepong.
In addition, there was a hot issues of Human Trafficking on the Malaysian- Thai border. One of the victim who is from central Burma who worked in Kuala Lumpur was arrested by police and immigration officers, and the worst is that they were placed in the hands of traffickers later!
The traffickers threatened the victims by asking them to pay RM 1,900 to 2,300 if they want to return to Burma. The victims also pointed out that the gang leader are normally Thai or Malaysian. Normally, those who can't pay are exploit by the traffickers.How true is issue which stated that there was a good relationship between Malaysian and Thai authorities involving human trafficking? it indeed need a thorough investigation by the Government!



In Malaysia, under Section 13, Any person who traffics in person not being a child, for the purpose of exploitation, by one or more of the following means:

(a) threat;
(b) use of force or other forms of coercion;
(c) abduction;
(d) fraud;
(e) deception;
(f) abuse of power;
(g) abuse of the position of vulnerability of a person to an
act of trafficking in persons; or
(h) the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to obtain
the consent of a person having control over the trafficked
person,
commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term not less than three years but not exceeding twenty years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Image taken from: http://www.humantraffic.org/

Besides, Malaysia-Australia also agree to fight for Human Trafficking in working visit of Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein to Australia. A close cooperation will be addressed and the efforts of programmes should be carried out to deter the issue. He also added that the involving agencies including police, the Immigration Department, Foreign Ministry, the Attorney-General's Department and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.

Not only the authorities and immigration officers, the public, or even the societies needed to be educated so that they won't fall into the trap of traffickers. Even though the process of law to protect victims has been pushed, without the lead of government in stamping out trafficking, the law will be worthless too.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Do we still have our own privacy?

According to Privacy Commissioner of Canada, privacy means the right to control access to one's person and information about one's self. The right to privacy means that individuals get to decide what and how much information to give up, to whom it is given, and for what uses. However, do you think that we as a Malaysian are under the protection of privacy?

Image taken from psixp.wordpress.com

In Bangkit.net, i have found out that Malaysia scored miserably in the international ranking on privacy for 2007 mainly due to the continued use of the Internal Security Act which allows for police search and seizure of evidence without a warrant, the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) and the use of biometrics to monitor immigrants in an environment where privacy laws. There are numerous cases which reveal our privacy to the public around the world. The case of Elizabeth Wong, who was a Bukit Lanjan assemblyman and Selangor executive council member, has caused her to resign her post as the consequences of her nude picture being circulated to the public through MMS. This incident strongly intrude her personal life and privacy. Indirectly, people have conspired to undermine her credibility as Selangor state exco member. In my point of view, she is the victim afterall, we should not

point our fingers at her by saying that she hasn't performing her work ethically.There were the possibilities that some protestors might want to pull her down from her current position by using this scandal. Elizabeth indeed needs a huge courage to overcome this challenges. I have read her blog which stated that she's leaving Malaysia as she felt it's humiliated after receiving the further notice by the media they will continue to publish even more graphical, sensational stories of her private life. Can you imagine how stressful it is when you were in that situation? Longing for the need to rest and search for peace of mind, she hopes to get away all the stormy events surrounding her. It is the fact that everyone needs their own privacy, so do i. None of us will like people to invade our own space without noticing us. Since none of us like to be invaded, why can't the artists and politicians perceive the right to be left alone as well? If there isn't a deterrant law to take against the people who involving in intrution of privacy, how can we as a Malaysian feel safe enough to move around?

Image taken from http://ibspro.net/

Perhaps, some of us,especially girls, might worry that there was a hidden camera which was installed in public toilet/lifts or even changing rooms! This really happens around us, as there was a case where a man was fined only RM100 for taking a picture of a young girl urinating at a public toilet with his handphone cameara. Do you think that it is reasonable enough to charge that man for minimal money? I think that this kind of action should be reviewed to be appropriate with the times and damage that it caused (trauma especially). If the deter is not punished with any heavy penalty, there will definitely be more future offenders who will slowly divulge our privacy life, none of us will know when are we going to be the next target. . .


Phish Your Money/Password!

Taken from: Dailybits.com

According to Wikipedia, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Phishing often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. One of the example as below:
Taken from: netforbeginners.about.com

Let me ask you a simple question: Will you give your bank account password or email password to everyone? It's definitely NO!! So, do i.
So, since it's impossible for the phisers to get it fromyou, they have no choice but to take extra steps to trick us into giving up all those important and private information. This kind of deceptive attempt to get information is called social engineering. It is exactly same as an act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.

Another example is Suppose you check your e-mail one day and find a message from your bank. You've gotten e-mail from them before, but this one seems suspicious, especially since it threatens to close your account if you don't reply immediately. What do you do? You should not straight away give your personal information to the suspicious site. Instead, you can call your nearest bank to inquire about that. Calling to make a clarification is better than lossing all your valuable information, especially password to all those phisers.
Phishing not just through email, instant messages, SMS, Chat Rooms, Fake Banners, Fake Job search site are also part of the phisers platform of sources.

Most phishing messages will tend to prompt the victim to reply promptly. If he/she doesn't want to lose the money/kicked out by certain account, they will just straight away reply the phishing messages, and there it goes.. the information and data are all collected by the mastermind of phisers. If you are lucky, you can recognize that you didn't purchase anything from that particular site and you won't prompt a reply to them. However, if you are one of the shoppers from particular online store, and coincidently you just purchased an item from there, you will likely assume that it was specially dedicated for you. So some of us who are vulnerable to it will reply before investigating.

According to ACP Mohd Kamaruddin Md Din, head of Cyber and Multimedia Investigation Division, in Malaysia, no one has been arrested for crimes related to e-mails although 40 people have been arrested for the SMS scams. Kamaruddin says the syndicates involved in these crimes have dedicated tasks for each member. Normally, the phishing happened where one member would be tasked to send out SMS, while another member would be in charge of checking the accounts
There is a news of "Phish,Your Money Gone", where a 34-year-old executive of an oil and gas company received an e-mail last September purportedly from her bank, asking her to update her account because it was upgrading its server.Without hessitation, she entered all her details, and few days later, she lost RM4100. The message tend to look genuine, and it's really hard to tell that the website is fake, especially for her who only use Internet for working purposes. Hence, it is really important for the banks with the help of the police to set up a special unit and seek the help of Interpol to trace the fraudsters.
Here is one of the site where i found very interesting, you can start a QUIZ to test how well are you in recognizing all those Phisihing and Spam mails.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

An Agreement


Whenever we want to deal something from others, an agreement is the key point to make an exchange/ deal successful. For example, if you want to trade an item A with an item B which belongs to others, u need to wait for both parties agreement before you start to trade. Hence, in order to make the deal more efficient, contracts are held in between the parties. It can be made quite informally as well, oral terms can also be bind with certain condition.
Contract it self means that it is legally enforceable (binding)agreement between two or more competent parties. The most important feature of a contract is that one party makes an offer for an arrangement that another accepts. In order to create a contract, there must be an intention of the parties to enter into legal relations which it is anticipated can be enforced in a court of law. Otherwise, in the eyes of the law, such relationships often do not constitute a binding contract.

Here is one of the case which taken from Malay Mail, entitled "HOTLINE: Hired, but without a contract"on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009.

ANTHONY claims he has been denied money due to him after he resigned as a lorry driver, for a job he took on despite not being issued with an employment contract.

He complained that he earned a limited salary as a lorry driver but the workload is out of expectation, including delivering vegetables and unloading supplies. The manager even paid him due salary, refusing give him overtime allowance. And now, his employer require Anthony to pay for resigning according to Employment Act, in fact, he doesn't even have any official letter offer from employer.
Later, the supply manager admits that there was no offer letter given to the employees as the company is a small scale company. He even complaint that Anthony performance was questionable and does not meet the requirement. He also added that Anthony did not notify them when he quit.

The Labour Department said an officer had advised both parties on the matter. And with no appointment letter issued, the dispute was handled in accordance with the Employment Act.

Since ANTHONY failed to give sufficient notice of resignation to his employer, he was liable to pay his employer an indemnity in lieu of the period of notice due. However, this had become debatable since ANTHONY was not issued with an appointment letter.

Also, the officer said, the employer can be issued with a notice or a compound for not providing its workers with appointment letters.

In my opinion, according to Employment Act 1955,Section 12(2) The length of termination notice shall be the same for both employer and employee and shall be determined by a provision made in writing for such notice in the term of the contract of service, or, in the absence of such provision in writing, shall not be less than:

(a) four weeks' notice if the employee has been so employed for less than two years on the date on which the notice is given;

(b) six weeks' notice if he has been so employed for two years or more but less than five years on such date;

(c ) eight weeks' notice if the has been so employed for five years or more on such date;

provided that this section shall not be taken to prevent either party from waiving his right to a notice under this subsection.

So, Anthony should not just quit the job as he likes. Though there was no legal offer letter to him, he should understand that the manager will surely sue him under the Employment Act, making him to be liable.
On the other hand, the manager should not use the reason of "small scale company" as a reason for not giving out an official letter for the employees to work. Though verbal agreement is able to work, however, when things go wrong, black and white copy is always needed as a reference for evidence.
Besides, the manager should not simply claim that Anthony is not performing good in his job. If the manager did not offer him a contract and state the job specification clearly to him, he has no right to blame that Anthony is not satisfying the manager's expectation.
It really needs a contract to bind the employees in order for them to know what is the Term and Condition applied. Hence, the manager has the power or proof to show the contract which employees signed and it is usable to report them to the labor department if they misbehaved.
After all, documenting the important contract between both parties involved are always necessary for the harmony of a business/dealing/employment.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Crime


During the tutorial session, Mr Sonny mentioned about the crime issue which i found out very interesting. He mentioned about the mens rea and actus reus which are related to the crime offenders. Mens rea literally translated from the Latin means guilty mind.

According to the Law Teacher website, The general basis for imposing liability in criminal law
is that the defendant must be proved to have committed a guilty act whilst having had a guilty state of mind. The physical elements are collectively called the actus reus and the accompanied mental state is called the mens rea.

According to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, killing just one person or thousands at once constitutes the same offence - it is still an act of murder, a crime deserving of the most severe punishment. In Malaysia, the accused must actually kill someone, and intend that he is killing someone, in order to be guilty in the murder. There is a case where a maid attempted murder on her employer by adding poison in the soup and coffee. In the end, the offence, under Section 307 (1) of the Penal Code, carries a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine, or up to 20 years if the act had resulted in injuries to the intended person. In my opinion, if the employer passed away due to venomous of drink/food, the offender shall be sentence to death!

On the other hand, one is free from moral blame for causing a harm to another if one neither intended to cause such a harm. Murder is a species of homicide and therefore homicide is not always a murder. This is accepted by English and Islamic Law. According to Law of Murder, Homicide is the killing of human being by another human being. It is either lawful or unlawful. Lawful Homicide includes justifiable homicide where the death is caused by a person under mistake of fact, believing that he is either bound or justified by law. Besides, if he or she is doing an act likely to cause harm but without a criminal intend or acting in private defense. Moreover, excusable homicide also includes cases where the death is caused by accident/misfortune without any criminal intention or knowledge in doing lawful act. A child/or person of unsound mind/intoxicated person also bound under excusable homicide. In 2008, there was a case where an Indonesian was sentenced to five years' jail for burrying his newborn baby alive. He was plead guilty to the charge under Section 304b of the Penal Code, charging with committing unintentional homicide on the baby. Under Malaysian Law, Law of Murder is governed by Section 300 of the Penal Code.

As for the case of murder of Tengku Teh Susilawati,20, by former policeman Abdul Halim Hassan got only seven years’ jail. Such punishment caused the furious of the mother of Susilawati. In her point of view, seven years’ jail can never compare to what he did. She would rather want the court to sentence him for death penalty! The family is still upset over the cruel murder crime which the offender had done to their daughter. Though they have learnt to accept the fate, it is still a tough situation where they have to admit the loss of Sulawati.
Overall, murder crime is an issue that need to be upheld seriously by the judge so that the offender can be punished seriuosly with what they have done. It is the issue of justice that can keep the society in shape in relation with the progression towards a zero crime society.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Unsafe Situation

Snatch theft in Malaysia is in the increasing rate lately. It happens all the time all around the places. It happens just in a blink of our eyes, it can be 10 seconds or 30 seconds, depending on the situation.The snatch thief might sits in the car, grabbing a lady's handbag from the car's window, dragging the lady and her handbag along until the victim gives up! and they sped off in a hurry.
Another technique is where the man accused the woman of hitting his vehicle and demanded for reimbursement. The woman will be forced to stop at nearby to settle the case. Here, the snatch thieves can easily take action of grabbing the woman's possession. Sometimes, the victim might successfully give chase on them. However, if the luck is not on our side, we might be facing life danger. For example, the case of Jamilah Selamat, who is a pregnant woman, was killed when her bag was snatched while she was riding on her motorcycle. Due to the killing of 2 lives under the snatch crime, the suspect will be be charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries the death penalty.


Besides the proper precautions can be taken into action, police officers do play an important role in curbing the crimes. Johor police have formed a special squad, known as Ninja Squad by the public in order to reduce the cases of roadside robberies in the city. It is called as Ninja as the police equipped with KAwasaki KLX250 scrambler motorcycles, patrol the streets wearing full-faced helmets, jeans and boots. The special unit has trained in the deep jungle before in order to let them adapt to their new high-powered motorcycles. We, as a Malaysian do hope that the "Ninja" can really help us in tackling the snatch theft crimes, letting the prosecutor suspects face the justice of law.

In addition to the patrol of the police, installation of security alarm in strategic location in the middle of walkways can also be used by public in any snatch cases. The public will just have to press on the alarm, alerting the police officers nearby.

On top of that, installation of closed circuit television (CCTV) by ensuring the CCTV operational runs effectively can also be used in order to prevent the snatch crimes. For example, the intallation of CCTV cameras in the specific area of Putrajaya enable the cityconstantly under the watchful eye of the vigilant police officers to detect criminals apart form monitoring traffic.

After all, women must be alert for their own expensive stuffs especially handbag. Proper way of taking care is important. Try not to bring along the handbag which can lure the attention of others, in addition, remember not to sling your handbag on your shoulder while walking on the busy roads, as you might be the next target for the snatch thieves!



Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Street Demo

Have anyone of you encountered street demonstration? As for me, i've experienced ONCE~ this happened when my car passed by a company, all the employees were holding a cardboard or banner stating how unfair they were treated and other negative sentences which degrade the image of the company.

Street demonstration can be considered as part of Malaysian tradition when they face a problem and the problem was not taken in proper consideration. This may include a protest towards Government, for example people tend to demand a change from a government that neglect minorities,seeking a better change whenever government fails to address the economic which indirectly neglect the community. Besides, street demonstration can also included animal activist, environmental activist, workers protest against their company and so on.
According to a poll from The Star Online," Is holding a street demonstration the right forum to address issues?" 39% of people voted as depending on the issue; whereas 33% of people stated that it is a right issue.
I've no idea why whenever people mention about Street Demonstration, most of us will definitely link to the idea of it's VIOLENT! it's a THREAT! However, sometimes, a peaceful street demonstration is just a way for specific community to utter their ways of thinking. For example, The case of residents in Sandakan proposed the rejection towards Coal-fired Power Plant in Sandakan did not create any threat towards the society instead such protest received another high-ranked position Chairman to join in as he thinks that it is reasonable!

On the other hand, whenever there are a large scale of street demonstration, it will definitely gain the attention from the Police and even the Government! such as the case of 2,000 protesters, which was organised by the Movement for the Abolition of the Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English, known by its Malay acronym of GMP has lead to the police to fire tear gas into the crowd.

In Malaysia, everyone has the right and freedom to peaceful assembly. Hence, the people in charge who is always against the street demo should not straight away take a harsh action towards them without listening to their problem! If the upper layer of organization deny the right of demonstrate without taking into the consideration of a cause/reason of demonstration, it is surely a guilt for a particular party. In conclusion, a demonstration without violence, should be acceptable in our country. The parties involved must also be responsible towards their actions. No harm will occur if it is just a way to express the the feelings of community!

Maids are HUMAN too!

The issue of maids abuse are happening all around us, mainly Indonesian maids flee their cruel employers every year.

Most of the maids went over to Malaysia just to seek for a good opportunity of working environment, hoping to work for a caring and loving families. However, luck is not always on everyone's side. If one of the maid is lucky, she might be able to work with a good and understanding employer who might even treat her as their own family members!
Some of the good employers even buy new clothes for their maids, the maids need not spend a single cents of her own! I believe this is most of the maids' dream house!
On the other hand, some of the maids are being tortured during work time. Suffering from boiling water, torturing and starving for the whole day, the maids not even dare to utter a single complain towards their employers!
Some of the employers even took away the maids' handphone, hoping that the maids can fully concentrate on the works! No entertainment or leisure is given to them! they are being treated as a 24-7 "working machine". One of the case which brings up the concern of the society is the Indonesian maid, Siti Hajar, who is being anguish by her employer, a 43-year-old single mother. She is a Muslim, and yet her employer still fed her with Non-Muslim food, worst still gave her a plate of white rice as her meal!
In my opinion, maids do have feelings. If the employers continuously mistreat them, they might be hatred towards the employers. When the emotions couldn't hold back for any longer, the maids might do something bad just to protect themselves! for example, they might abuse the employers' kids exactly the same way as the employers did to them.
If we want someone to work for us within the house, we must pay some respect to them, treating them the way we want people to treat us!
It is especially common to hear that some of the maids are not allow to take any leaves within the year, even a day off are not allowed! It is actually against the the Article 24, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which reads: "Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay."
It is absolutely true that none of us can endure a stressful work for a long period! a proper holiday should be given to them, or even bring the maids along whenever there is any family trips going on. This will be a great time to improve the relationship between the maids with the employer! The maids will definitely feel that they are being treated as part of the family members. In this case, they will for sure out perform their given task.
Keep it in mind that, be grateful to people who work for us, they are the person who make our life easy~

Nothing is more effective than sincere, accurate praise to a maid! a simple word of "WELL DONE!", "I'm GLAD that you've REMEMBERED!" do mean something great to them!




Sunday, November 1, 2009

Rules were set!

Law -- Any set of uniform principles that govern and regulate human behavior .

Without doubt, law shapes our politics, economics and societies. There are numerous types of law such as Constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, contract law, tort law, civil law, religious law and so on. The emergence of law allow the human rights, binding the people within the society. Human rights can be defined as the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. This includes , The right to vote freely, Freedom of Religion,Freedom from Torture, Freedom of Speech,Freedom from Discrimination, Homosexual Rights and so on.

It is common to expect that the law usually requires the rules, sovereignty and enforcing power which usually leads to the punishment! In Malaysia, especially illegal immigrants will receive canning as their punishment for violating the laws. Since the amendments of Malaysia Immigration Act came into force in 2002, more than 35,000 illegal migrants have been caned. Such punishment has lead to a hot topic within the society when the case of a Muslim model, Kartika was found guilty of consuming alcohol in the hotel (2008). It is indeed the first time of using caning sentence for Muslim woman who violate the country's religious laws.
Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director ever said that canning is a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and is prohibited under international human rights law. He even highlights the need for the Malaysian government to stop the practice of caning.
On the other hand, Professor Dr Badruddin Ibrahim, Head of Islamic Law Department accused that caning sentence was against individual freedom. He continued saying that caning under the Syariah Criminal Procedure Enactment was different than the caning implemented by the civil courts. It was done using moderate force as the hand must not be over the head so as not to injure the skin while the offender was fully clothed.
Though the same punishment of canning was implement on the Muslim violators, the
consequences of the news is different towards the society in comparison with the canning towards the illegal immigrants. When Kartika's news were spread around, everyone is paying attention on the topics of human rights;
In contrast, when the news of immigrants being reported as some of the detainees claimed that they were not given any treatment later after being canned. Some of us will just ignore it!
The cane indeed cuts through the detainee's skin..
Is it due to the fact that the issue of Kartika is involving a women, especially a Muslim?
It is a tradition in our mind set that women aren't suppose to be canned, no matter how serious the crimes she has committed on. However, we never come across the idea of without canning the woman might not feel the fear?
In a nutshell, neither of us is allow to challenge against the laws nor the simple ground rules set by any parties. If anyone of us do so, be prepared to face the consequences with no guilt!