Invasion of privacy = death?

It's a pretty tragic story here but one that perhaps leaves some room to ponder one of the central challenges of social media: privacy.

You can read about the basic chain of events here or for a more dramatic retelling, head to NYT.

This is being classified, in my opinion rightfully, as a case of criminal invasion of privacy. Students have also gone out to protest what they perceive is a lack of security measures in the use of technology in campuses. But then again, surely it would have been dismissed as a typical undergraduate prank had

a) it only been shared privately between the perpetrators and the victim
or
b) the encounter been a heterosexual one.

For this to really be an issue of privacy, then the question has to be asked as of various surveillance activities conducted by both government and private entities in many parts of the developed world. In other words, this is a special case due to the advances of consumer technology, allowing private individuals (and perhaps organisations as well) to destroy reputations or ruin lives.

Steven Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, said that he considered the death a hate crime. “We are sickened that anyone in our society, such as the students allegedly responsible for making the surreptitious video, might consider destroying others’ lives as a sport,” he said in a statement.

As far as the hate crime aspect is concerned, it is hard to establish that this was genuinely the motivation, let alone that it was a hate crime. Do you really need to hate someone/something to have a laugh at them/it?

Goldstein's better point is the use of the term 'sport' in that it has become all too easy now to find out about things that may cause embarrassment to the subject of invasive technology. This is further coupled by the ease of publishing material to a mass audience.

There are several points of debate here but I am personally most interested in a kind of big picture, "what can society do about this" angle. On the one hand, there is the legalistic solution. We can limit, prohibit or ban such abuses in whatever creative ways but somehow this seems to be something of a game of evolution.

Laws are fated to become obsolete and so are security measures. New workarounds counter them, and then new measures mushroom up in a neverending battle.

The other possibility, and one that is far more of a sea change, is complete social change. It will require the acceptance of many taboo or contentious areas by the mainstream. It may seem a pipe dream to think that topics such as homosexuality (or religion or pornography to name a few other examples) will ever be met with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulder. Yet such things have happened before. Heretics used to be executed by the church since 380 AD but by the 20th century, the church could only expel such individuals.

Of course, this has come hand in hand with the separation of church and state. Whether or not a similar separation of the private and public (which for a while seemed to be the direction of post-Enlightenment Europe) is required is beyond my guesstimation. My point is rather, that faced with a clear problem, society tends to evolve organically around it.

It could very well be that in time, the sheer volume of such 'exposes' numbs us. In essence, a mediated synecdoche occurs where having seen examples of homosexuality played out in the public so often, the general public comes to believe - rightly or wrongly - that society is just that gay and there is nothing you can do about it.

Just like how Chinese Malaysians learn that in spite of it all, in KL/PJ, when you go to a hawker stall, you'll likely have to order in Cantonese but at a mamak stall, you speak in Malay. Perhaps there are better examples but you get what I mean.

In short, should the future be a private or public one? Privatising anything requires an element of alienation, be it land or personal lives. Already many people are closing Facebook accounts and trying to un-Google their lives. But technology will surely find other cracks in the wall. Is all this worth protecting or is a culture of 'openness' more suited to the hyperreality of the new millennium?

Personally? I'm not quite ashamed to admit that I've not had the chance to share the bed in my room with anyone, male or female.

Talent Conference Series, London 2010: Malaysian Diaspora and Talents

Subtitled gathering of minds, recognizing talent, creating national wealth, this conference is geared specifically for Malaysians in the UK who are constantly debating the merits of life abroad vs life at home.

It is designed to act as a platform for deliberations and dialogues covering human capital management, uncompetitive national policies resulting in mass exodus of Malaysian talents, best practices from other countries that could be tailored to Malaysia, and issues that may be holding Malaysia’s competitiveness aback. This conference will also acknowledge the problems that are facing Malaysia.

Key participants include

YB Dato’ Seri Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah
Finance Minister II

Dato’ Dr Jayles Yeoh
Vice President, International Development, Limkokwing University of Creative
Technology

Dato’ Haji Muhamed Iqbal Rawther
Chairman of Malaysian Institute of Management

Dato’ Dr Michael Yeoh
CEO of ASLI

Lord Meghnad Desai
Member of the House of Lords

Professor Danny Quah
Co-Director of LSE Global Conference, London School of Economics



To register or to enquire, please log on to www.asli.com.my and kindly contact:

Khairiah Makata: Khairiah@cpps.org.my

Jeremy Ng: Jeremy@ukeconline.com

Muhammad Arafat: Arafat@ukeconline.com

Tai Zee How: Zeehow@ukeconline.com

S K Lingam: skassociatesuk@yahoo.co.uk / malaysinlinkuk@yahoo.co.uk

Belinda Cerclay: malaysianlinkuk@yahoo.co.uk

And I, for one, welcome our new search engine overlords...

Google recently released some very interesting information as part of what it calls its 'Transparency Report'. The data is divisible into three basic categories:

1) Google traffic status between Jan 2009 and the present (with the data normalised so as to represent, in Google's words, "disruptions in the free flow of information, whether it's a government blocking information or a cable being cut").

2) Requests for user data that Google has received from governments around the world, across two six-month periods: July '09 to Dec '09 and Jan '10 to Jun '10.

3) Requests made by governments for removal of items from Google services, across the abovementioned periods.

All of this information comes with a set of caveats, which I've read and which seem basically reasonable. I'm sure they could be revealing more, but they say that that's their intention and I see no reason to doubt them. Yet. If you haven't already guessed, nestled among the data are sections that specifically apply to Malaysia, which is what makes this sort of semi-juicy.

Item 1 is of less immediate interest than items 2 and 3, since it's difficult to tell whether any given plunge in the 'free flow of information' resulted from infrastructural failure or nefarious machinations. The only way, as far as I can see, would be to compare the dates of all the plunges with outages recorded by ISPs, whether resulting from faults within the country (we all heart Streamyx, don't we?) or without (undersea cables vandalised by Crab-People, etc). Anyone who has the stamina to scour the data for outages that can't be attributed to infastructure is welcome to do so.

Still, I noticed one or two intriguing things, although I don't know how meaningful they actually are. For example, Malaysia seems to have encountered some big traffic problem on Sept 21 2009. In Singapore, there's a remarkable drop in Google searches recorded between May 31 2010 and June 01 2010; it only affects searches (so YouTube, GMail and so forth don't show a similar plunge), and there doesn't seem to have been any recovery yet. Curiously, while the traffic flow graph for Malaysia across any given time period seems to be similar for all the various Google services, the graph for Singapore differs quite widely for different services, even within the same period. So Blogger shows a far more steady decline than the one experienced by Google searches; so does YouTube, while GMail seems to be roaring on, all systems go. Anyone got any ideas what this might possibly mean?

As for items 2 and 3, which I find much more interesting to browse through, some intriguing facts come to light. Firstly, the Malaysian government doesn't seem to have any interest in getting information from Google, or getting Google to take stuff down. Our lot notched up fewer than 10 requests for removal from July - Dec 2009, none at all this year, and haven't made a single request for user data throughout the entire documented period.

The US government has made the most actual requests, and a lot of people are getting quite worked up about this, but I thought it might be interesting to look at per capita data requests instead. Being an incurable lazybum, though, I only did the sums for the Jan - Jun 2010 period. Unsurprisingly, Singapore finishes high - second place, in fact - in terms of per capita user data requests, but - I actually find this a bit ominous - never racks up any removal requests. First place for user data requests per capita, though, goes to the UK - equally unsurprising, considering the entrenched snoopery fostered through the long dark years of Nu-Labourism.

Of course, the fact that Malaysia hasn't really turned to Google in any significant way could indicate any number of things; maybe it's a sign of decency, or it might just mean that Dr. M's business-minded 'no Net censorship' policy is still pretty much intact. Or perhaps Malaysia's authorities are just too incompetent to get their act together with regards to Google and all things online. Whatever it is, I've no doubt the speculation will be at least mildly diverting.

World Bank Open Forum: Join the Conversation

World Bank Open Forum: On October 7-8, the world's financial leaders will be in Washington, D.C., discussing the most pressing issues in the wake of the financial crisis. You’re invited to join the conversation at the World Bank Open Forum, an online event featuring expert discussions, live video and a 24-hour chat-room on three key issues: free and open data, global job creation, and major development challenges. Join the conversation at worldbank.org/openforum.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcVEw_4cFA0

Event: Present Developments in the Malaysian Legal System

UPDATED WITH VENUE

Lim Chee Wee, Malaysian Bar Council vice-president, happens to be in town and we have hastily arranged for him to join us for what is perhaps the last item on our calendar for the 2009/10 academic year.

As usual, it will be an informal talk followed by a roundtable-style discussion after.

The event will begin at 5.30pm and conclude around 7.30pm at the Large Common Room, William Goodenough House, Goodenough College, WC1N 2AB, Mecklenburgh Square, London.

Then for those who wish to network after, we will probably have dinner or supper together.

Please RSVP at the event page here.

 

Malaysia Forum 2011 Conference. Ideas for London please!

There has been an MF conference since 2004 -- in 2008, it was held in the northeastern US for the first time. It has since been held there every spring because of the (relatively) dense Malaysian population in the northeast. The conference merely exists to bring Malaysians/MFers of various stripes together to talk about the things which matter to us. You can finally meet that person you've been corresponding with on Kopitiam, or strike up new friendships which continue online well after the conference. Many of us have come away from the MF conference with a newfound sense of pride and hope for our country's future, just because of the discussions we've had.

The first thing you should know is that MF is totally open -- anybody who wants to help can join the steering committee mailing list (just send MF London an email and we'll put you through to the right people). Or if you just want to be on the mailing list and contribute ideas and suggestions, we can get you on the mailing list as well. You can even send this blog post to someone who you think would be interested. If you haven't already, we would also like to invite you to join the general MF mailing lists (Announce and Kopitiam).

It's not always clear to everyone what MF is. To be honest, a lot of us are still figuring that out for ourselves. One thing we can all agree on: MF is about people. We hope to foster a civil discussion of issues which concern Malaysians, and menjalinkan hubungan yang lebih erat antara Malaysians who share this hope. There are also all sorts of resulting spinoffs from this -- you'll find MFers are a very diverse bunch and do a lot of different things. However, MF is fundamentally non-partisan -- as an entity and community, we do not stand with any political party or interest group, although individual MFers are welcome to take a stand of their own. More info here.

If you are based in the northeastern US, you can have a direct hand in the conference's organisation. It looks like it will be held in Boston this time. We'll soon be coming up with specific plans for the venue, sponsorship, discussions, and speakers -- your ideas and plans are not merely welcome, but required! This is your conference.

But for us in London who cannot physically attend -- this is still our conference! Last year, we organised a concurrent gathering to via a webcast of UN assistant secretary-general for economic development KS Jomo's session. This year, we can do the same for most sessions if there is enough interest but I think we should step up our game.

We can follow in the footsteps of MF KL who held a session which the guys in America tuned in to via the webcast. That was a panel on religious freedom that was moderated by Khairy Jamaluddin. I believe we can do something similar here. There are many interesting people in the UK who have important things to share about Malaysia. Some are UK-based Malaysians and some are non-Malaysians but with valuable insight to share (such as professors and people in NGOs whose object of work is Malaysia).

Or, we can do something completely new and different! It's up to us to decide and see if our brethren in America will take the bait.

So, get the comments script burning with ideas then!

Malaysian Black Magic

As our first discussion, let us talk about Malaysian black magic. Just to start from where we left, please find below a few famous black magics:

1. Minyak Pengasih
A generic name for love potion. Can come from various sources with different application and potency. Read more...

2. Nasi Kangkang
Nasi kangkang roughly translates into "wide opened rice" a dish that is never served steaming hot. Read more...

3. Minyak Dagu

Believed to be made from human facial fat, collected when it drips from the corpse's chin, this is a love potion like no other. Read more here or here...

4. Buluh Perindu

While it can be used as raw material to make minyak pengasih, there are also other ways to use this special plant. If you have a female boss and wants her to listen to you, and only to you, this is your ultimate weapon. However, it can easily turn into an affair. Read more...

Please share more on this posting.

p/s: This is just a joke. Please enjoy to your heart's content.