A Malaysian getting famous for the wrong reason

NEW YORK: A Malaysian man, charged on Thursday with hacking into computer networks of the US Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) and a defence contractor, was caught by Secret Service agents while selling stolen credit card numbers for US$1,000 (RM3,200) at a diner in New York.
Court documents released by US prosecutors said the man, identified as Lin Mun Poo, 32, was arrested on Oct 21, hours after arriving in New York.

He was indicted by a grand jury on Thursday on four charges, including hacking into the system of a US central bank branch in Cleveland, Ohio.

“In his post-arrest statement, the defendant admitted compromising the computer servers of a number of major financial institutions and companies,” US prosecutors in Brooklyn wrote in a letter to US District Judge Dora Irizarry, who was assigned the case.

It said Lin admitted exploiting a vulnerability he found in the bank’s computer system.
“The Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland, Ohio, has confirmed that an FRB computer network was hacked in June 2010, resulting in thousands of dollars in damages, affecting 10 or more computers,” the letter said.

A court hearing for the judge to consider a government request to continue to detain Lin was postponed. No new date has been scheduled yet. Lin’s court-appointed lawyer was not available to comment.

Lin is a Malaysian with no professional or family ties to the US, the letter said. He arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport from Europe with a round-trip ticket, planning to return on Nov 22. “Within hours of his arrival at JFK, US Secret Service agents observed the defendant selling stolen credit card numbers for $1,000 at a diner in Brooklyn and arrested him shortly thereafter,” the letter to the judge said.

Other allegations against Lin include possession of more than 400,000 stolen credit cards and debit cards on an encrypted laptop computer that the agents seized. If convicted, he faces a potential maximum prison sentence of between six-and-a-half years to eight years. - Reuters

______________________________

It's quite funny to first heard of this news. It is a bit of a mixture of between being proud that a malaysian is highly skilled enough to hack into pentagon and in the same time being embarassed that because it is a criminal act. However, I have to say that this guy is one super hacker as hacking into pentagon is not easy. It needs skill and knowledge that you cannot learn from anywhere but through trial and error and also some serious experiences. This can also be a case of a malaysian getting famous in the world arena but really for the wrong reason. The same as the case of another Malaysian, Jho Lo, a businessman who was in the limelight because of the excess partying with hollywood celebrities such as Paris Hilton.

Perkasa - A Swing Vote

The Political divide caused by the election tsunami in 2008 is still being felt until today. Malay especially has been torn apart between PAS supporters, UMNO supporters, PKR supporters and also who sits in the fences and do not support any parties. Before this, the Malay who neither liked the extremist view of PAS and in the same time rejected the elitism of UMNO will tend to join PKR as a way to express their view as a modern malay. However, recent trends have shown how PKR is not willing to defend Malay's right as they need to 'kowtim' with their 'sleeping partner' the DAP. DAP having certain extent of an extremist view of a Malaysian Malaysia will not let PKR defend malay rights.

So, this have left a gap of political supporters from some of the Malay group who wants to defend the rights of the Malay according the constitution. This scenario has been worsened by the 1Malaysia agenda by YAB Dato Sri Najib whereby some quarters feels it equates with equality among all races regardless whether you are in a majority or minority. 1Malaysia is a good agenda but in the same time it gives permission for others to start attacking the constitution right of the Malays.If UMNO who should have been the caretaker of Malay rights is promoting 1Malaysia, which other party should this group of Malays would have gone to? This is where Dato' Ibrahim Ali played a very strategic move by creating Perkasa. Perkasa in a way fills the gap that some of the Malays who still feels they need to protect their rights as given in the constitution. Neither UMNO or PKR or PAS is doing this.So, they come to Perkasa for the rescue. Eventhough DAP, PKR and even UMNO are calling Perkasa as a racist group, but I have a feeling there will be also a huge silent majority who is also supporting Perkasa agenda. And this silent majority will become a crucial vote in the next election. Backup by Dr Mahathir himself, do not underestimate Perkasa as I feel they can be a swing vote to either BN or the oppositions during the next general election.

Budget 2011

Interesting to note that the Government has the 'rakyat' in mind each time the budget is announced. No bonus to government servant because it will cost RM3.1 billion but still they can allocated a fund of RM111 million to permata programme. As we all know the permata programme is lead by Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, our 'beloved' first lady. And then the waived of tax for imported brands. In one hand government wants us to 'ikat perut' and in the other hand they are implying that we should spend on this branded goods because it is cheaper now? And the finale.. warisan merdeka, a 100 storey building to built near the stadium negara... the tallest in the country. I have no qualms on this as they are saying that this would be privately financed by PNB. Look what happens to KLCC. When the KLCC project was proposed during the 1990s, many people have opposed to it and saying it was a waste. But look at it now, standing proud and have bring tremendous positive impact to the country. But, I have a feeling that the opposition will used this warisan merdeka issue very strongly as one of their strong points in the election.

Middle Income Trap

(Img source: PEMANDU)

YAB Prime Minister of Malaysia has launched the new economic model for Malaysia last month. This initiative has an ambitious aim of making Malaysia into a high income economy. As Idris Jala, the head of the PEMANDU keep saying, this is not a plan, this is a program. This is not a plan, this is a program… or maybe better said “Ini bukan cobaan, ini betul-betul”.. “ini bukan cobaan, ini betul-betul”.. Ok, on a serious note. What are these program consists of? 131 Entry Point Projects with 60 business opportunities and 3.3 million job opportunities. From a layman perspective, probably the first question that an individual would ask is ‘what is it for me? ‘ Well, if you one of the head or Board directors of the GLCs or one of the corporate big boys.. There is plenty. But for the normal rakyat.. we can only hope on the spillover effect such as the employment opportunities and also spillover of small projects that is related to the Entry Point Projects.

However, I am not touching much on the New Economic Model. Just let the professional do the analysis on the Model. As for me, I am much interested on the strategy and program on how Malaysia can get out of the middle income. No more blueprint.. no more roadmap.. no more dreaming for the sky….. just pure action or as they call it Entry Point Projects. Implementation is the key. Action is the key. What makes me wonder is that how we as an individual can also apply the same concept and strategy to get ourselves out from the middle income into the high income bracket. Let’s put it this way. Malaysia has been depending on Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs) previously in creating the job and revenues for the government. They came in, open up their factory, provide jobs to locals and in the same time Government can get revenue from taxing the companies and also their workers. It has been good so far but nevertheless it can only give Malaysia so much. Too much dependence on this type of revenue alone could not bring Malaysia further into the high income bracket.

Therefore, Malaysia is trapped in the middle income. The only way Malaysia can increase its GNI or in layman’s term.. Its salary is by applying the same principle that made people millionaires and billionaire worldwide.. multiple streams of income. Do not be overly dependent on one source of income but by creating other type of sources. That’s why the government wants this EPP to happen. By having multiple entry point projects.. it can create the multiple revenues that the government can have in order to become a developed nation. If all the EPPs are implemented successfully, I am confident that the goal of Malaysia in becoming a developed nation by 2020 can be achieved.

Malaysia as a Brand - What do others see?

It's funny that eventhough we have been independent for 53 years now this year, we still really have this identity crisis or self image problem when it comes to promote the country as a tourism spot. We always project ourselves as multi-ethnic, multiracial country that can co-exist together and live in harmony. Or in common sense, we are a 'rojak' society. Do we really want others to see us as a "Rojak" society? Sound tasty, but, really... how does this work? We project ourselves as a boiling point of many cultures and but then again also promote ourselves as this moderate Islamic country. Is this on purpose so that the foreigners that come here will be confuse enough to even bother. If you go to Bali, Indonesia you can expect there will be one single theme to it and you can even see it once you arrived at their airport. The same goes to Thailand. There is one single underlying theme to every country and the foreignors will know what will they be experiencing. But, in Malaysia case, it can varied depending on where you want to go. Malaysia Truly Asia or Malaysia The Confuse Asia. Nothing serious. Just my personal thought.

The Theory of Broken Window

The theory of broken window suggests that a high concentration of petty crimes can lead to a higher and bigger crimes. The theory are made based on the observation of James Q Wilson and George L Kelling in New York transit. From their study, the reasons why crime rates are very high especially in the subway area was due to grafitti and vandalisme to the subway train that went unnoticed or ignored by the authorities. Because it is ignored or considered as small and petty crimes, the vandalisers there sees it as a signal for them to become more aggresive and starts to do much more serious crimes.

The theory also suggests that in order to reduce crimes, you must tackle it even at the earliest stage and that is at the broken window stage. By fixing the window immediately, it will leave the message to the would-be criminals that no rooms for law breaking is allowed here even for small crimes as broken window.

How does this relate to Malaysia? In my perspective, in order for the police and authorities to reduce the crime rate in Malaysia in a drastic manner is to focus more on the 'broken window' and take care of it immediately. Among the 'broken window' that worth mentioning is the dvd/vcd pirate sellers. Here in Malaysia, it is a norm to see this particular vendor selling the pirated dvd of the road or 'pasar malam'. They are breaking the law in broad daylight and it seems that the authorities just simply either don't care or considered it as petty crimes so it is not worth their effort to crack down their operations. However, if we follow the theory of the broken window, it leaves the impression that is ok to bend the law, and this will lead to higher crimes.

1Malaysia concept BN vs PR

I must admit the concept of 1Malaysia is a good branding exercise promoted by Dato Seri Najib for race unity although it has existed before from previous leadership through a different name. However, certain quarters has tried to linked it up with the same concept promoted by the opposition, DAP and that is 'Malaysian Malaysia'. The concept that DAP trying to promote is equality for all races in Malaysia. This means that all Malaysian are equal and no race have the special priviledge over the others. However, 1Malaysia concept promoted by Dato' Seri Najib have stated that it abides by the federal constitution and therefore the concept is not the same as DAP concept. This means it still recognise Malays to have special priviledges eventhough all races embraces the concept of having a 1Malaysia for growth and unity.

Brazil for instance is a good example of equality among races because there are no category for races even existed in the country. In their form or ID, there are not even a category for races. Therefore all individual is treated as Brazilians no matter what color their skins are. However, in reality in the country, there do exist groups that is white in skin color and a group that is black and brown. Generally, the white skin groups dominates the economy and trades while the darker skins dominates arts and sports. And in reality also, the groups that in position of power in Brazil and in the higher income bracket is the white skins.

This scenario that happens in Brazil shows the disadvantage of having no race category. The discrimination and displacement of races occured in broad daylight but since there are no race category there, there are also no law for race discrimination. The groups that have darker skins is been left out in the economics development and position of power and they can do nothing about because as individuals there whether you are black or white, you are a Brazillian. Or 1Brazillians if I may add.

So we now have to ask ourselves, which 1Malaysia concept that we really want to adapt? The BN or DAP?