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

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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.

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.

My view on 1Malaysia

The 1Malaysia concept brought about by Dato' Seri Najib, our sixth prime minister is something very noble indeed. The objective is to get all of Malaysian's to act as one, to think as one and also most importantly to unite as one. The only problem that I have with this concept is that, it is just a rebranding of another term that was previouly called 'muhibbah'. The spirit of 'muhibbah' has been propagated by our previous leaders many-many times. To accept and understand other cultures in Malaysia and be emphatic to different races is called 'semangat muhibbah'. So, what is so different about 1Malaysia? It is just a rebranding exercise done by Najib.

NEP: Strengthening the Strong, Weakening the Weak

Since its debut in 1971, the National Economic Policy, many have observed that the policy has not liven up to its expectations. But, in my opinion, if there are no such thing as the NEP, it would definitely be a different story today. I believe that the Malays is as strong as the other races in term of economic sectors. Heck, the Malays are international traders during the era of Sultanate of Malacca. I believe that the reason that the Malay are not strong in the economic sector today is due to the National Economic Policy. The NEP has somewhat strengthening the already strong and weakening the already weak.

I would like to make an analogy of the National Economic Policy to this fictional story. Imagine in a house where you have a father and two sons. In bringing up his two sons, the father notices that the second one seems to be much more independent and usually do everything on his own initiative without much relying to his father for any support. The second child also excel in academic. Meanwhile, the adult child are totally different story. The adult child does not show any initiative in life and very much dependent on the support of his father. So, being a good father, seeing the development of his two children, he will try to balance this out. Seeing that his second child can survive on his own, he puts more attention to the adult son. The support is putting more tuition money for the adult son, buying him more gifts to encourage him to excel and also pampers him more as to shows his encouragement. The second child is not given much of his attention because he knew that the second child is already well off. And seeing this development, the second child gets even better in academic and life even though he is not rewarded as much as his brother. But deep inside, he felt a bit of resentment to the biased treatment by the father. This makes him even harder to excel in life just to show to his father who is better among the siblings.

The father thought that by giving extra rewards and attention, the adult child will change his behavior and finally be able to live his life to the fullest. But, the opposite occurs. The adult feels pampered and becomes even more dependent on his father. He become even worse in academic because he knew even if he gets bad results, the father will always be there for him to bail him out. Even when he is out in the world and setting up a business, he will know that even the business fails, the father will always be there for him. For him, there will always be a safety net and therefore the treatment by his father have make him even weaker than before. He is totally dependent on his father and worries that if the father is no longer there he will not survive on its own.

Meanwhile, the second child who already making out on its own never relies on his father. He knows that his father will only give preferential treatment to the eldest and therefore for him there is no safety net. Therefore, he must succeed in life. This has make him stronger and more confident in living his life. Therefore, not being pampered by his father has somewhat build his characteristic to be much stronger than his brother.

This analogy is a simple analogy if to compare with the total obejctive of the NEP and also the NDP. But, policy and human relationship is always correlated. We are all human basically. The policy will always remain a policy if there is no human to implement it. Humans are complicated. And therefore, in making sure a policy does not backfire is by understanding the pscychology of the human being. 

We Malaysians are very Generous even to Rich People

vs
Please tell me who really needs RM5 million charity from the Government ?


The Ex-Gratia payment to the sacked judges have really pissed many people off. The judgement by the Government to approved this ridiculous payment will really really tarnished the already poor image of the current government. Those sacked judges are already well off eventhough they are being terminated early by the government. They even received pension and gratuity. So, what's the purpose of the huge ex-gratia payment for? The Government is saying it is not an admission of guilt. So, really.. please tell us why the government use public money to give to the already rich guys? RM10.6 million can buy a lot of things for the poor people of Malaysia.

Paklah starts to use his rotan - the ISA

The Internal Secury Act is a legislation act thats enables the executive government of a jurisdiction to preserve the internal security of the nation. In some jurisdictions, it authorizes the government to arrest and detain individuals without trial. Other countries besides Malaysia that have similar legislation are Singapore, Israel, South Africa and the United States of America. The legislation has a noble intention of safeguarding the national securities from terrorists or individuals that can pose danger to the the country. Interestingly is that all this legislation are borned for the need of preventing and defending the country from terrorists. ISA in Malaysia was borned during the height of communist way back in the pre-merdeka period. The Patriot Act introduced in USA was also borned from 9/11 tragedy. It is put in place due to the fear of terrorists. The same goes to Israel and also South Africa.  

Now, we can see in the newspaper today, Pak Lah and Syed Hamid Albar is starting to use again the ISA as you can read it here. Definitely the government will say that the ISA have to be used because these individuals can be a threat to the nation. These people must be detain under ISA before the country would be in a state of anarchy. In my personal opinion, ISA should only be used if the individual can posed imminent danger such as what a terrorists can posed. An imminent danger to the country and not the imminent danger to the ruling party. Yes, these people who have been detained might probably have breached seditious act, but why use ISA for it? Or are we now under attack by terrorist again? 

Of Colors, Racism and Asabiyyah

A collaborative team led by scholars at Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin Universities has done an extensive research on the origin of human being by DNA analysis. The research confirms the “Out Of Africa” hypothesis that all modern humans stem from a single group of Homo sapiens who emigrated from Africa 2,000 generations ago and spread throughout Eurasia over thousands of years. These settlers replaced other early humans (such as Neanderthals), rather than interbreeding with them. You can read more about this here.

I bring out this topic due to the recent frascos and racist remarks done some of our damn politicians such as Ahmad Ismail. He may have saying the facts about the Chinese was once an immigrant, but so do your ancestors. If the study above are correct, we all originated from Africa and have the same great, great, great grandfathers. Even in the Quran and Bible, it clearly stated that ALL HUMAN BEINGS originated from Adam and Eve. So, what makes us all different? We all have the same red blood and DNA. The only difference is the culture and religion that we strongly hold to. Besides from that, eventhough we have different color skins, we are practically the same. No race is above others. No race is far more superior than others. Arab is not superior to Non Arab. White people is not superior to Non White People. And the same goes here in Malaysia. It is only just a perception that the Malays are not competitive. It is only just a perception the Chinese are good at business. As a human being, individually, we have the power to achieve anything that we want as long as we set our mind to it. In my opinion, the only superior person, is the one who learn the most, work the most and humblest the most, regardless of culture, race or religion.

PM unhappy with Komuter, LRT services

KUALA LUMPUR: The Prime Minister took a ride on the Komuter and LRT trains and was not impressed. In the journey from Serdang to Masjid Jamek using the two train systems, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi got a first-hand look at the congestion problem, especially during peak hours. He also talked to passengers to get their feedback on the services provided. He said later that the operations of the two train services were not systematic and there were also insufficient coaches.

Read it here, excerpt from The Star online today.

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FINALLLLLYYY.. after 1,000,000,000 gazillion complaints about the poor public transportation in Malaysia, Paklah finally understood the complaints. That is of course he himself needs to actually take a ride and feels it first hand. It shows that the 'Rakyat' complaint before this about the poor public transport have fallen to deaf ears. What's next after this, Paklah goes to 'kedai runcit' to buy grocery items such as rice, cooking oil, chicken and etc. and finally realize that the price has gone up tremendously as shouted by the people all along. He then finally feels 'unhappy' about this and finally do something about it.

Global recession near the corner?

"The Great Depression was a dramatic, worldwide economic downturn beginning in some countries as early as 1928.[1] The beginning of the Great Depression in the United States is associated with the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday and the end is associated with the onset of the war economy of World War II, beginning around 1939." - source Wikipedia

This info I got from wikipedia really freaks me out in one way or another. There has been talks in the newspaper, magazines, that if the trend of oil price increase continues, it will trigger a economic recession all around the world. This will also led to a another great depression similar to what have happened in the 1940's.

As people always say, history tends to repeat itself. If we were headed to another global recession, is it also possible that we will be heading towards another world war? This is another info I got from wikipedia:-

"Germany's Weimar Republic was hit hard by the depression, as American loans to help rebuild the German economy now stopped. Unemployment soared, especially in larger cities, and the political system veered toward extremism. Repayment of the war reparations due by Germany were suspended in 1932 following the Lausanne Conference of 1932. By that time Germany had repaid 1/8th of the reparations. Hitler's Nazi Party came to power in January 1933". - Wikipedia

So, basically due to the recession, Hitler managed to get in power due to unsatisfied citizens at that time trying to cope with rising inflations. Sounds familiar right? The number of unemployed in German grew; poverty on the rise, people starved on the streets. In the crisis, people wanted someone to take the blame and Hitler offered them the solution, and Nazi succeeded in taking power. After Hitler comes to power, the next thing he did was to divert the attention of the german people from the crisis that they have and focus it on expanding the german empire by invading other countries. Therefore, World War two unfolded. As I said again earlier, history tends to repeat itself and I greatly hope that this one would not.

Abdullah and Altantunya Saga

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has refuted an allegation that he had received a written report from military intelligence over the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.

“Of course I am concerned (over the allegation by Malaysia Today blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin). What Raja Petra did is unacceptable ... because what he stated is incorrect.
“It is stated (in Raja Petra’s statutory declaration) that I received a report from the military intelligence. That is not correct,” he said yesterday.

Abdullah said this when asked to comment on the statutory declaration made by Raja Petra on June 18 in which he stated, among others, that Abdullah had received a written report from military intelligence on Altantuya's murder. – Bernama

If I interpreted this news correctly, Pak Lah is saying that the part he received the report from the military intelligence on Altatunya case is incorrect. But, what about the other statement from the statutory declaration? Why Pak Lah did not say the other statement is incorrect too? Hmmmmmm.... :P

Inflation vs EPF

With the oil price going up the roof, the domino effect will eventually spiral down to the consumer products and sooner or later inflation will rise like hell. Unfortunately, the malaysian average salary remains the same and so does our EPF contribution. Bank Negara has announced that the inflation can rise to 5% this year due to the recent oil price increase. The effect of inflation can be simplifiy like this. If you have RM1,000 locked in your EPF today, assuming we have an average of inflation of 2% for the next 36 years, your money is worth RM500 by then. Going by the average of return from EPF since 1980's till now, the average return is only at 5%-6%. That is not enough for our money to keep up with the inflation. That also means as you retired, your supposed-to-be retirement money can only lasts for 5 to 6 years only as your money has decreased in value. This is an alarming fact for all Malaysians and should be taken seriously. Definitely we would not want to retire at the age of 55 and only to realise that we have to work again at 60.

Complacent Malaysians

Malaysians, regardless of race, has become complacent. What I mean by complacent is that Malaysians will always expect the government to handle their problems and to protect their futures. We kinda like a spoilt brat who always assume our parents knows best and will protect us and solve any mischievous things that we have done. We as a nation have put too much faith in politicians and MPs to solve our problems. Why I came to this conclusion is based on the recent events that occured lately. The oil price hike, food price increase, the toll increase, the general election, and even our deterioting relationship with different races in the country has been pinpointed to the government (more so to Pak Lah).

I am not defending the government here but it seems that we blame the government on almost everything. We have to realise that many problems occured today cannot be solved by the government (They are humans anyway). The MP can quarrel from dusk till dawn in the parliament, but in reality it is really up to us to solve our own problem. We have developed a entitlement mentality whereby we always expect the government's handout to solve our problem. With all the complaints on the government for the food price increase, we still have extra money to vote for our favourite singer in reality tv such as Akademi Fantasia, One in a million, Gangstarz and etc. We complaint about the flash flood occured in the city but yet some of us still throw away thrashes in the drain. We blame the government about the racial disunity but actually it is really up to us to bring that racial divide closer. Simple, start being nice and trustworthy to each other. Changes are occuring everywhere in the world and not just Malaysia. On my personal view, we are at the tipping point of either another global recession similar to the 1930's or something entirely new. When it happens, if we are not ready, we have only ourselves to blame.

Five states and an Island.. Way to go, Pak Lah

Not in a million years would Pak Lah could have imagine what 2008 could have brought him. I think he needs to 'mandi bunga' to get rid of the bad feng shui. This year is most probably the worst year that he had ever been in his career. He just lead BN to its worst performing General Election. He lost 5 states to the opposition and now Pulau Batu Putih has gone to Singapore. Many are blaming the Malaysian team for the loss for not presenting their case well. But what makes me piss off is the fact that a very important letter validifying the claim could not be found by the team eventhough they admitted on the existence of the letter. I think Karpal Singh was right by saying that why Malaysia even dare to present the case to ICJ if we do not have sufficient document to defend with. The island is in dispute for 28 years. My assumption is that under Dr M's era, he knew Malaysia could lost the case and therefore he never tries to settle it with ICJ. Just let it be. Better quarrel than losing our sovereignity. And then Pak Lah came along. He blindly accepted Singapore's proposal to settle this with ICJ without knowing we are not well prepared, and wallaah.. we officially lost an Island. In consolation, we get a rock. Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim described the judgment as a "win-win" situation. I agree with that statement, win-win for Singapore.

Snooping Squad or Assasination Squad?

The latest fiasco disclosed by the MCA. It has been alleged that the president of MCA have formed a secret group aka snoop squad to spy on potential enemies of the president. Among the casualties of the snoop squad are Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek. So far, Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting have been denying the accusations. My question is, why name it snooping squad? It will be way much cooler to name the secret group as the assassination squad. During operation time, they will sneak around in a ninja outfit placing hidden cameras and whoosh, they are gone. That will be much cooler that imagining a bunch of old grown men snooping around peeking at hotel rooms or events to see any dirty laundries by their enemies. And by the way, good job guys. At least on the positive note, you have done your work well. As Yoda have said “Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”

Can these be the MCA Snoop Squad?