Hacker makes Anwar 'apologise' to Najib
The flamboyant Ellison had also taken the stand during the course of the trial. — Reuters pic
We have heard a lot of wonderful things about cloud computing and a world where everything is perpetually connected to the web. In fact, as someone who deals with new technology services and gadgets daily, I have seen and used some of this stuff. And it is indeed wonderful.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s blog was hacked late last night and defaced with a fake post that portrayed him as an apologist for the Zionist regime in Israel.
It also included an apology to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak as part of the opposition leader’s message ahead of the Aidilfitri celebration tomorrow.
The de facto PKR head has accused cybertroopers from political foe Umno of mounting the assault on his blog in a bid to defame him and destroy his credibility among Netizens, minutes after the opposition leader ended an Internet live chat session on Google Hangout.
Screen capture of the fake post on Anwar’s blog.
“Puak umno godam blog dan fitnah! (Umno tribe hacked blog and defame!)” Anwar posted in his Twitter account @anwaribrahim early this morning, in reply to another user on the social microblogging site identified as @anuarazizi who wanted to know if the apology in the special message was true.
The allegedly defamatory post by anonymous hackers has since been removed from Anwar’s blog.
In its place is a message from the website administrator informing visitors that the blog was hacked at about 11.50pm and a fake post about a “special message” attributed to Anwar had been uploaded.
“We understand a screen capture of the posting had been successfully recorded and is now being spread by Umno cybertroopers with the intention to discredit and defame Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim,” the blog administrator said.
Malay daily Sinar Harian reported that the hackers had uploaded a message from Anwar, claiming he felt ashamed for his party’s “sinful extremist position chasing after the prime minister’s office to the extent of defaming Najib and the latter’s family”.
“Saya ingin mengajak rakan-rakan saya dan jentera pakatan supaya membuat perubahan dengan menghormati institusi kePerdana Menterian yang sekian lama kita warisi. Jawatan Perdana Menteri adalah khas untuk orang Melayu dan Islam sahaja, bukannya untuk bangsa lain. (I would like to invite my colleagues and the Pakatan machinery to make changes by respecting the prime ministerial institution that we have long inherited. The post of the Prime Minister is special to the Malays and Muslims only, not for any other race),” hackers had uploaded on Anwar’s blog.
“Kepada umat Islam di Malaysia, saya turut ingin memohon maaf atas keterlanjuran saya menyokong Israel tempoh hari. Sesungguhnya saya tidak mampu untuk menghalang kehadiran mereka dalam hidup saya, maka dalam keterpaksaan saya perlu mengikuti kemahuan, desakan dan asakan bertubi-tubi mereka. (To Muslims in Malaysia, I also apologise for going overboard in my support of Israel the other day. Truly I am unable to prevent their presence in my life, therefore I am obligated to follow their wishes and repeated pressures.)
The hacking, on the eve of Aidilfitri, appears to be the second cyber assault against Anwar, Sinar Harian reported today.
It reported that a fake Twitter account had been created two weeks ago carrying a series of tweets made to look like they originated from the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition pact chief.
While no one has owned up to the hacking, PKR communications director Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad told The Malaysian Insider the party was confident the job was carried out by Umno’s cybertroopers.
“We are confident that this is the work of Umno and its cybertroopers. Who else can we blame? No one else would do such a thing,” he said when contacted.
“The message posted was about Datuk Seri Anwar’s ties with Israel, among other things,” Nik Nazmi said, adding that the website team managed to remove the offensive postings about midnight.
The Seri Setia assemblyman said the hackers had taken advantage while attention was focused on Anwar’s chat with Netizens over the “Borak Bersama Anwar (Chat With Anwar)” session, which kicked off at about 10.30 last night and lasted for an hour.
While Anwar has seized on the Internet to deliver his message after being shut out of the mainstream media, his online presence is still less than his rival Najib.
A check with the social media monitoring site socialbakers.com on August 8 showed Najib has 1,135,529 “likes” on Facebook and 801,833 followers on Twitter against Anwar’s 379,612 “likes” on Facebook and 179,830 following him on Twitter.
But his followers hope the Google Hangout will expand his appeal to Internet-savvy young voters, who are said to make up three million of the country’s 12 million-strong electorate.
The PR opposition pact has always been seen as having the upper hand in cyberspace presence over Barisan Nasional, but in recent months the ruling coalition has expanded its online presence with several pro-BN news portals and a rising number of supporters taking to Twitter.
US President Barack Obama and Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard have also used Google Hangout to engage their citizens, with the former using it as part of his re-election campaign.
But there is another side to it. Do you remember writing an essay titled 'Technology a boon or bane…' at school? Yes, technology always has two sides to it. Even if it is as wonderful as cloud computing, which powers services like Google’s Gmail, Apple’s iCloud and Dropbox, etc.
I am talking about the dangers that cloud computing and a connected world pose to our private lives. Or, rather, the risk to all our data that we, as digital natives, hoard in hard drive after hard drive, believing that a six-character password is going to keep it all safe.
Technology journalist Mat Honan learned it the hard way last week, when he lost all data in three of his devices after hackers gained access to his Apple account. You can read his tale here. Hackers cracking one of your passwords is something that may not turn out to be too damaging. But what really made the life of Honan hell was the fact that his gadgets — MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad — were connected to Apple’s iCloud and could be partially controlled remotely. Also, his Gmail was connected to iCloud and his Twitter to Gmail. The end result was that Honan not only lost his data but also temporarily lost control on the services through which he talks to the world.
Then there is Steve Woz — the other Steve of Apple — who recently sounded an alarm on cloud computing. Here is what he said:
I really worry about everything going to the cloud. I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years. With the cloud, you don’t own anything. You already signed it away… I want to feel that I own things. A lot of people feel, ‘Oh, everything is really on my computer,’ but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it
Woz is a little old-fashioned geek. And I say that in a positive way. Old-fashioned geeks, the folks who kick-started the computer revolution in 70s, are different compared to the generation brought up on Facebook and Twitter. These people value their private information and keep it close to their heart. They also value open systems, machines on which they have control, and have a healthy disregard for any company that aims to ‘simplify’ a gadget or digital service by taking away the control from a user. What Woz says about cloud computing is very true. The risk is real.
Now, I am not a luddite. I love my Gmail. Or the fact that I can save my important files to Dropbox or some other digital locker so that even if I lose them on my local machine, they are safe somewhere. But you should be very, very cautious while using cloud services. Here are some handy tips that may help you keep your data safe. I follow some of them. They may be of help to you.
1- Never use a password twice. This means every time you create a new account or sign up for a new service, use a new password. Preferably use a password that is alphanumeric.
2- Before you post something on Facebook or Twitter, think twice. Honan’s iCloud account was hacked with not some tech wizardry but with social engineering. The hacker collected information about Honan from the web and called up Apple support impersonating him. He told Apple support that he required a new password for iCloud and managed to convince the staff that he was Honan by telling them private information about the guy.
3- As far as possible, do not connect important accounts. This means, prize your primary email address. Maybe, create a generic email ID, preferably with a pseudonym, and provide it to services that require an email ID.
4- In fact, use a pseudonym as much as possible. (Also, as a user, you should resist it when a company like Facebook or Google ask you for your real names).
5- Yes, storing data in digital lockers is convenient. But it is prudent to not store details of your bank accounts, etc, in a file on these sites. Keep extremely valuable information on you local computer in an encrypted form or just write it down in a diary. In fact, diary still works best.
6- Even if your data is stored in a digital locker, keep a local backup of important files. Preferably, in two hard disks/pen drives, etc.
7- When you sign up for new services, you can get away by leaving out most of the information from the form. Just provide what is essential. Leave everything else blank.
8- Did I say never use same password twice? OK. Also change passwords whenever you can.
9- If you use Google services or Facebook, turn on two-step authentication. It’s better than the password thing.
10- Yes, web and the cloud services are great. But I am a little old-fashioned. I don’t sign up for any service that I don’t use. Or give out the information to any company or service, whether I am using a computer or a tablet or a smartphone, which is not an absolute necessity. Maybe, you can do the same. Be little paranoid on the web. Enjoy it. Use it. But cautiously. I am not guaranteeing that it will keep your data safe, but it may reduce chances of data theft.
But while the post-trial order from US District Judge William Alsup earlier this month had riveted tech and legal circles, the companies’ responses contained no bombshells.
“Neither Google nor its counsel has paid an author, journalist, commentator or blogger to report or comment on any issues in this case,” the Internet search company said in its court filing.
Alsup’s highly unusual order came months after the companies had squared off at trial, which featured testimony from high-profile technology executives including Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison and Google CEO Larry Page. The case attracted heavy media coverage from the mainstream press and technology-focused blogs.
Piracy is bad. But it is not a black and white issue. There are many elements to it.
Is it that people are fundamentally bad and like free stuff, even if it is not an ethical thing to do? Do people pirate because films or games or music are priced ridiculously high? Or do they go to the web to download it for free because the content is not available in their region? Or is it true that getting stuff on the web is easier and convenient? Finally, is it a problem of technology or an issue with social and ethical overtones?
There are many questions. And I am sure everybody involved, from content producers to the majority of people, who pirate movies and songs, seek answers to these questions.
But a solution proposed by Google last week is not one of these answers. For long, Google has argued that its search results are sacrosanct. The company has claimed that the results are organic. This means, they are based on what people want. Last week, out of the blue, Google changed its position.
In a blog on the company’s website, Amit Singhal, head of Google’s search division, wrote:
Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results.
The ironical bit about the new Google policy is that it is somewhat a milder form (to begin with) of the measure that advocates of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) were proposing earlier this year. At that time, Google, which fought tooth and nail against the proposed US Act, claimed the measures would break the internet and lead to online censorship.
Google is claiming that punishing websites on the basis of anti-piracy notices it gets is not censorship. And that is true. Google is not exactly removing these links from its search engine and people will still find them. But it does go against the basic principle upon which Google search works, which is treating every piece of information as data, without ascribing any motives to it. Here it is important to remember that DMCA notices are just that – notices. They are not court orders. Anybody can file a DMCA notice.
While nobody in their right mind will complain if a website that allows people to share copyrighted films is yanked off the web, the problem is with the approach itself. This is what Evgeny Morozov, a social commentator, highlighted on Twitter. Now that Google is willing to downgrade websites due to reason x, what is the guarantee that next year it won’t downgrade results due to reason y.
More importantly, now that Google is willing to give concessions to big Hollywood studios, it will be unfair if it denies the same to a number of other organizations, governments and individuals, who may have very 'valid' grouse against a website or two.
Most strange is the fact that YouTube, a Google-owned website, which receives the highest amount of anti-piracy notices, will not be affected by the measure. This only goes to show that Google is now clearly influencing search, irrespective of what people want. This is far cry from the past, when Google always maintained that it didn’t tinker with search results unless there was a clear legal directive to do so.
There is one more problem with Google’s anti-piracy diktat. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is an American law. And not everybody in the world agrees with the way America sees the copyright and piracy problem. So, if a company is using DMCA to send notices to Google about a website that is based in Ireland, is it appropriate for Google to downrank that website for non-Americans? So far, it is not clear if the altered results will be visible only to the US citizens or to everyone else. Morozov notes:
I've got some questions. Will Google search algorithms reflect copyright takedown notices from all govts or just the US... Will results in country X be based on its own copyright laws or those of US? Why should someone in Spain suffer from US copyright?
Over the years, Google has tried to stay true to its stated motive: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. But of late, its commercial considerations seem to be gaining an upper hand. The anti-piracy move is aimed at pacifying big-content producers in the US. A few months ago when the whole world was debating SOPA, Rupert Murdoch, the powerful boss of News Corporation, tweeted:
Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.
Google’s announcement last week is aimed to please powerful Hollywood studios. The company needs big content producers as it tries to bring more content to YouTube and its Play Store, which serves Android phones and tablets.
As a company, Google is well within its right to take decisions that are good for its business. But given its size and importance to the web, Google’s latest search signal may have consequences that can change the way information is indexed and accessed on the web.
In his order, Alsup said he was “concerned” about relationships between commentators and the companies, but the judge did not reveal what specifically prompted him to act.
Oracle yesterday said it had hired blogger Florian Mueller, who often comments on patent issues, as a consultant on “competition related matters.” However, Oracle said it retained Mueller after he began writing about the litigation.
“He was not retained to write about the case,” Oracle said.
In an email to Reuters, Mueller noted he had previously disclosed the Oracle connection on his blog. “It’s a consulting relationship, not a pay-for-blog relationship,” he said yesterday.
In its court filing yesterday, Oracle also said some employees may have blogged about the case, but said it did not ask for or approve such posts.
Oracle sued Google in federal court in 2010, claiming the latter’s Android mobile platform violated its patents and copyright to the Java programming language. It sought roughly US$1 billion (RM3.2 billion) on the copyright claims.
Earlier this year, after the jury decided in Google’s favour, Alsup ruled Oracle could not claim copyright protection on most of the Java material that Oracle took to trial. Oracle has said it will appeal.
Oracle also criticised Google for funding certain trade associations, whose staff then wrote about legal issues in play during the litigation.
In its filing, Google acknowledged contributions to various groups but said it has not paid any of them to comment on issues in the case. — Reuters
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