Search the Community

Police will set up a centre to monitor the spread of false information via the internet and social media channels, Pol Maj Gen Pisit Paoin, commander of the Technology Crime Suppression Division, revealed on Monday. The move came after rumours were spread on May 31 that another bomb explosion similar to the May 26 Ramkhamhaeng Soi 43/1 bombing incident might occur at a department store in Bangkok. The poster or posters who launched the rumour claimed the warning had been issued by a security agency, causing many people to panic. National police chief Pol Gen Adul Saengsingkaew was forced to deny the rumour and make a statement to the public. Pol Maj Gen Pisit said Pol Gen Adul had instructed him to establish a centre to monitor online messages or postings deemed to be causing disturbances and disorders to the public. The centre would operate 24 hours a day by 20 TCSD officers. It would examine and safeguard against all forms of offences on the internet and social-networking sites, he said. Pol Maj Gen Pisit said he would also propose a restructuring of his agency by boosting its current 7 divisions to 12 and increasing manpower. The reorganisation was needed to ensure adequate resources to handle new forms of threats as the TCSD currently had only 120 officers, he added. via Police plan new internet monitor | Bangkok Post: breakingnews. I wonder if this means they’ll be busy monitoring the government for false information. Â :-)

Thammasat University academic Somsak Jeamteerasakul’s Facebook account has been suspended for 30 days, leading to widespread criticism on social media. Facebook user Phakjira Slk, claiming to have been asked by Somsak, posted a message on the academic’s page saying the account had been suspended on Wednesday morning because he allegedly criticised Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra for suing Thai Rath cartoonist Chai Rachawat. “I want to confirm that I am against Yingluck for filing the lawsuit against Chai Rachawat. This lawsuit is in contradiction to the spirit of democracy,” is the message Somsak posted on his page. He also said that the libel lawsuit was a waste of public money. Many of his supporters spread the message widely on social media, though some said they were glad his access to Facebook had been blocked. In the message via Phakjira Slk, Somsak said his account had been suspended because somebody had reported him as having violated Facebook’s terms and conditions, adding that he was afraid he would be framed again if he were to register for a new page. Police summonses Meanwhile, the cartoonist has not responded to police summonses after Yingluck sued him for libel, deputy director of the Metropolitan Police Bureau Maj-General Anuchai Lekbamrung said yesterday. Anuchai said the Metropolitan Investigation Committee had issued a summonses on Wednesday for Somchai Katanyutanan, or Chai Rachawat, to report on June 5 for further questioning and acknowledging the allegations. The allegations of insulting government official on duty, commercial libel and violation of the Computer Act compel the cartoonist to report to the investigation committee. If he fails to show up on two occasions, the committee will be forced to seek an arrest warrant for him. via Critic’s Facebook page suspended; cartoonist ‘ignores’ summonses – The Nation.

Army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has lashed out at the Tob Jote TV programme for broadcasting a debate over the role of the monarchy. He said airing the broadcast was inappropriate at a time of political conflict. Angry army chief raps ‘inappropriate’ TV show on monarchy | Bangkok Post: news

I don't know if anybody of you guys has noticed that yet, Since last weekend Google.com redirects you automatically to http://www.google.co.th/ (for whatever reason!!!!) if you try to access Google.com from a Thailand IP number. Even the link "Google.com in English" redirects now to http://www.google.co.th/ You can easily bypass to the original google.com results by using http://www.google.com/ncr to go to Google.com in English (and there will be different search results than on co.th!) Hope this info helps!

What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs In the days after Steve Jobs' death, friends and colleagues have, in customary fashion, been sharing their fondest memories of the Apple co-founder. He's been hailed as "a genius" and "the greatest CEO of his generation" by pundits and tech journalists. But a great man's reputation can withstand a full accounting. And, truth be told, Jobs could be terrible to people, and his impact on the world was not uniformly positive. We mentioned much of the good Jobs did during his career earlier. His accomplishments were far-reaching and impossible to easily summarize. But here's one way of looking at the scope of his achievement: It's the dream of any entrepreneur to affect change in one industry. Jobs transformed half a dozen of them forever, from personal computers to phones to animation to music to publishing to video games. He was a polymath, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, a farsighted tastemaker, an excellent showman, and a gifted strategist. One thing he wasn't, though, was perfect. Indeed there were things Jobs did while at Apple that were deeply disturbing. Rude, dismissive, hostile, spiteful: Apple employees—the ones not bound by confidentiality agreements—have had a different story to tell over the years about Jobs and the bullying, manipulation and fear that followed him around Apple. Jobs contributed to global problems, too. Apple's success has been built literally on the backs of Chinese workers, many of them children and all of them enduring long shifts and the specter of brutal penalties for mistakes. And, for all his talk of enabling individual expression, Jobs imposed paranoid rules that centralized control of who could say what on his devices and in his company. It's particularly important to take stock of Jobs' flaws right now. His successor, Tim Cook, has the opportunity to set a new course for the company, and to establish his own style of leadership. And, thanks to Apple's success, students of Jobs' approach to leadership have never been so numerous in Silicon Valley. He was worshipped and emulated plenty when he was alive; in death, Jobs will be even more of an icon. After celebrating Jobs' achievements, we should talk freely about the dark side of Jobs and the company he co-founded. Here, then, is a catalog of lowlights: Censorship and Authoritarianism The internet allowed people around the world to express themselves more freely and more easily. With the App Store, Apple reversed that progress. The iPhone and iPad constitute the most popular platform for handheld computerizing in America, key venues for media and software. But to put anything on the devices, you need Apple's permission. And the company wields its power aggressively. In the name of protecting children from the evils of erotica — "freedom from porn" — and adults from one another, Jobs has banned from being installed on his devices gay art, gay travel guides, political cartoons, sexy pictures, Congressional candidate pamphlets, political caricature,Vogue fashion spreads, systems invented by the opposition, and other things considered morally suspect. Apple's devices have connected us to a world of information. But they don't permit a full expression of ideas. Indeed, the people Apple supposedly serves — "the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers" — have been particularly put out by Jobs' lockdown. That America's most admired company has followed such an un-American path, and imposed centralized restrictions typical of the companies it once , is deeply disturbing.But then Jobs never seemed comfortable with the idea of fully empowered workers or a truly free press. Inside Apple, there is a culture of fear and control around communication; Apple's "Worldwide Loyalty Team" specializes in hunting down leakers, confiscating mobile phones and searching computers. Apple applies coercive tactics to the press, as well. Its first response to stories it doesn't like is typically manipulation and badgering, for example, threatening to withhold access to events and executives. Next, it might leak a contradictory story. But Apple doesn't stop there. It has a fearsome legal team that is not above annihilating smaller prey. In 2005, for example, the company sued 19-year-old blogger Nick Ciarelli for correctly reporting, prior to launch, the existence of the Mac Mini. The company did not back down until Ciarelli agreed to close his blog ThinkSecret forever. Last year, after our sister blog Gizmodo ran a video of a prototype iPhone 4, Apple complained to law enforcement, who promptly "]raided an editor's home. And just last month, in the creepiest example of Apple's fascist tendencies, two of Apple's private security agents searched the home of a San Francisco man and threatened him and his family with immigration trouble as part of an scramble for a missing iPhone prototype. The man said the security agents were accompanied by plainclothes police and did not identify themselves as private citizens, lending the impression they were law enforcement officers. http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs [Photos via AP, Getty Imag

A dubious distinction * Published: 23/06/2010 at 12:00 AM * Newspaper section: Database http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/technews/39224/a-dubious-distinction Because there isn't nearly enough control over the Internet, the cabinet approved setting up a new office to "prevent and suppress" anything on the Internet that is aimed at or might be aimed at the monarchy; with some help from Mr Orwell, the government decided the office should be called the Bureau of Prevention and Eradication of Computer Crime; Juti Krairiksh, the new MICT (Minister of Internet Censorship of Thailand) explained that any Internet provider who did not instantly comply with his "request" to block a website would lose its licence. Media watchers FACT Thailand said that the number of blocked and blacklisted websites had passed 100,000, making Thailand the first country in the world to hit that goal; since April alone, said a FACT study, the Ministry of Internet Censorship of Thailand (MICT) and the emergency authorities have blocked 65,000 websites, bringing the total of blacklisted sites to 113,000 by June 15, with sites being added every day; the Orwellian Bureau of Prevention and Eradication of Computer Crime has added another layer of Net censoring, supposedly in the name of protecting the monarchy; one new tactic is to censor any site that mentions actual names such as former PM's office minister Jak***ob Pe***ir or the Marxist professor G***s Ung***orn - two of 200 such blacklisted names that are to be wiped from Thai memory like a Russian encyclopaedia on Josef Stalin. How can a government ask for respect from its citizens when the government does not respect the fundamental constitutional rights of the people.

INTERNET MONITORING AND CENSORSHIP Net slowdowns suggest Govt is monitoring traffic DON SAMBANDARAKSA BKK Post, 4 June 08 Thailand's Internet is stuttering with a series of unexplained outages and slowdowns that suggest that the government is running a far-reaching programme to monitor its citizens' online activities, one similar to the US Carnivore email policeware programme. This can be seen in the way YouTube is now all but unusable for TOT subscribers, and how sending large email messages through a foreign server on port 25 often fails, while encrypted, non-standard ports or VPN access over the same network works fine. ***TOT is my ISP and I cannot play YouTube vids on TF, also have the same problem on the other websites. If I logon to Youtube, I can play the vids. A former security-consultant-turned-businessman in Thailand, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the entire situation was seriously damaging business confidence and may be on the verge of being illegal, especially for foreign businesses operating in Thailand. In many industries, a user has a duty to alert his company or his authorities if he knows that data has been compromised. But what if the leak is to a foreign government? That said, in most countries, national security laws override privacy laws. There are legal ramifications on contract law, especially if the businessman is doing business with the Thai government or military. "If you are going to do it, do it properly," the former security consultant suggested. China and Singapore, for instance, use a monitoring software package from a company called Xacct Technologies from Israel which is capable of far more than email logging and can scale better than the system that he believes is in place now. Another packet monitoring system that is in use and can scale well is Phorm. He first noted earlier this year that email sending slows down as the work day progresses and fails almost entirely around lunchtime. His company uses a corporate email server located overseas. Analysis of the traffic suggest that the authorities are intercepting anything on standard SMTP port 25, regardless of the destination IP address. He said he has the IP numbers he suspects to be the sniffing machines as the latency incurred there is far too long to be a regular switch. To circumvent this monitoring, users can simply use a VPN to access their corporate network overseas, use SSL encrypted email ports or even encrypt on an end-to-end fashion. Gmail remains secure when accessed via HTTPS, although he did question what went on behind the scenes when Thailand lifted the ban on Google's YouTube and if any agreements had been struck. That said, the former security consultant said that there was a legitimate need for governments to monitor email for national security but that the way the Thai government had done it had failed miserably. "How hard is the system to circumvent? I have to circumvent it as otherwise I have no way of getting my email, by going to http://www.mail2pda.com or using HTTPS for Gmail. Then what's the point? Already the government has lost the ability to gather intelligence." Rather it should have been done professionally and be totally invisible without the terrorists or the public knowing. From the business point of view, it was just another in a long list of questionable decisions "that makes Thailand look positively Mickey Mouse," he said. Rather than announce to the world that they were intercepting and monitoring email and thus making everyone use encryption, it would have been much better if the government had kept quiet and had done traffic pattern analysis on individuals to learn more about their network, he said. For instance, if one person was using encryption all the time, the government should keep a close eye on him and who he contacts, but by botching up this project, it means that everyone has to use encryption and VPN and thus the government has lost its ability to gather information and protect the people. The consultant also questioned the legality of the recent Thai cybercrime law in the context of European privacy laws. In a seminar soon after the law was passed, police said that as long as a server host or ISP could provide a name to an activity, that would satisfy the 90-day log retention requirements. However, according to European privacy law, putting a name to an activity requires user consent. Quite how this would affect Europeans doing business here, or Thais doing business in the EU, was still unclear, he said. Another question was who had access to the information being gathered. In the past, the US government launched Echelon and Carnivore, projects aimed at wiretapping the Internet in the name of security. But at least they had clear objectives and responsibilities, unlike the clandestine Thai system that appeared to be in place, he noted. The consultant saw three possible scenarios: "If the reason is to spy by the government, then you (a journalist) are at great risk personally. If it was decided it was important to monitor all email and someone in government screwed up, this is fine and people should be happy. But if the reason is commercial and you are exposing someone's email to somebody in the government, this is bad," he said. Finally, he had a piece of advice he would like to pass on to the government: "The effort involved in censorship is far greater than the effort required to monitor, and monitoring gives you more information. Censorship blocks, monitoring gains intelligence. "In Europe, authorities infiltrated a major paedophile ring. They worked for 18 months, infiltrating and learning about the network, which operated in cells. Many of the operatives are still in therapy. But by taking that route, they were able to expand their reach through the cells and gather evidence they could use in court. In the end, they arrested hundreds of people and more importantly, they pulled 26 children out of that network who were being abused. "If they had taken the approach that this server has paedophilia and it has to be shut down, they might cut off access to 10 paedophiles but they would not have saved any children," he said.

"The bill sailed through its third reading on Wednesday by a vote of 119 to 1. It requires royal endorsement before it can be formally enacted into law. " Now, this law is NOT yet in effect. So, essentially all discussion and linkin' to circumventing is cool still, right? Then, continuing: The chief immediate effect of the new bill will be to outlaw any attempt to get around government censors to access any of the tens of thousands of sites censored for moral or political purposes, or "to damage the country"." "The bill regards as a crime the intention to withhold internet protocol (IP) addresses and violators are subject to severe punishment, according to the NLA special committee assigned to scrutinise the law. " This says in real life: proxies are illegal to use in Thailand as their purpose is to hide visiting IPs, and this is the effect, side effect?, of the law that is directed "towards criminals"l! Typical government bs, "we are protecting children, women whatnot" and passing bills that effectively do much more than that, using those "fluffy" reasons as pure excuses and cover ups... :?: This is their excuse: "The government pushed the new law by saying it hopes the bill will provide an effective legal tool to fight cyber crime, including theft of data and chatroom contacts that lead to rape. " BUT discussing about proxies IS NOT illegal? :?: ie. giving out information HOW to circumvent the systems (note: I have been to thaivisa forum once or twice, they seem to have sticky note about long time ago that "discussing about proxies is not allowed", that has been there long before this, anyone know why?...) It also could mean providing now as much as possible journals and forum entries on circumventing Thai censorship is ok before the law eventually passes... "The IP is a unique address used to identify computer users while communicating with others on the network. However, the committee said, "ill-intentioned users" often hide or falsify their computer addresses so that they can easily carry out illegal acts and get away with them." :roll: Yes, now, all you who have accessed Youtube in Thailand through proxy server: BAD PPL, you are ill-intentioned users and criminals! All of you who regularly SURF internet with proxy, you are also soon all criminals too. hahahahaha "Penalties apply to all illegal acts using the internet, including those carried out abroad and deemed to "damage the country both directly and indirectly"." What on earth this is supposed to mean? Any Thai national doing "attack" against Thai politicians are held legally responsible in Thailand when he/she returns? Or, Thai national poses in porn pics in USA, she is damaging countrys reputation and held criminally responsilbe? (Similar to some countries helding their nationals responsible in their home country of pedofilic crimes done outside their own countries) http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=118646