Selasa, 2 November 2010

         Jenayah siber dikenal pasti ancaman jenayah masa depan


Posted on november 3, 2010, wednesday
Ia dikhuatiri menular dengan pantas di semua negara membangun

KUALA LUMPUR: Jenayah siber yang melibatkan ek­sploitasi data dalam kecang­gihan teknologi maklumat dan komunikasi (ICT) dikenal pasti sebagai ancaman je­nayah pada masa depan.
Perkara itu dikenal pasti pada Persidangan Persidangan Per­tubuhan Akademi Kebangsaan Biro Siasatan Persekutuan (FBI NAA) Bahagian Asia Pasifik ke-13 yang berakhir semalam.
Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Penganjur persidangan itu, Datuk Shahbudin Abd Wa­hab berkata ancaman terbabit dilihat menular dengan pantas melibatkan hampir kesemua negara membangun dan seterusnya mengancam keselamatan dunia sejagat.
“Daripada rumusan kami (perbincangan), ancaman je­nayah pada masa depan meli­batkan jenayah siber (ICT) di mana penjenayah dapat mengeksploitasi maklumat dengan cepat melalui laman web untuk menjalankan pel­bagai jenayah,” katanya ke­pada pemberita selepas majlis penutupan persidangan itu di sini semalam.
Beliau yang juga Komandan Maktab Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) berkata penjenayah moden mengambil kesempatan dalam kecanggihan ICT untuk mencuri identiti dan meng­gunakan maklumat peribadi seseorang untuk melakukan jenayah terancang seperti peni­puan dan keganasan.
“Mereka ini diakui ‘amat pro­fesional’ dalam mengendalikan jenayah menggunakan siber dan boleh mengeksploitasi data untuk kepentingan jenayah mereka.
“Sebaik sahaja mereka mengeksploitasi data dalam ICT, jenayah akan bermula dari satu jenayah kepada jenayah lain contohnya mencuri identiti, kemudian penipuan, dan lebih besar lagi seperti keganasan,” katanya.
Menurutnya jenayah ini telah mengubah persepsi ancaman yang dahulunya hanya berlaku di jalanan, namun kini boleh berlaku di dalam siber yang menuntut kesepakatan dan kerjasama antara peneraju ICT dan pihak berkuasa semua negara.

Rabu, 3 Mac 2010

Multimedia 5USM

Multimedia and the crisis economy in Japan


Desmond Bell
NAPIER UNIVERSITY EDINBURGH                                      David McNeill
LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORES UNIVERSITY
This article examines recent developments in the communication sector in Japan in the light of the recent economic meltdown of the former miracle economies of South East Asai. It argues that the telecommunications, computer and electronics industries are undergoing a restructuring of their activities under the state-endorsed banner of `multimedia' which, we suggest, is an extension of earlier rhetorical strategies concerned with the promotion of an `information society' in Japan. We look in particular at Sony Corporation's activities as it seeks new points of convergence between its computing, telecommunications and entertainment software interests in an increasingly deregulated national and global communications environment. Our investigation of the current relationship between the Japanese state and corporate interests like Sony leads us to take issue with those sociologists and media theorists who would have us believe that the phenomenon of `informationalization' is best understood as the appearance of post-industrial economy and polity based on `collective reflexivity'. We argue instead that multimediatization represents a drive by Japanese capital to restore conditions of profitable accumulation, a phenomenon which is increasingly drawing the other countries of South East Asia into Japan's `circuits of capital'.

For the Holidays, a Multimedia GuideEconomics                                                                                                                                      READ THE BOOK, SEE THE MOVIE. IN A belated bow to the age of DVD, this season's list of economics books worth reading -- seven titles -- is supplemented by five documentary films on economics-related them.                                                                                                                                               If books help you think and pictures help you feel, then moving pictures augmented by words can help you feel thoughts. As a diehard print person, I still insist books alone present thoughts and ideas with due evidence and nuance. But the visceral power of film is undeniable, especially when intensified by the power of song. The Singing Revolution, a 2007 film narrated by actress Linda Hunt, tells the thrilling story of the tiny country of Estonia's nonviolent fight for independence, first against Nazi Germany and then the Soviet Union. It may be too much to say Estonian folk-singing literally was the revolution. But the film makes a strong case that popular song played a special role in moving Estonians to revolt.
              A segment in The Ultimate Resource (2007) -- an absorbing instructional film on the power of markets -- about Estonian Indrek Laul and the Estonia Piano Co., turns out to be a fine companion piece to The Singing Revolution. It shows how, after Estonia won independence from the Soviet Union, Laul and his workers turned a company that had made sturdy but subpar pianos for the state into an entrepreneurial firm whose pianos can compete in the world market. Another segment shows how Muhammad Yunus developed the idea of microfinance to help poor folks in poor countries launch businesses. Given the usual competition, Yunus should have qualified for a Nobel Prize in economics, but instead won the Peace Prize in 2006 -- which, also given the usual competition, he richly deserved.

     For the video gift that keeps on giving, at least through 10 memorable one-hour segments, try Free to Choose, the 1980 series featuring the late Nobel laureate economist and impassioned defender of free markets, Milton Friedman. All but the last segment start with a half-hour narration by Friedman on a particular topic, such as capitalism's treatment of workers and of consumers. The second half-hour is a debate on that topic between the feisty Friedman and a group of guests, most of whom vigorously disagree with him. In the tenth segment, Friedman submits to an intensive grilling from the late moderator of the TV show Meet the Press, Lawrence Spivak.
      Never before or since have I seen so many dramatic face-offs between a defender of free markets and his antagonists, including such once-prominent men and women of the left as Michael Harrington, Robert Lekachman and Francis Fox Piven. Against these and others, while Friedman is nearly always outnumbered, he is rarely outgunned.
     Avoid the updated version of this series, which features faux-libertarian Arnold Schwarzenegger. Get the 1980 version, available at www.freetochoose.net. And while you watch the series, read the worthwhile book of the same name, which Friedman wrote with his wife Rose.
     Not every documentary has the benefit of a spellbinding character like Milton Friedman. But the best are character-driven, with a minimum of narration, and still manage to make their points. By those stringent criteria, two of the very best documentaries are Mine Your Own Business (2006) and the more recent Not Evil Just Wrong (2008), both produced and directed by husband-and-wife team Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney.
   While each film likely will get you angry, each has its share of sardonic humor. Mine Your Own Business follows former Financial Times correspondent McAleer to Rosia Montana, a Romanian town where the construction of a high-tech gold mine is being opposed by environmental activists from out of town. But the locals McAleer interviews see the mine as a source of needed employment.
     Later, McAleer takes an unemployed Rosia Montana miner to Madagascar, where there is a similar conflict between locals and environmentalists. I might have preferred that McAleer adopt the flamboyant style of Showtime documentarian Penn Jillette and confront more directly the activists he interviews. But his thorough refutation of their views through documentary footage is perhaps more subtly effective.
     Not Evil Just Wrong -- which takes aim at that prominent environmental activist Al Gore (also winner of a Nobel Peace Prize) -- has a similar theme. Much of the film concerns the Draconian solutions to global warming that Gore has advocated, which would devastate the living standards of ordinary people. The most powerful scenes show the murderous effects of banning DDT -- which could help stamp out malaria -- while Gore pays homage to the late Rachel Carson, who inspired the DDT ban. Just watch a couple of activists sincerely but condescendingly inform an African woman that the U.S. never used DDT (a flat-out falsehood, as the film shows), and be prepared to be just a bit enraged.
    IF MOST OF US CAN CONFESS to having wept more often in front of a movie than over a book, that doesn't mean book-reading is passionless -- even the reading of economics books.
     Take, for example, the impassioned book by Hunter Lewis, Where Keynes Went Wrong (2009), subtitled And Why World Governments Keep Creating Inflation, Bubbles, and Busts. In bad economic times like these, confused folks turn to shamans for guidance. While there has happily been no widespread mention of Karl Marx, revived reverence for John Maynard Keynes (pronounced "kaynes") seems ubiquitous. Was he not, after all, the learned British economist whose 1936 classic, The General Theory, taught the world that when capitalism drives the economy off the rails, government can get it back on track?