The Year 2010 at a Glance

2010 went by like a breeze. I must say it has been a good year overall – although there had been some downs. Work was enjoyable, got promoted, parents are well, A and I hit our 3 years mark, got featured in newspapers and media and so on.

I read from somewhere that one should always look back on what has been achieved throughout the year and vow to achieve better next year. It is also good to reminisce the good and bad times in a year.

Here’s a summary of it. Click on the links for the full story 😀

In January, I got featured in Astro B.yond TVC together with other fellow bloggers.


Looolllinnnggg

In the same month, my 2nd article on Putik Lada was featured in The Star. I wrote about Social Media and Law

The entry was retweeted many times and got me a cool 400 page view! I’ll be writing another article on Putik Lada again in January – stay tuned!

April wasn’t a good month as I had a streak of bad luck. It started off with a RM100 parking fine. Then Mum had an accident, my car broke down in Court and got towed, tyre was punctured and petrol leaked from my car thereafter!

But the month of April was an eye opener. Jamie Toh broke “the world record” by finishing 10 sticks of raw siham cockles.


PURE RAW COCKLES SOAKED IN BLOOD!

May marks the death of my brother in law. May his soul rest in peace.

On the same month, I travelled to Boston to attend the International Trade Mark Association conference. In the meantime, I stopped by New York City.

I met up with Timothy Tiah and fourfeetnine there as well.

You can read all my entries on NYC and Boston here.

June sparked my interest in Data Protection. I was featured in The Star newspaper in an article entitled Keeping it Private.

It spearheaded me in this data protection field and got invited by various organisations to talk about the impending Personal Data Protection Act 2010. I did probably around 15 talks on this topic alone. Work started trickling in after all these talks.

Data protection wasn’t the only topic I spoke about. I spoke about social media as a panelist in the Asian Blogger & Social Media Conference with other fellow bloggers fehmes Niki Cheong, Kenny Sia and KinkyBlueFairy.

Right after the conference, I was featured in The Star newspaper in the article “Tweet below the law

September is the month where civilians p4wned a robber. The security guards at my area caught a robber and got the robber’s picture published in a leaflet!

In November, I was featured in Klue magazine as one of Malaysia’s Top Ten Hottest Bloggers.

It was embarrassing -___-

Later in that month, the KL Bar IT Committee organised the IT Law Forum @ KDU College of Law and Business on 12.11.2010. Organising it wasn’t easy. We had so many twists and turns.

In the end, it went well!

December was an entry busy month for me. Although I took the entire month off to clear my leave, I had to go to the office everyday. Gah.

Anyway, I look forward to 2011. Happy New Year everyone!!! Have a great year ahead!

AFF Suzuki Cup Finals – 1st Leg – Malaysia v Indonesia

The game scheduled to start at 8pm but the crowd started trickling in at 4pm. My futsal kakis and I reached there at 645pm and the roads towards to stadium was congested!

We parked our cars at one of the housing areas of Bukit Jalil. It took us 15 minutes to walk to the stadium. We were soaked with sweat by the time we got there!


Policemen issued summons to those parked on the roadside.


Motorcycles were parked all over the roads. We had to climb over them to get through the stadium -_-

As we were approaching the stadium, thunderous roars of adorning fans were heard. The excitement builds as we reach the entrance.

Screams and shouts of street vendors were heard as well. I haven’t had my lunch and dinner before the game. Ping said there’s KFC sold over there. I found KFC – Kelantan Fried Chop.

The stadium was extremely packed. It was very difficult for us to find a seat. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to bring their parents, wives, girlfriend or children. They’ll probably get squashed or “water kena stolen” (chau sui – molested)

We had to sit on the floor – by the walkway. Usually there is enough space for people to pass but this time round the space was occupied as well. Basically, one cannot walk through the lane without kicking anyone.

I managed to secure a spot just right in front of the railing. But after squatting and sitting throughout the first half, I decided to shove my legs through the railings and sit on the concrete base. My butt was numb thereafter -_-


I was worried that my sandals will fall down…

I wonder if tickets were oversold because seats were all taken and people had to sit and stand at all sorts of places.


Some stood on the fragile-looking-shaky bridge. It shakes whenever someone walks on it. Further, you can see what is underneath the floor.

Anyway, I had a bird eye’s view of the field!


First corner of the match!


There’s a Suzuki Swift behind every goalpost!


The game was stopped for a few minutes because the Indonesian players complained that they were distracted by a green laser light. It continued thereafter but the added extra time was 8 minutes. Longest I’ve ever seen!


Video of Indonesian players walking out from the pitch

Malaysia scored the first goal during the second half. The fans roared with excitement and relieve. We thought we would have a draw in this game.

But the downside of a goal is that some people would hurl mineral water bottles to the pitch. Some bottles don’t go far and ended up on someone’s head.


Video of all the goals.


Police was there to record down disturbances – or maybe just a blank camcorder to scare people.


End results. Malaysia 3 – Indonesia 0!


Notice the seats were vacant before full time? Many Malaysians moved to the Indonesian reserved terraces. It was a like a game of checkers.

After the game, many Indonesians were pretty unhappy over the laser incident. So much so #MalaysiaCheatLaser became the highest trended topic on Twitter!

2nd leg of the finals will be played in Indonesia on 29th December. Hope Malaysia will win again.

Malaysia Boleh!

Cats

If you’re why I havent been updating this blog, well, I ran out of things to blog. There are some days where I have so many things to blog about that it could occupy an entire month worth of blog posting. Now it’s basically 0.

As a filler, I thought I’ll post some pictures of my Mum’s cats. We have 5 cats at home. 1 Mama cat and 3 kittens plus one stray who joined them when it was still a kitten. The stray cat’s name is Harry, because it’s quite hairy.

The 3 kittens are Sesame, Coco and Halia. There were 2 other cats as well but both die recently. Lil Nom Nom was found dead with bite marks. Probably attacked by a dog. He was too fat to climb trees I think.

As for the other kitten, Botswana, he got ran over by a car. Puhkimak Driver.

May they rest in peace in Hello Kitty Heaven.


Sesame, Coco & Halia – when they were still young


Sesame..aawwwww so smaall


Halia

Months later, they became fat monsters.

Halia’s fats were bulging out.


Harry’s face was swollen. I think he got stung by a bee. Serve him right for attacking anything that moves!


nom nom nom nom..Friskies!

Internet Service Provider Liability Act: Do we need one?

Once again, I contributed an article to to LoyarBurok, a local blawg. This time round, I wrote about the repercussion of the proposed Internet Service Provider Liability Act – something that will affect all internet users. Basically, with this act, we cannot download any copyrighted materials including music and videos. The source of the news can be seen below:

New law to end illegal downloading of music and movies
By STEVEN PATRICK

KUALA LUMPUR: The free-and-easy days of illegal downloading of music and movies may soon be over. A proposed new law will enable Internet Service Providers (ISP) to suspend or terminate the Internet accounts of P2P (peer-to-peer) users.

This new law called the ISP Liability act, will be tabled in Parliament next month, according to Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) chairman Norman Halim.

RIM has been lobbying the Government for an ISP Liability act for the past 5 years as illegal online downloads have been cannibalising the legitimate sales of music, worldwide.

“The act makes the ISPs responsible for curbing online piracy. The ISPs will be fined if they don’t take action against illegal downloaders. The ISPs have the technology to track P2P users,” said Norman.

However, he said that the fine amount had yet to be determined.

ISPs will send two warning letters to illegal downloaders. Should the downloaders still persist, the Internet access will be suspended or even terminated.

“Other countries that have such an act have seen their respective music industries recover. One good example would be South Korea,” he said.

[Credits: The Star]

Here’s the reproduction of my article:

An analysis of the potential repercussions of the proposed Internet Service Provider Liability Act.

Recently, The Star reported that the Malaysian Parliament will be tabling the ISP Liability Act (”Act”). According to The Star, the Act makes internet service providers (ISPs) responsible for curbing online piracy. The ISP will be fined if they don’t take action against illegal downloaders.

The ISP will send two warning letters to illegal downloaders. Should the downloaders persist, their internet access will be suspended or even terminated.

It is unclear at this juncture on how far-reaching the Act would be. Will it cover all methods of downloading copyrighted materials, such as music and movies, or only through P2P file sharing software? If a user streams videos or music through a website, would they be caught under this Act? Technically in such case, there is a download of copyrighted materials into a user’s computer.

It is also unclear at this juncture on how the Act would require ISPs to monitor their users’ activities. Are they compelled to keep track of all their users’ internet activities? Or would there be a need for active participation of intellectual property rights (IPR) holders to tell the ISPs that certain IP addresses are infringing their rights, so that the ISPs can reveal the users’ details?

How it works

Making ISPs responsible for their users’ actions is not something common. Jurisdictions such as United States of America and United Kingdom have laws in place to compel ISPs to take action their users.

In some jurisdictions, IPR holders would engage a third party to monitor the internet to see whether anyone is sharing copyrighted files online. If they detect someone, they will obtain the IP address, and thereafter pass it to the relevant ISPs for them to take action against their user. If the user persists notwithstanding that warning letters have been issued, the ISPs may suspend or terminate the user’s internet access.

This is also commonly known as graduated response, or in another words the “three strikes rule”.

Repercussions

It is argued that such a law would curb online piracy. Thousands of people are dependant on the music and movie industries, and online piracy is affecting these industries severely. I do not deny that online piracy has affected these industry, but the objective of this article is to show that the repercussions of such a law are severe to internet users.

What has happened in jurisdictions containing such a law is a good indication on where the implementation of such a law will take us.

In many cases, IPR holders take additional steps against alleged online infringers. IPR holders would normally request for the identity of the internet user (normally after obtaining a Court order) from the ISPs. Some ISPs are ready to divulge such information, whereas some ISPs put up a fight. Once the identity of the user is revealed, the IPR would initiate action against the user and such active enforcement has caused terrible impact on users.

In the United Kingdom, it was reported that IPR holders will send a letter to illegal file sharers demanding payments of between GBP500 and GBP700, failing which the file sharer will be brought to Court. In the United States, a lady decided to fight it out with the recording industry instead of settling out of Court after being accused of encouraging the illegal sharing of songs. She lost the case, and was fined US$220,000. It is a classic case of David against Goliath.

Such a law will also affect internet users who do not know that their internet connection has been piggy-backed by third parties. There are many cases where users do not know that someone has used their internet connection — especially those with unsecured Wi-fi connection — and subsequently receive a demand letter for an offence they did not commit. This happened to a 78 year old man in the United Kingdom, who received a demand letter from a lawyer accusing him of downloading pornography. The 78 year old man didn’t even know what file-sharing was!

At this juncture, we do not know whether the Act would provide for a defence of innocent infringement. But the fact that one can receive a demand letter from lawyers for something that one has not done is quite frightening.

Children are now exposed to the internet at very young age. They may not know that their act of sharing and downloading music or videos will cause serious repercussions to them. A child would obviously choose to download the latest single of Justin Bieber from the internet instead of begging and pleading with his or her parents to buy it. One would argue that we ought to teach our children against online piracy. But all parents know that not all of their advice is always heeded.

In Singapore, it was reported that Odex Pte Ltd, a distributor of Japanese anime in Singapore, had issued demand letters to children as young as 9 years old accusing them of illegal downloads. Further, in the United States, 16 year old Whitney Harper was sued by the recording industry after she was found sharing music via a P2P file sharing program. She claimed that she didn’t know the program she used was taking songs from the internet illegally. Notwithstanding that, judgement was entered against her.

The enactment of the Act would also be another deterioration of our (almost non-existence) privacy rights. Malaysian laws do not recognize invasion of privacy rights as an actionable wrongdoing (see Ultra Dimenson Sdn Bhd v. Kook Wei Kuan [2004] 5 CLJ 285; Dr Bernadine Malini Martin v MPH Magazine Sdn Bhd & Ors and Another Appeal [2010] 7 CLJ 525; and Lew Cher Pow @ Lew Cha Paw & 11 yang lain lwn. Pua Yong Yong & Satu Lagi [2009] 1 LNS 1256) except in very limited circumstances (Maslinda Ishak v. Mohd Tahir Osman & Ors [2009] 6 CLJ 655).

ISPs are the “guardians” of our rights of privacy. They hold the key to our identity in the internet. Our identity, surfing habits and internet activities are our personal data and ISPs ought to give priority of such data over commercial interest of others.

By giving access to our personal data to third parties, our privacy is at risk, and such a risk is real. Recently, ACS:Law, a law firm specialising in taking action against file sharers in the United Kingdom, had accidentally divulged information of thousand of broadband users who were accused of illegal file sharing. The information that was leaked were unencrypted Excel spreadsheets, listing the names and addresses of people that ACS:Law had accused of illegally sharing media. One contained details of customers whom they had accused of illegally sharing pornography!

In light of the ACS: Law case, some ISPs in the UK resist efforts to divulge customer details to IPR holders. I urge the same is followed by our local ISPs in order to protect internet users’ privacy.

It should be remembered that customer data is protected under the upcoming Personal Data Protection Act 2010, which provides for a fine or imprisonment or to both in the event of a breach.

Lawyers appointed to act for IPR holders should also be vigilant when dealing with internet users. Solicitors who had been representing IPR holders were subject to public humiliation and harassment by internet users.


A partner of ACS: Law, one of the main targets.

Assuming that the Act would push through in any event, I urge our local ISPs to only take action or to provide customer information to IPR holders if they are satisfied that –

1. there is strong evidence to show infringing act has been committed by user, if possible only provide information if infringement is on a large or commercial scale or for commercial gain;
2. the requester’s storage system is secure, and they have given an undertaking that information will be kept securely e.g. encrypted;
3. the requester will only use that information for the purpose of pursuing legal action only and not to published it anywhere else; and
4. the requester is compelled to give access to the information obtained from ISPs to customers to ensure that a fair case can be fought.

Closing

I am not a file sharing advocate, and I do not condone internet piracy. I am only seeking to raise awareness of the repercussions of such a law. I hope what I have mentioned above is considered by the law and policy makers.

I would like to express my gratitude to David Wang of Blogjunkie.net for raising this issue on his blog.

Restoran Sin Tong Kok, Sri Jaya, Pahang Darul Makmur

I’ll start this blog entry with a lame joke which I heard from a friend.

Char Siew Pao (Roast pork steamed bun) and Tai Pao went to watch a sad movie.
After the movie, Tai Pao cried like a bitch. More than Char Siew Pao.
Why is that so?
Answer: Because Tai Pao got more filling (feeling).

Char Siew Pao and Tou Sa Pao (Red Bean Steamed Bun) went to watch a sad movie.
After the movie, Char Siew Pao cried but Tou Sa Pao didn’t.
Why is that so?
Answer: Because both of them have different “fillings” (feeling)

Char Siew Pao and Mantau went to watch a sad movie.
After the movie, Char Siew Pao cried but Mantau didn’t cry at all.
Why is that so?
Answer: Because Mantau has no “filling” (feeling)

Lame but it made me LOL.

Anyway, A and I was at Kuantan for a wedding. We didn’t have much time to explore Kuantan food but I’ve been to most of the recommended eateries in Kuantan. You can read my Kuantan Food Guide for details.

On our way back to KL, we dropped by Sri Jaya for their famous steamed bun. This explains why I have a lame joke about paos.

Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were told that the steamed buns were sold out. I was told that the steamed buns are sold from 12pm and it will usually finish by 2pm – 3pm. I was there at 3pm and all the steamed buns were sold out.

Instead, we were greeted with empty large dimsum baskets filled flies. MANY MANY FLIES. Thank God they ran out of steamed buns!


Immediately after this picture was taken, a fly flew into my car -__-

We decided to try something that isn’t covered with flies – egg tarts. For RM7, you can have 6 pieces of egg tarts of assorted flavours such as pandan, carrot and even dragon fruit! We chose the original, pandan and carrot flavours.

I must say that the egg tarts were awesome. The crust was moist but crunchy. I hope the flies didn’t play a part in it.


Pandan flavour is the best! Original flavour is good. Carrot is just so-so.

To those driving to Kuantan or from Kuantan, do drop by Restoran Sin Tong Kok. To get there, exit at Sri Jaya and head to Sri Jaya town. It’s a short drive from the toll.

Address
No 23, Jalan SJ 5/1,
26030 Maran
Pahang Darul Makmur
Tel: 09-4789861

November Babies Birthday 2010

I haven’t been blogging about my activities for a while now. I thought I would take the opportunity to blog about my high school buddies’ birthday celebration for those birthday which falls on November.

Dinner was held at Dorae Korean restaurant at Hartamas. Food was awesome. Side dishes came in non stop. BBQ pork, lamb and beef were tasty!

We had a private room. It was nice and cozy but it was a little bit hard to get the waiters’ attention. When ever we wanted them to replenish the side dishes, we will scream “MOAR!!!!!!!!!!”.

We shared a gift for the birthday boys/girl.


KF and Timothy both got a pair of Massimo Dutti cuff links each.


Peng got a bag full of moisturizer and cream.


This was WK’s reaction after we told him we forgot to buy him a present.


WK’s reaction after we told him we were just joking.

After dinner, we had drinks at Smoke & Fire at Gardens Mid Valley. The place was rather dead. There were only a few people there and we took up almost an entire section of the club.

We started off with couple of beers and stout and then moved to whiskey.

The highlight of the night is probably the Flaming Lamborghini. For RM70, I thought it was a little bit pricey but when we saw the thing being served, it was VALUE tou hai kamion!!!


It came with 3 additional shots of shitty stuff.


The entire bar table was on fire! I was reluctant to approach it initially as I fear that the fire will burn my hair and eyebrows -___-

Almost all of us vomited when we took a sip. Peng vomited all over the floor after a few gulp -___-

About 7 – 8 of us shared 3 flamings but we were defeated by it in the end. For the first time, we couldn’t finish our flamings!

We took it back to our table and drank it as shots. It was the worst drink ever.

Towards the end of the night, some of us decided to mix all leftover drinks together and drink it. It was a mixture of stout, beer, flaming and Graveyard.

I went home crashing on the bed immediately. I had to swear off drinks for 2 weeks. Until I meet this fellow…


Guinness and Strongbow mix. Stay tuned for this entry!

Quick, throw your CDs away! There’s a roadblock! – Part II

Remember my post on “Quick, throw your CDs away! There’s a roadblock!“? It was an article about the Government implementing a law to nab people with pirated DVDs.

Latest news is that the Government decided to scrap off this law. I wonder if the article I wrote had helped in scrapping the proposed law! Hehe! *perasan*

Maybe it’s because election is coming…

Pirated DVDs Buyers Let off

KUALA LUMPUR: The proposal to penalise those who buy pirated DVDs, VCDs and CDs will not be seeing the light of day after all.

Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob told the New Sunday Times that the proposal, which was mooted by the industry, had been shot down because the ‘public feels the move is too harsh’.

“The people think the proposal to amend the Copyright Act to this effect is too punitive. They fear the enforcement of the amendment.

“They are concerned about misuse of power during enforcement.

“As far as I am concerned, that won’t happen, but the public is afraid that the police will stop their cars or go into their homes to look for pirated DVDs and VCDs.

“Therefore, the proposal to criminalise the purchase of pirated DVDs, VCDs and CDs will not go through,” he said.

Expressing his disappointment, Malaysian Artistes’ Association president Datuk Freddie Fernandez said, however, that “we are in an era where CD piracy will soon be a thing of the past.”

“People are not buying pirated CDs any more as they can get their music free from the Internet. For us, Internet piracy is the bigger problem.

“We feel more effort should be focused on this area. Websites which offer illegal downloading should be shut down and people who file-share should be subject to prosecution.

“I think for CD piracy, the fines are very high for suppliers and this
is a good deterrent, but where the Internet is concerned, we need more enforcement.”

Recording Industry Association of Malaysia (RIM) chairman Norman Abdul Halim, who is also president and chief executive officer of KRU Studios, said while penalising copyright infringers is “ideal”, it is “a bit difficult to implement”.

“To be honest, the more serious threat is from the Internet. We hope the amendment to the Copyright Act will address Internet piracy — from Internet service provider liability to the ‘three strikes’ rule — where customers receive three warnings before their Internet connection is cut off.”

It had been initially reported that buyers of pirated DVDs and VCDs would be fined five times the price of the genuine product once the Copyright Act was amended.

This was greeted by public outrage with many arguing that it was the sellers who should be penalised and that it was unfair to take legal action against buyers when original DVDs were too expensive.

One of the drafters of the Consumer Protection Act 1999, Datuk Dr Sothi Rachagan, who is currently vice-president (academic affairs) of Nilai University College, said intellectual property (IP) should be protected, but the manner in which it is protected was also very important.

He said there were two central issues — the amount of protection the holder of IP rights is entitled to, and the manner in which protection is to be effected.

“If the amendments to the Copyright Act had been enacted, then we would, for the first time, begin penalising purchasers of pirated DVDs, VCDs and CDs.

“This is essentially criminalising consumer conduct which has hitherto not been criminal.

“Peddling pirated DVDs is always an offence, but the act of purchasing a single DVD for personal use, even if frowned upon, was never an offence.”

The law currently allows a person to be arrested if he has three copies or more of a pirated DVD or VCD of the same title, the presumption being that such a person is a peddler.

“Consumers would obviously ask why, when we have serious problems with counterfeit handbags, T-shirts and shoes and other fake products, is it only an offence to buy fake DVDs, VCDs or CDs?

“When you amend the law to apply to DVDs, VCDs and CDs, then shouldn’t it also apply to other fake products?

“Are we going to extend the law to these areas? If not, why not? Why should purchasers of these products be treated differently?”

There are also implementation issues to be considered.

“If I buy a pirated DVD now when it is not illegal, will it be illegal when the law comes into effect? Will the law have retrospective effect?

“If it does, that will be repugnant to any sense of justice. It is also against Article 7 of the Federal Constitution which says no person shall be punished for an act or omission which was not punishable by law when it was done or made.

“But if it does not have retrospective effect, then it will be necessary to establish that the purchase of the DVD or VCD was later than the date the amendment was gazetted,” said Sothi.

Then comes the question of enforcement, he said.

“Are they going to search houses and cars for pirated DVDs, VCDs and CDs? Who will be given the authority to search and take action? Is it going to be ministry enforcement officers, Rela, or will the police also be involved? Would a warrant be needed?”