Cyber Crime in Malaysia. (What you DON't have to do to get charged)

Cyber crimes. We hear that all the time. Fact is we get all these emails that could lead to fraud, too, most of the time. So what does constitute cyber crime? In this age of wired information, I managed to get to a document posted on the Royal Malaysian Police website. Now, this source should be credible right?

Written by Supt.Lim Hong Shuan, the document goes on to list Cyber Crime as prescribed by the Computer Crimes Act of 1997, Digital Signature act of 1997, and the Telemedicine act of 1997.

What the act outlines and the provisions of each of this act, I cannot get hold of.

But this much I can tell you.

A fellow Malaysian Blogger has been detained since 13th of July 2007 right here in the capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Whats even more interesting is that the team of three law enforcement officers claimed they were from the Federal Unit, Bukit Aman, only to be found out later that Nat (www.jelas.info) was held for investigation in the district headquarters of Dang Wangi.

Details are sketchy, but I have saw Nat's picture, he is not a gangster, and I do not know him to be a criminal either. Heck, he looks more like a librarian! But do visit these sites for more info, Nat is in a circle of friends that work tirelessly to give readers their true account of daily happennings.

Perhaps, it could be one of their stories that has landed him in this predicament.

But since when reporting is a crime? Oooops, does this mean that I am committing one now?

Your guess is as good as mine....You see, you really DON'T have to do much to get into trouble!

Read here, here and here for more on Nat.

cyber crimes

~cyber law in Malaysia~

In fact, compare to US, there are not many laws governing the cyberscape in Malaysia.

Since 1997, some of the cyber laws that have been passed by our Parliament include:

1. the Digital Signature Act 1997,

2. the Computer Crimes Act 1997,

3.  the Copyright (Amendment) Act 1997, (also read Copyright Act 1987)

4. the Telemedicine Act 1997,

5. the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998,

6. the Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1998, and

7. the Electronic Commerce Act 2006.

It was reported that the Government would introduce some new cyber laws  including: the Electronic Government Activities Bill and the Personal Data Protection Bill.

the Uploader and the Downloader

there are 2 activities that are always happen in cyberspace, either putting information into cyberspace or taking information out of cyberspace. At law in cyberspace, people who doing this activities are know as the uploader and the down loader. Under this theory, the uploader and the downloader act like spies in the classic information drop which  the uploader puts information into a location in cyberspace, and the downloader accesses it at a later time. there is no need for both of them to know each one identities. Unlike the classic information, everyone has to communicate with each other in order to share information Some areas of the Internet are accessed by hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, while others languish as untrodden paving stones on the seemingly infinite paths of cyberspace. 

In both civil and criminal law, most actions taken by uploaders and downloaders present no jurisdictional difficulties. A state can forbid, on its own territory, the uploading and downloading of material it considers harmful to its interests. A state can therefore forbid anyone from uploading a gambling site from its territory, and can forbid anyone within its territory from downloading, i.e. interacting, with a gambling site in cyberspace. For example, the Supreme Court recently declared the "Communications Decency Act" (CDA) unconstitutional for overbreadth and vagueness on a facial challenge, but therefore did not have a chance to address its international implications. Quite apart from the internal limitations of the U.S. Constitution, there is little doubt that, under international law, the United States has the jurisdiction to prescribe law regulating the content of what is uploaded from United States territory. Had the Supreme Court been presented with an actual case or controversy concerning the application of the CDA to a foreign national resident abroad, the Supreme Court would have had to consider the extraterritorial application of the law as written, and could have been expected to apply the presumption against extraterritoriality and to have circumscribed the CDA in that regard. 

in Malaysia, there is no jurisdiction about the down loader. everyone is free to download whatever they want for free especially song. i think there will be strict jurisdiction after this that will be amendment.

~what is exactly cyberspace?~

Where is cyberspace? The answers to this question: it is everywhere and nowhere; it exists in the smallest bursts of matter and energy and is called forth only by the presence of man through the intercession of an Internet provider.

If the answers are useless, it only shows that we are asking the wrong question. We should first ask: what is cyberspace? To this question at least a functional answer is possible. Functionally, cyberspace is a place. It is a place where messages and webpages are posted for everyone in the world to see, if they can find them.

The United States Supreme Court's first opinion about the Internet contains language that makes one hopeful that U.S. courts will accept the legal metaphor of cyberspace as a place outside national boundaries: "Taken together, these tools constitute a unique medium -- known to its users as 'cyberspace'-- located in no particular geographical location but available to anyone, anywhere in the world, with access to the internet." the picture can explain what is cyberspace.

i think the picture will make all of u wondering. that is the clue what i'll be writing next time. wait and see guys