Indonesia’s MetroTV drops the show, due to the host’s tweets?
Posted on April 7, 2011 by Budi Putra in Media, People, Politics
Metro TV news director Tomi Suryopratomo said they dropped the “Talk Indonesia” show –which had discussed hot news topics in English since November 2010– based on a certain review, but not because of tweets made Wimar Witoelar, one of its hosts. “We need more leisurely and less serious programs for the weekends,” Suryopratomo said.
But Mr. Witoelar, a former presidential spokesman, told The Jakarta Globe that the problem began after he sent Twitter messages on the station’s “Editorial Pagi”. Looks like the tweets were “insulting to Metro TV’s owner, Surya Paloh, even though his name was never mentioned in the tweets,” the Globe writes.
[via The Jakarta Globe]
Egypt shuts the net, net strikes back!
Posted on January 29, 2011 by Budi Putra in Featured, Media, Politics, Tech
Egypt Internet shutdown is worst in the history, experts say. “It’s a first in the history of the Internet,” Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro told AFP. “In 24 hours we have lost 97 per cent of Egyptian Internet traffic,” said Julien Coulon, co-founder of Cedexis, a French Internet monitoring system.
But okay. In a response to the Egypt Internet shutdown, this approach might be help — in order to keep connecting to the Internet:
…the French non-profit ISP French Data Network set up a dial-up Internet access. This way, anyone in Egypt who has access to a analog phone line and can call France is able to connect to the network using the following number: +33 1 72 89 01 50 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +33 1 72 89 01 50 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +33 1 72 89 01 50 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +33 1 72 89 01 50 end_of_the_skype_highlighting (login: toto, password: toto).”
Dear our Egyptian friends, please share your experience if this works well from your country. Thanks and good luck!
[via Slashdot]
UPDATE January 31: Google, Twitter build Speak to Tweet for Egyptians
China blocks citizens searching ‘Egypt’ online
Posted on January 29, 2011 by Budi Putra in Media, Politics
China blocks searches with keywords “egypt”, “riot” and likes from the country’s most popular microblogging service, Al Jazeera confirms.
A search for “Egypt” on the Sina microblogging service brings up a message saying, “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not shown”.
[Source]
Wikileaks hits Indonesia
Posted on December 13, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Law, Media, Politics, Tech
An Indonesian minister said there were over 3,000 documents about Indonesia on Wikileaks website, The Jakarta Post reports. Communications and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring’s team was currently retrieving and learning the documents — which include information on the J.W. Marriot bombings, riots in Papua and Indonesian military activities.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s own ‘version’ of WikiLeaks called IndoLeaks, just went live on Friday. According to The Jakarta Globe, the new site just published some documents include reports on the murder of activist Munir, the disastrous Sidoarjo mudflow and a transcribed conversation between Indonesian and U.S. President regarding Indonesia’s policy on East Timor before the December 1975 invasion.
OpenLeaks, WikiLeaks’ new rival
Posted on December 10, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Law, Media, Politics, Tech
Some Wikileakers are leaving –due to the organization’s objectives, Julian Assange’s leadership issue and personal problems– and will launch new project called “OpenLeaks” on Monday.
Unlike WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye.
OpenLeaks intends to establish itself as a neutral intermediary ”without a political agenda except from the dissemination of information to the media, the public, non-profit organizations, trade- and union organizations and other participating groups.”
Source: DN.se
Wikileaks supporter Anonymous ousted from Facebook, Twitter
Posted on December 9, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Law, Media, Tech
Looks like Wikileaks accounts on Facebook and Twitter are safe so far, but Anonymous’ Operation PayBack account appears to have been suspended from both services.
4chan-based group ‘Anonymous’ is a major supporter for Julian Assange’s whistleblowers organization. The movement describes itself as “an ongoing campaign by Anonymous against major anti-piracy & anti-freedom entities”.
From its Twitter account, @Anon_Operation, Anonymous recently informed that its Facebook page was just removed –following the take-down of the Visa website; later its Twitter account itself was also suspended — right after it tweeted a link to leaked MasterCard credit card numbers [both MasterCard and Visa recently suspended all donation payments to Wikileaks’ accounts].
Updated: Anonymous’s @Anon_Operation account is back!
Updated 2: Cyber guru Jack Schofield tweeted: “Anonymous’s @Anon_Operation account, which was suspended then brought back, has been suspended again. Possibly an accident; possibly not“.
Wikileaks strikes back, powered by 4chan’s hordes
Posted on December 8, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Law, Media, Tech
The latest in the WikiLeaks drama: 4chan-based group ‘Anonymous’ has successfully taken down the website of Mastercard.com following the attacks to Paypal and Swiss bank PostFinance, which have both refused service to Julian Assange‘s Wikileaks. [But the operation is still alive thanks to Flattr, a small startup created by Peter Sunde (@brokep), one of the masterminds behind Pirate Bay].
VentureBeat describes the 4chan’s troops movement:
A 4chan spokesman named “Coldblood” has said that any web site that is “bowing down to government pressure” is a potential target of DDoS attacks, which flood a site with requests until it is shut down. The attacks are being performed under the name Operation Payback, which has also initiated attacks against anti-piracy groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America. If the campaign is valid, then Amazon, EveryDNS.net, MasterCard, Visa and others could also be targets — since all have cut off WikiLeaks.
Since 4chan and WikiLeaks themselves have also come under attack, cyber guru John Perry Barlow warned, “The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.”
Check-out the profile of ‘Anonymous’ here!
Twitter, Facebook won’t block Wikileaks, for now
Posted on December 7, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Law, Media, Politics, Tech
Twitter denied that it is censoring WikiLeaks from its list of trending topics, while Facebook says the Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate their content standards. Looks like Wikileaks accounts on both social networking services are safe –at least, for now.
Wikileaks has more than 400,000 followers on Twitter and the Wikileaks page on Facebook has nearly 1 million fans.
Twitter says:
Twitter is not censoring #wikileaks, #cablegate or other related terms from the Trends list of trending topics. Our Trends list is designed to help people discover the most breaking news from across the world, in real-time. The list is generated by an algorithm that identifies topics that are being talked about more right now than they were previously.
Could Twitter offer some specific explanation why phrases like “Inception” or “Oil Spill” could constantly trend? Another weird explanation –not from Twitter– saying that #wikileaks cannot trend because it’s also a username. But why does #FollowFriday or #JustinBieber or #TheWalkingDead, which is also a username, trend?
Okay, let’s wait until Twitter or another could provide a better explanation on this. Now let’s take a look at Facebook, which seems to say Wikileaks account is safe.
Facebook says:
The Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies.
But, according to CNET, that’s just a well-crafted statement and keeps leaving open possibility Facebook change their decision –yeah, since a congressman wants WikiLeaks listed as terrorist group. Same thing with Twitter case: Asked whether Twitter will permit the Wikileaks account to remain online or might be shut down sometime soon, Twitter’s Matt Graves says, “We’ve got no additional comment beyond the statement.”
Despite Wikileaks leader Julian Assange is hiding on the run now, but he may be named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2010, according to in the magazine’s online poll.
UPDATE –Just in: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested at a London police station: reports (via @abcnews)
UPDATE 2: Belfast Telegraph reports:
Scotland Yard has confirmed that Julian Assange has been arrested by police in England.
A warrant had been processed by the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency and was sent by the Metropolitan Police.
Mr Assange, believed to be residing in South-east England, is a suspect in a case in which two women claim they were sexually attacked by him when he visited Sweden in August this year.
Now PayPal bans Wikileaks!
Posted on December 5, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Media, Tech
Amazon recently kicked WikiLeaks off of its servers; EveryDNS.net terminated the DNS of the whistleblowers organization‘s domain; and now PayPal has suspended the account that Wikileaks has used to receive donations!
PayPal Inc., the payment processor owned by EBay Inc., said in a statement on its blog:
PayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We have notified the account holder of this action.
Too much for the freedom of speech!
Find all Wikileaks mirror sites here!
Posted on December 3, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Media, Tech
The troubles continue for Wikileaks. After Amazon Web Services terminated Wikileaks website’s hosting, EveryDNS.net, DNS services provider for wikileaks.org domain, just terminated the DNS at 10 PM EST, December 2, 2010.
Then the whistleblowers organization’s website was moved to a Switzerland hosting provider; you can now access it at http://wikileaks.ch which points to http://213.251.145.96/. [Please keep in mind that .ch is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Switzerland, instead of a China address, for instance :-) ]
Another good news: You can also find all current Wikileaks mirrors here, just in case another mirror is also down sometimes –yeah, who knows.
UPDATE (Dec. 6): Wikileaks now has 355 mirror sites!
Amazon stops hosting Wikileaks website
Posted on December 2, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Media, Tech
Amazon.com Inc has stopped WikiLeaks’ website hosting due to a political pressure after the website published leaked US embassy documents, forcing the controversial group then to move its website to a European provider. Wikileaks said in a Twitter message: “If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”
WikiLeaks is an international non-profit media organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous sources and leaks. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.
WikiLeaks won the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award; and the 2009 Amnesty International human rights reporting award (New Media).
Internet in Vietnam: Freedom dilemma
Posted on November 28, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Tech
DESPITE THESE DAYS Facebook is still blocked by the Government (well, a good news: Twitter is just fine here!), there is a good thing about Vietnam that I discovered on my Vietnam trip right now: Free hot-spots everywhere.
I noticed that almost all hotels, cafes and restaurants –in this case, in Ho Chi Minh City– offer free Wi-Fi connections. [Tips: Try to book a hotel in Vietnam through an online reservation, you'll find almost all hotel reservations offer free Wi-Fi!]. For instance, although I just got “low signal strength” on my hotel’s room, the connection’s speed is still amazing. Three or four times faster than my home’s Speedy connection in Jakarta.
The Government know what the Internet technology means for country’s future prosperity –that’s why they are keen to promote it. Four years ago, the Vietnamese government has announced plans to increase the country’s Internet penetration to 35% by 2010, and looks like the initiative already paid-off: Vietnam is now among the Top 20 Internet-using countries in the world, according to the U.S.-based Pingdom website monitoring service.
With more than 26 million users (including 3,5 million broadband subscribers), Vietnam is becoming one of most connected countries in the Southeast Asia region. If the Government could be a regulations-friendly authorities and finally solve “Internet freedom dilemma”, I think it’s just the matter of time to see the Communist State in Southeast Asia becomes another Asia’s miracle!
[Photo credit]
