How To Steal Code and Get Away With It

Open source or Free Software is said to be the act of allowing others to view and download your source codes without conditions other than they must maintain the same fervour when redistributing it to others. But that is academic. My question is what if the one who takes from you break that rule? Who is the police to stop them in such an act? I know there is a site where you can report such offenders, but how do you enforce something that is dificult to trace in the wild world web?

Take for instance if someone was to take Linux and relabel it as MyStuff and not distribute it but sell it to a naive obscure country that has no web access nor ministry of ICT. He would have made his millions and be long gone. So to me here is the moral of the story. He won't be the only one who has that idea. As there are many theives who eye a bank, so are there even more, much more simpletons who eye readily available codes. So many in fact, that as we speak they are already peddling them in unknown ways and unknown places.

With such a high proliferation of smut activity, it won't be smut for long. The ubiquity of a crime renders it ineffective because the would be buyer already knows about it within the shortest time possible. The following is a probable conversation you may come across if you were to push your fast gotten wares:

"Excuse me, can you take me to your leader, you know, head of this banana republic"

"Ok, whats in it for me?"

"Hmm... gatekeeper eh? Ok, tell you what, how about you help make close the deal and i make you my country manager with 30% commissions?"

"Well, i think i prefer upfront, and in cash, and please not in my local currency. It is already at 100,000% inflation around here, so in USD please. On second thoughts, please make that in Euros. On third thought please hand me some gold bars or diamond pieces".

"Hmm, well ok, but at the moment as you can see i got no such cash or stones. Do i look like some rich punk to you? I wouldn't be here if i am rich. Ok, tell you what. Why don't i tell you a bit about Open Source, its dark secrets and you take it and make money with your government?"

"Heh, sounds ok? What must i do?"

"Hang on, not so fast. You got to pay me first before i can tell you!"

So, this kind of medicinal story can be retold in many combinations but you probably already know from your own devious attempts at cooking up your own angles of cashing in. Perhaps you like to share some of your real life experiences or otherwise fantasies here.

Now, Who Told Me So?

I positioned myself for the best view of the TV screen in one downtown mamak stall enjoying the ticker tape of elections results when I heard loud cheers from another long array of tables behind me, who seemed not to be watching the screen but their mobile phones. The results were known to them and as far as they were concerned, the elections are over. They left their tables early, an unusual happening during such nailbiting nights. For me, my oohs and aahs came many excruciating hours later. The recently concluded 12th Malaysian General Elections has brought in more surprises than anyone can bear, both sides included. Post mortems are now underway. Hypotheses are abound.

In such a chaotic scenery, I set foot to conduct my own private investigation. Well, since a winning party in Kedah, Perak and Selangor belongs to the Islamic Party PAS, which i left officially in 1995, i have to dig back some old name cards and phone bills to locate some feeler to get me up to date. I first rang up Suhaimi Said, a long time social activist who has jumped from the ruling malay party UMNO to a socialist party and then the islamic party and then back to square one and so forth.

"Duan! Come back!" his clear still youthful voice rang out. He was asking me to come back into politics and join the strongest opposition faction this time around which is the Justice Party (Keadilan) headed by the ex-deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

"But i just want to know why the huge loss!" I rang back. I am already retired from the ding dong politics for now, no thank you.

"Well, you do not have to be back in PAS if that doesn't fit your cup of tea. This Keadilan is a multi-racial one. People want an alternative to the ruling multi-racial front and Keadilan is it".

Not wishing to stick my ears with more lobbying rather than factual accounts i rang a ruling Umno stronghold cell that fell to the opposition in Shah Alam.

"Azmi, what happened to the Malays? It was all so quiet. How come no one knew this is coming?"

"Duan, we re all fed up. We do not like Pak Lah (the Prime Minister) at all. We have been like that for a long time. Its not just the price of oil and food. It is their arrogance. The Malays just want to teach those leaders a lesson."

"So you mean to say that previously with even worst problems of rising cost and bad leaders which it never happened, and now it just happened? No one told me so back then. They always say the Malays are loyal. So what really makes it snap this time? Is it Anwar?"

"No, no, not so much with Anwar. It is pure fed-up with those idiots running our nation. What is this junk they trying to feed us with? Northern corridor bull, eastern corridor bull. All copy and paste from Mahathir's time. He is not like Mahathir. He has no idea."

More preplexed, i have to sit in front of another old friend from PAS who is a constant writer and now blogger.

"Well Duan. Frankly i am at a lost myself. I really do not understand the elections results at all. If there is a mood swing. How come its intact and even increased margins for certain Umno places? Perhaps its an internal feud right up to the ex Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir who has been lambasting this present PM for some time. His son, Mukhriz was thrown to a shark infested place while other young punks in UMNO got safe seats. Now the sharks spared Mukhriz and bitten those punks instead. Serve them right."

Hmm, this sounded more analytical. Then i rang a state head of the Malay Chamber of Commerce and he came back with this, "Duan, its due to 2 big issues. One is Khairy, the son-in-law of the PM. Second is Islam Hadhari".

"I can accept the first one. I mean yep Khairy is bit too young and placing his turks all over does hurts many old toes, but Islam as an issue in parochial UMNO? I thought Islam is issue among opposition. We re talking Umno voters themselves getting their ballot papers reversed here."

"We already told the PM. But he is stubborn. He acknowledges but does nothing."

"So last question. Is he going down?"

"Nah, i think he is driving through. Bit shaky but should survive."

Still bit shaken but not stirred, I headed to someone (Malik Husin) who has followed in my trail into Umno in 1995, somewhat coincidently we not been together that election season chosed to switch camps from PAS to UMNO on our own separate accord. I eventually left politics all together when nobody in UMNO really gave me any tasks, and the Reformasi movement by Anwar send a signal up my brain that, this is enough. No more ding dong. Politics is getting dirty as usual. But for this other guy, he was close with Anwar and soon played an important think tank role on the ground, ending up been detained as well. Now he runs a highly critical NGO called Mafrel, that watches the elections process to ensure its fairness. In doing so, he is quite close to both sides.

"Duan, the elections process is a headache. Those forms 14, 15, 16 are not easy to be issued. The opposition alternative media can publish faster. But without those forms you cannot form the next government. You cannot just walk into the Sultan's palace grinning without any papers."

"Yes Malik, but what is the real cause of the swing?"

"In my opinion i think this time UMNO was too confident and committed political hara kiri when they focused on retaking the east coast, leaving the west coast undefended."

My last call was on a UMNO state information secretary. For health reasons his identity cannot be revealed at this time.

"Duan, *coughs*, i think Khairy is still strong. *coughs* So you better rethink about reactiviating your UMNO membership and support him. *coughs*coughs*"

"Yes, bro, but isn't there a second wave now? This Mukhriz has called on PM to resign and i hear heavy storm ahead for the party elections soon. Many may nominate his deputy, Najib to take over."

"Yeah, but this Khairy is different. Don't look at the fact that he married PM's daughter. He is Oxford material. I studied him. He is becoming an institution. He may survive. Let's see what people are really made off".

On my long drive back home, i kept making calls to others. Some say the 2nd wave is serious since they themselves didn't get any projects from this regime. Some say the Malays will suffer more, now that the traditional DAP is really rejuvenated as a formidable opposition in its own right, now taking control of the northern Penang, it is rearing its anti affirmative action head.

Whatever it is, it is always a case of leadership, irrespective of authority of it. Clear leadership must rise from the people, and its best to be more balanced and moderate rather than thriving in extremities. Remember, remember, for those who are as old or older than i am. For those who are younger i do fear. For they remember not.

Did the Web Bring Down Barisan Nasional?

Is the internet a significant factor of Barisan Nasional's dramatic lost of 4 more states in the recent Malaysian general elections? After the wild fires of oohs and aahs died down, many have put forth grand theories as to the true and wholesale reasons of how the mighty Barisan Nasional could have fallen. Some have argued en vogue ideas such as the presence and role of bloggers from ‘alternative media’ comprising also of mobile phone smses, emails and youtube movies as a force to be reckoned with. Such theories seems plausible as it is the internet age after all, and it ‘changes everything’ as one branded vendor used to say. But is that true? Can a government be brought down in 4 states unexpectedly through the web? What else can be the reason? Is it high fuel prices? The price of chicken meat coupled with sugar and flour? Arrogance of present representatives of the people? Backlash from over-exposure in mass media of one-sided content? Barrack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ slogan ringing in our ears? How about ‘all of the above’?
Instantly messaged theories such as those above reminded the author of how pundits explained away the stock market crashes. It is often after-the-fact and never before-the-fact. No one could predict the future, but they are often perfect journalists who can tell you yesterday’s events and hoping them to be historical truths. But still those journalistic narratives aren’t quite historically balanced. If we study the history of web usage among political trends, we can see that it was used extensively and even popularly during the 1999 general elections where the sentiment against the ruling BN was even stronger. Welcome to the birth of MalaysiaKini.com. But when they didn’t make much impact on the majority of the ruling Barisan, that doomsday theory didnt gain favour among the more traditional news reporting.
At the same time all the way to the other side of the globe, where internet usage is at its highest among its populace, we see how the hot blazing American presidential elections is greatly fought not entirely in the web, blogs or mailling lists, but still highly on billboards, prime-time TV debates, advertisings and well hand-shoke endorsements. It is still business as usual in the land of the brave and free and the web is not having centre stage at all. And the author doesn’t think so even if all 6.5 billion people on the planet has internet access and an IPhone each. Battles of the hearts and minds are still affected by sometimes unsensational factors.
Take for instance an unremarkable reason here: UMNO, the main coalition partner’s infamous and now quite boring infighting. It is historically shown that a weakened or decamped ruling UMNO creates a bigger mess at the ballot box. During the previous crises such as where UMNO split into two teams A and B, with the later forming Semangat 46 we see BN losing Kelantan entirely in 1990’s general elections. Then in 1999, the Anwar Ibrahim’s factor resulted in Terengganu been swept off in similar fashion. However with the return to stability and sanity of the party machinery within UMNO it can withstand the wildest of storms and still maintain its two-thirds majority. It also won back Terengganu and almost did so for Kelantan the previous time. This time around the infighting is deeper than admitted. The telling clue is seen when Perlis’ Menteri Besar, Shahidan Kassim reverted of what could have been a clean sweep of the northern corridor when he insist on having his way of his incumbent camp for the candidates’ list. Thus we see the tsunami of change stopping magically right at Perlis’ doorsteps. So is it quite the case with the southern part of the peninsular. Or in East Malaysia where people doesnt seem to drive cars or eat chicken or surf the internet. What else can we use to explain the unevenness of the outcome? Broadband facility is so cheap and widespread in whole of Malaysia but the returning ballots are coloured clearly along where the internal machinery is stronger or not. Therefore we see that the use of the internet as an alternative media is not entirely effective. So before people start creating more dotcoms in MalaysiaBoleh land and our gullible PC salespeople started pushing more wares into undigitisable areas en route to another silly bubble, the ruling classes better stand on hard ground and take a good second look at its own human ‘infrastructure’ of rank, file and all. And that goes for the new winners too. For an all out replay in about 4 years time.