Finally, our police force is doing something about this since identity theft is happening quite frequently around the world.

Police to be trained in cybersecurity

KUALA LUMPUR: The International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber Threats (Impact) is planning conduct cybersecurity courses for the Royal Malaysian Police.

The course, which aims to help the police force better deal with identity theft and other cybersecurity cases, is expected to be unveiled in the first quarter of next year.

Although the course subjects are still being planned, Impact said that data forensics will be one of the first subjects to be offered.

Impact also plans to offer the course as a service to police forces in its 42 member countries.

According to Impact chairman, Datuk Mohd Noor Amin, people are getting more concerned about online security, especially when it involves their identity, compared to 10 years ago.

However, identity theft and cybersecurity aren’t easy problems to solve even if one has international organisations such as the Interpol on their side.

Amin added that because laws to protect against identity theft are poorly enforced or don’t exist, the successful prosecution of identity thieves are not high as they should be.

This is because laws vary between countries and it is difficult to charge a cybercriminal because although victims of the crime are in one country, the servers used may be somewhere else.

“Which law should be used then?” Amin asked at a recent roundtable discussion about cybersecurity.

Ideally, laws on identity theft should be enforced considering how easy a criminal can obtain someone’s identity, he said.

According to a study done by information security company Symantec, 57% of the time people lose their identities because they have lost their laptops or thumbdrives.

“Only 17% is caused by hackers stealing them but either way, there aren’t proper laws to keep one’s identity secure,” said Mark Bregman, Symantec chief technology officer.

Bregman added that privacy and identity theft is a growing concern in the United States with about 200 million identity records exposed there last year.

As it is now a serious issue, Amin said that governments around the world should naturally respond to this concern.

“There needs to be a political will to drive this and I’m glad that there are already governments that are moving towards this direction,” he said.

Amin also hoped that more countries will eventually have some sort of privacy law that will prevent their personal data from being exploited by unscrupulous parties.

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/12/4/technology/20091204113310&sec=technology

No link between cell phones and brain cancer

Good news for hand phone users as their is no direct correlation between cell phone and brain tumours, at least in this study.

Study: No link between cell phones and brain cancer

LOS ANGELES: A latest study by Nordic researchers, found that there is no apparent link between cell phones and brain cancer, China's Xinhua news agency reported, citing the online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology at the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen based their conclusion on a 30-year examination of the incidents of brain tumors in Scandinavia.

For the study, the researchers collected data on 60,000 people diagnosed with glioma and meningioma (types of brain tumours) in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden between 1974 and 2003, Xinhua said.

The researchers found that the incidence of brain tumors over this 30-year period were stable, starting before cell phones became popular.

In addition, there was no change in the incidence of brain tumors between 1998 and 2003, a period of rapid increase in cell phone usage, the researchers noted.

"If mobile phones were to cause brain tumors, we would expect to see a sudden rise in the number of brain tumors at some point in time, and we don't see it," said lead researcher Isabelle Deltour.

However, Deltour leaves the door open to the possibility that widespread cell phone use has not been around long enough to see an increase in brain tumors.

"Either it means that mobile phones don't cause brain tumors or it means that we don't see it yet or we don't see it because the increase is too small to be observed in this population, or it is a risk that is limited to a small subgroup of the population," she said.

Despite new findings, doubts linger about whether cell phones cause brain cancer.

Commenting on that study, Dr. Deepa Subramaniam, director of the Brain Tumor Center at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, D.C., said: "We cannot make any definitive conclusions about this.

“But this study, in addition to all the previous studies, continues to leave lingering doubt as to the potential for increased risk. So, one more time, after all these years, we don't have a clearcut answer." Deltour said her team would continue to look at the rates of brain tumors in the study group. - Bernama

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/4/nation/20091204160648&sec=nation

Good news to heart patients

Heart patients can have a safer heart surgery at IJM without going overseas.

IJN can now replace heart valves without open heart surgery

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Heart Institute (IJN) achieved another milestone by performing the first heart valve implant in Asia without the need for open surgery.

Known as transcathether aortic valve implantation (Tavi), the procedure allowed problematic valves in the aorta to be replaced with an articifial one by using a tube that is 6mm in diametre known as a cathether.

The tube is inserted either at the thigh area or below the left collar bone and then slid through arteries to the heart.

And the procedures has a 99% success rate.

“Patients, who have gone through Tavi, will be able to move around on the third day after the implant but they would be required to lie down during the first 24 hours,” said IJN medical director Datuk Seri Dr Robaayah Zambahari.

She was speaking to a press conference to announce the achievement at IJN here Friday.

The procedure, which uses a device called CoreValve, causes less trauma to body tissues and enables a faster recovery compared to the conventional open heart surgery as only incisions are made at certain areas to insert the tube.

Dr Robaayah was part of the team of IJN consultants that performed the procedure on the first patient, a 73-year-old man who suffered from severe narrowing of heart valves and a second patient, a 77-year-old man on November 25.

The third patient was National Laureate Datuk Shahnon Ahmad, 76 who was treated the next day.

The team included cardiologists Datuk Dr Rosli Mohd Ali, Dr Shaiful Azmi and cardiothoracic surgeons Datuk Dr Mohd Azhari Yakub, Dr Jeswant Dillon as well as anaesthesiologists Datuk Dr Mohamed Hassan Ariff and Dr Sharifah Suraya.

The procedure was assisted by Dr Ganesh Manoharan, a consultant interventional cardiologist from Ireland, who will also overlook the operations of the next 12 to 15 patients.

“The 12 to 15 patients are currently on the waiting list to be certified by IJN and the costs of their operation will be borne by IJN.

“After that, patients need to know that the CoreValve device will be RM112,000 while another RM10,000 will be needed for other operation costs,” she said, adding that she hoped the Health Ministry would offer support and subsidise the procedures for the public in future.

Dr Robaayah said there has yet to be any case of a patient’s body rejecting the artificial valve made out of a type of metal called Nitinol.

“The procedure takes an average time of 45 minutes to one and a half hours. We took about two and a half hours for the first patient because we were still learning about the procedure and wanted to be careful,” she said, adding that the method was only performed on high-risk patients such as the elderly, so far.

Dr Ganesh said local anaesthesia was used on the patients so that they remained awake during the procedure but did not feel any pain.

“It is not surprising to see patients smiling as we conduct the procedure on them,” he said.

“About 50 centres worldwide are applying this technology but it is more suitable for this region since Asian blood vessels are generally smaller,” Dr Ganesh added.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/4/nation/20091204162432&sec=nation

Astro Going HD

Astro finally announces the future prospects of going HD with detail this time and its coming out before end of the year(prays) but it seems that we need to upgrade our decoder and satellite dish to enjoy the benefits.

Hopefully to those who upgrade, there will be no rain distortion as there is a new satellite being launched.

Astro to go HD

If you have bought a HDTV and been complaining about the lack of high definition content from Astro, hold on to your horses because the company is set to introduce its HD service by the end of the year.

The company has been quietly upgrading its infrastructure, from cameras to launching the Measat 3A satellite, and is ready to roll out HD programming on its satellite network, said Paul Dale, Astro’s chief technology officer.

The HD channels that are going to be launched will be in 720p (1,280 x 720-pixels) which is the current HD broadcast standard. However, not all channels will be available in HD.

The first phase of the rollout will include popular channels, namely sports, documentaries and movie channels with more to come in the near future.

Details on the particular channels that will go HD will only be available at the launch date but it’s a given that the National Geographic and ESPN channels will be available in HD.

Local programming in HD is currently in the second phase of the plan and Astro is currently in the process of upgrading video cameras and other equipment.

To receive HD broadcast, consumers will be required to upgrade their TVs to HDTVs as well as change the current set-top box and satellite dish.

On top of the HD broadcasts, Astro is also working on a number of new services including a revamped channel guide and other new features.

The new set-top box will have a HDMI connection, composite outputs, Ethernet port, an USB port and even a digital audio output for 5.1-channel surround sound audio.

The Ethernet port on the set-top box even allows for the delivery of the video channels via the wired broadband connection although this, again, is in a future phase.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the new set-top box is that it comes with a high speed USB port so that you can connect any external hard disk to turn receiver into a digital recorder.

You can’t distribute the video on the hard disk though as each programme recorded is protected by DRM, so that it can only be viewed using the set-top box.

However, the video recording feature will not be available in the first stage of the rollout and will be enabled in a future firmware update.

The official consumer launch will be before the year-end.

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2009/12/2/technology/20091202170727&sec=technology

MCA= Malaysia Copy Association?

Liow Tiong Lai's effort on making a promotional video for the 28th November EGM came under fire for copying Ma Ying-jeou's video. The video is below at the end of the post.

Liow under fire over Net clip

PETALING JAYA: The MCA crisis is not only making headlines in Malaysia, it has also become a hot news item in Taiwan.

Party vice-president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and those aligned to him have been accused of being copycats in producing an Internet video clip similar to a campaign video of Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou.

The three-minute video clip, titled MCA MIRT 1128, is available on YouTube.

The content urged MCA central delegates to attend the Nov 28 extraordinary general meeting, which was later cancelled and replaced with a special briefing session.

Taiwanese news portal http://news.msn.com.tw also carried a story criticising the clip, saying Liow and his group had learned the worst from their Taiwanese counterpart, the Kuomintang (KMT).

Taiwanese television station TVBS also pointed out that Liow’s video had copied almost all the content from Ma’s video, and only replaced the word “Taiwan” with “MCA” and “kind” with “integrity”.

As at press time yesterday, the video has been viewed 14,898 times with 277 comments; with some users calling the MCA the Malaysia Copy Association.

Meanwhile, MCA central committee member Datuk Ti Lian Ker challenged Liow to prove that 1,193 central delegates attended the Nov 28 briefing.

Ti said he would wait for Liow at the MCA headquarters at 11am on Friday to see the evidence.

In a press statement, he said Liow had failed to allow professional verification and an audit on the attendance as pledged earlier.

“Liow’s number of 1,193 central delegates does not tally with the figure confirmed by the Special Affairs Department under the Information, Communications and Culture Ministry that placed 547 central delegates attending the EGM,” he said.

He also asked Liow to be transparent and give an accounting of the amount he had received and spent.

Ti said Liow, the leader of the MCA Integrity Restoration Task Force (MIRT), must be reminded that he was slowly destroying himself and the party by walking away from his talk.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/1/nation/5211095&sec=nation

Beware of your Astro Technician

This is something written in the reader's section of the Star and it seemed a bit scary on how the info at Astro is easily

Astro’s apathy putting customers’ lives in danger

MY Astro service was giving me problems as there were no images. I called Astro Customer Services and they assured me that their technician would return my call.

They gave me the report number, saying that it was essential for the technician to quote the number before making an appointment with me and entering my premises.

The Astro technician called me and read back the report number and informed me when he would come by to check on the problems. I was comforted by that.

At the first scheduled appointment he did not show up. This caused me problems as I had taken a day’s leave for the technician.

I called the same technician and made another appointment for the next day. Again I took a day’s leave and fortunately, he showed up.

He quoted the report number. Astro Customer Services had assured me that the one who got the number correct would be the authorised technician.

He took several hours as in midway he had to go to get the remote as he claimed he had not brought it with him. Another full day went to waste.

He did some repairs and charged me a certain amount. But, then that night, my television programmes had technical problems again.

I called Astro and they said they did not know who the technician was that came to my place and assigned me a new technician. I had to apply for leave a third time.

The new technician said the previous technician was an intruder. My life and that of my children’s were actually at stake. Astro took the matter lightly.

The new technician even said he was aware of such an intruder but could not pinpoint the leak in Astro. He even mentioned the bogus technician’s name.

I was even further shocked when the technician told me that Astro was aware of the bogus technician who had done several dodgy jobs for Astro customers.

When I checked with Customer Services, they reluctantly admitted that they were aware of the bogus technician for some months now.

I am shocked that Astro did not take the necessary safety measures to safeguard its customers.

To make matters worse, Astro Customer Services personnel said they have to get approval from higher ups to reimburse the money I paid the bogus technician.

I had to take three days leave and had to live with the fact that my family and I could have been robbed, raped or even murdered as a result of Astro’s negligence.

It is pointless for Astro to keep raising their fees when they provide such bad service and put their customers’ lives at risk of danger. To add insult to injury, it does not seem to care.

WORRIED ASTRO CUSTOMER,

Petaling Jaya.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/12/1/focus/5211117&sec=focus