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

Teenager followed bogus cops because she has police record

This is the follow up news to Ka Chuan rescues rape victim at highway rest area.

Shows that you should not belive anyone whom you just met. 

GEORGE TOWN: The teenager, who was allegedly abducted and raped by two bogus policemen, was earlier detained along with a group of teenagers reported missing by their parents in Johor in the middle of this year.

It was due to this previous detention that led to the victim, 19, into following the “policemen” as she thought her assistance was still needed over the missing persons investigations.

State deputy CID chief Supt Nashir Ya said the victim followed the duo, aged 19 and 36, without suspecting anything amiss when they turned up at her hotel room in Jalan Trang here.

“Initial investigation revealed that it was just a coincidence that they bumped into the victim who had previous police records. She just followed them without questioning their identity.”

In May this year, five teenagers - three girls and two boys - all aged 16, were found in an apartment unit on Macallum Street Ghaut here after being reported missing in Johor Baru by their parents.

The victim and her three other friends, aged between 16 and 21, were subsequently arrested for allegedly abducting the teenagers.

However, police investigation showed they were cleared of any wrongdoing as they were merely acting as good Samaritans by offering the five teenagers a place to stay.

On Thursday, the victim was rescued by Tanjung Malim MP Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan at the North-South Expressway’s Slim River rest area, who drove her to the Slim River police station to lodge a report.

The girl’s ordeal began after midnight on Wednesday when two men who claimed to be policemen went to her hotel room in Trang Road here where she was staying with her two sisters and two male friends.

The men took her away after claiming the girl was needed to help in an investigation. However, they drove her to a hotel in Alor Setar where she alleged she was raped.

Meanwhile, George Town OCPD Asst Comm Azam Abd Hamid said the two suspects had since been remanded until Monday to facilitate investigation over the matter.

“Once the remand order expires, we will hand them over to our counterpart in Kedah as the alleged rape was said to have taken place in Alor Setar,” he said.

He said the victim had since been sent to the Penang Hospital for a medical check-up.

“We are still waiting for the report. An identification parade will be held soon,” he said when contacted.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/24/nation/20091024171929&sec=nation

Man tries to con teacher into having sex

They are really naive.

A temporary teacher with a secondary school in Seremban was almost fooled into having sex with her colleague after he pretended to be an undercover special health officer researching “diseases affecting female teachers.”

The teacher - known only as Hani - claimed that the married man in his 30s had even asked for his undercover identity to be kept from his wife, who is teaching in the same school, and from the school principal.

In a report in Kosmo!, Hani, 24, said the teacher had told her that his research comprised three phases, the first of which would require her to answer questions on the size of her breasts and waist.

She would then be required to get intimate with the teacher in the second phase and finally, have sex with him under the third phase, which was also a “weight test”.

Hani alleged that she had signed an agreement as well as a confidentiality form to participate in the study after the teacher approached her in March.

The “study” then moved onto the next phase, in which Hani said she was told to go to an empty classroom.

“In the classroom, he hugged me from behind before performing other sexual acts on me,” she said, adding that she pushed the man away after suspecting something was amiss.

“The next phase was even worse when he asked me to have sex with him,” she said, claiming that during this time, the teacher was stark naked and getting ready to film the sex romp.

“Frightened, I then fled from the classroom,” said Hani.

Since that day, Hani alleged the teacher has been harrassing her through phone messages, asking her for money as “penalty” for not completing the study and claiming that she could be “sued” by the Education Ministry.

The man even claimed that the Public Services Department could take action against her and her other family members serving in the Government.

“I lodged a police report on Aug 18 after I could no longer take his harassment. I have also filed a complaint with both the Health and Education Ministries and the department,” said Hani.

She said she also believed that the teacher had “conned” other victims in the school but that they were reluctant to come forward.

The teacher was subsequently remanded for seven days before being released and is said to be still teaching in the same school.

State education director Datuk Abdullah Muhamad confirmed the case was still under investigation and the matter would be brought up to the ministry.

Jempol Chief Police Officer Supt Mohd Sabri Muhamad@Awang also confirmed the incident.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/10/16/nation/4913441&sec=nation

Security Issues

In April this year, my house got broken into in the AFTERNOON, right after the Resident's Association had SECURITY GUARDS to look after the main routes entering my housing area.

And guess what, the pondok polis has JUST been upgraded to a POLICE STATION.

Before this incident, there were other cases of break-ins that my neighbours did not report. I don't know why they don't want to do so. (Maybe because of the case above?)

My parents checked the place after the next door neighbour called but had to leave as they had to man the shop.

I reached home later as there was class that day and called my friend KC whose dad in turn informed the police.

The police came and asked us not to touch anything as there might be finger prints of the perpetrators.

They left and I lodged a report together with my mum in the evening.

When I stepped in the police station, it seemed small and there was only one person over there at the time and they had a TV with AXN (yes, they have Astro).

After lodging a report, he asked both of us to wait for the "forensics'" to come and have a more thorough look.

This was very sad for me as I lost my Acer Aspire 4530 which had been maxed out and was less than 6 months with me.*SOBS* Not forgetting a Canon camcorder which had some tapes which I did not convert to DVD yet.

BTW, he did not bother to record the model number of the lost items and also the SERIAL number of the laptop which I placed right in front of him. I wonder if he thinks that he is genius or knows that it will never be found.

Later on, the "forensics" came and took some pictures but did NOT dust for fingerprints and then left.

Something else that I noticed are that the "security guards" are missing the whole afternoon and evening, only to come at night to lock the gate. Something fishy right?

A few days later, I heard that the next door maid saw the prepertrators with the stuff he stole walking slowly out of my house.

There were two Chinese guys in short/medium length pants wearing shoes. One of them had a bald patch and was about 6 feet. The other one is a man in his 20s or 30s which is about 5 feet 7.They were sitting inside a Beige colour sedan car for the whole morning before doing this.

After hearing that, I recorded it all down and went to the police station a few days later.

Upon arriving, I heard that there were 5, yes, five break-in cases in one day in the same area.

The worst part is that one person called that police station as the break-in was HAPPENING and the police officer said this:

"Oh, itu faks machine guna line yang sama dengan telefon"

I imagined myself having a big sweat dripping when I heard this.

They can afford Astro which is non-essential but can't have an extra phone line?

Anyways, I updated my report but they still did not record the serial number down and now I have given up getting back my laptop.

My laptop:

Acer Aspire 4530-721 G6MN
AMD Turion X2 2.1Ghz
4GB RAM 800Mhz
160GB HDD
Nvdia Geforce 9100M
Blue black colour
Serial no. : LXAREOC039840251392500

On another note, my dad met up with the RA secretary to stop paying for the security fee and she said something that really feels like she is mocking you.

Reenactment (you get the drift)

Dad: I'm not participating in the security programme anymore.

Secretary: Why? You know that this is for security's sake.

Dad: What security? My house has been broken into.

Secretary: At least our guards were first on scene to inform you about it.

(At this point, my dad was very angry, as I said before, the GUARDS WERE MISSING for the whole day)

Dad: Get your facts straight. It was my next door neighbour who informed and the guards were nowhere to be seen for the whole day.

After that, my dad left.

Me and my dad attended the RA meeting once and found out that crime has became very rampant recently.

Ever since they changed the security company, there were lesser break-ins reported but by how much only the police would know...