And now hear this ...

A couple of years ago a visiting friend (who has asked to remain anonymous) played me a 'boot-leg' copy of a speech. As far as I could make out - the recording was an excerpt that was missing the beginning an the ending - the theme was was Liberal Education . It was a delightful lecture and I always wished we could have heard the whole thing. Unfortunately, we knew not where the speech was given nor, even more of a plight, who the speaker was ... such is the tragedy of poorly pirated material ;-) I even took a sentence or two from the speech, at random, and tried to Google it ... but nothing was found at that time.

Last week I was gifted "The Philosophy of Religion", a course recorded by Professor John Hall for The Teaching Company (TTC). Impressed by the simple lucidity and tone of the very first of the 36 lectures), I searched for him on the internet and was delighted to be led to his homepage, which, in turn, led me to the Convocation Address delivered by him at The University of Richmond in 2005. And that's the one we'd heard!

While I suggest that you download and read the entire lecture (it's only 3 pages long), along with the Collegian piece, I would like to quote one of its sections here with permission from Professor Hall.

Liberal Education and Impracticality

One of the hallmarks of liberal education is that it is does not have immediate applications, results, or investment returns. This is what people mean when they say that it is impractical. But is liberal education really impractical?

If the desired outcome of schooling is job-skill, then Strayer would be the model school. My wrestling with the ambiguities of Ionesco, studying the complexities of natural selection, trying to figure out what the American Civil War was really about, and exploring the mathematics of musical key transposition, are not likely to increase the GNP or lower the CPI overnight, if at all. On the other hand, my learning to keyboard data into a computer, take accurate telephone messages, keep a double-entry ledger, and figure profit margins, might. Indeed, I could measurably increase my disposable income simply by addressing envelopes at home in my spare time. (Many matchbook covers tell me so, and I believe them.) But who will write the programs for me to keyboard? Who will leave a message worth my taking down? Who will create the business that needs me to keep its books? Who will invent a product that will generate profits for me to calculate? Indeed, who will create something worthwhile to put in the envelopes I address?

For individuals and their communities to thrive, people need to know more than the answers to familiar questions. They need to know what questions to ask, and that means that they need to be inventive enough to come up with new ones. They need to be able to make judgments without bright-line criteria, and that means that they must be able to wrestle with ambiguity without having a panic attack. They need to be able to make informed political decisions, and that means that they need to understand historical connections and the difference between appearance and reality. And they need to be able to function in a complex society that divides its labor, which means that they need to have some understanding of what everyone else is doing, even if they don’t have to do everything everyone else does themselves.

And this is where a liberal education is most liberating. By freeing us from the expectation of an immediate payoff for each thing we learn or do, it opens us up to learn and do things that, while they may lack an immediate payoff, may have long-term potentials that we cannot even imagine in advance. This is why a highly placed corporate officer once told me “when we want worker bees, send us trained technicians; but when we want leadership send us people who have studied history and literature and science. We can train new hires to run the machinery if we need to; but we are not equipped to teach them how to use their minds.” So the “impracticality” of liberal education is not necessarily impractical at all. By allowing students to go beyond job training, it encourages them to stretch themselves to the absolute limit of their potentials and, unhampered by external or artificial constraints, to be flexible and to grow.

[I am not sure if the good professor will be willing to talk to a T2F audience in far away Pakistan via Skype - but I'd love for him to spend a few minutes with us during a Science Ka Adda evening on another topic he enjoys: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal.]

I had, very recently, finished listening on my iPod - overflowing with several audiobooks and brilliant podcasts - to Professor Esposito delivering his balanced and very informative TTC lectures on Islam (as a part of The World's Great Religions series). The Philosophy of Religion course promises to be an even more enjoyable learning experience.

The range of subjects that TTC courses cover is extremely vast. I wish Dr Atta ur Rahman (HEC) or Dr Naveed Malik (VU) would strike a deal with those guys and make several of these courses available locally at subsidized rates. I'd be willing to enroll, even at my age (and with the way I feel about educational institutions), in a college to take advantage of such a deal, if it was required.

Postscript: Lest some of you worry, no, I am not about to be 'born again'. Religion has always been a subject of great interest to me and the current revival (in its worst forms, I might add) and its political impact, globally, has just re-kindled that. But next on my course list - if I can raise the money (HEC/VU are unlikely to even consider this one) - is Professor Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music. 48 lectures of 45 minutes each. I can't stop drooling.

Dayr aayad, dürüst aayad?

The mailing date (July 30, 2008) seems kinda late. The Seminar (The Benefits of a Connected Campus) that it is inviting people to was already over:

Date: May 8, 2008
Two sessions: 3:00 PM - Eastern Daylight Time or 12:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Sponsored by: Sprint and Rave Wireless

Sprint Campus Connect enables students, faculty and staff at higher education institutions to better connect and communicate resulting in enhanced learning, safety and time management

but, to make matters even more amusing, the email arrived just a moment ago! 

Stumbling upon Solutions Unlimited

Got this from Sab recently

Yep, Sab ... and that was way back in 1985

(as the 8-bit image jaggies show!)

I guess great graphics designers think alike

;-)

Biting Apple Back

The Apple-Microsoft wars are, now, nothing but infotainment ... or, at least until very recently, were just that. They helped sell magazines (Steve Jobs had only to sneeze to be on the covers of Time, Newsweek, Fortune, even The Maori Tribal News!), newspapers, books, TV spots. Even a movie or two. (Watch out for the September Screenings at T2F!) Let's face it: how could there be a real fight among a 2% market-share holder and someone that, once, all but held the remaining? (Yes, there were other OSs around, too, guys, like the OS2 ... just like there are Linux and others today).

Some, of course, found in this unequal battle the symbolism of David slaying Goliath ... an image that Apple's 1984 SuperBowl Ad (Thank you, Lee Clow!) planted by equating IBM with Big Brother. Others continue to see it as the battle of two young hippie kids in a garage taking on a big corporation despite the fact that Apple, itself, has become one. No surprise there, for - in any battle, large or small - you eventually become what your enemy is.

The "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads were satirical, hilarious, even lovable. OK ... that's how most Mac lovers felt. To many, and not PC users alone, they were 'rude'. But that's a matter of taste, I guess. I love irreverence and black comedy, grew up on sick jokes, chuckled at the macabre cartoons of the totally brilliant Gahan Wilson and still rotfl (admittedly with an occasional wince) at the grotesqueness of JoeCartoon.

Did I say 'were'? Once I used to download every one of them as soon as they aired. I admired the fact that they didn't resort to outright lies ... but then why would they? One could never run out of material while poking fun at the real flaws in Windoze. Lately, though, I don't even click to view most of them with anything remotely resembling my past urgency. In fact, I am sure I've missed watching many. No, they haven't lost on quality, or humour, judging by those I have peeked at ... but, in terms of quantity, there have been just far too many of them! Why didn't anyone at Apple say "Enuff already!" ... ? (Of course, those who know Steve Jobs know why.)

"All is fair in Love and War" goes the cliche ... and Business, now, is War! So the Apple ads got noisier and noisier and more and more aggressive and while Bill Gates poohpoohed and chastised them for their attitude and Microsoft turned up its collective nose at them, the strategy made waves. The brilliantly simple iPods and the simply brilliant much-in-demand iPhones (13000 orders per second in the UK alone today!), working in tandem with these ads in a 3-pronged attack, have helped Apple's market share grow beyond the industry norm.

[Click image to enlarge]

Finally, the company I love to hate for its awful OS and bloatware (but thank, genuinely, for having made computing accessible to millions) has taken notice.

As a lover of humour, a keen follower of the art and science of Advertising, someone who spends a lot of time with technology ... and a dedicated Mac user (until something better for my way of life comes along), I am excitedly looking forward to this counter-campaign. Let's hope it's as funny as the early Mac/PC ads were.

Let the games begin ...

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" ...

... or so goes the old saying. Many believe that it's corollary is "If it's broke, fix it!" ... But that isn't always the best path to take. And most certainly not when it comes to the unfixably broke Education system. You don't fix a race-horse's broken leg, right?

My friend, Roger Schank says he gave up being part of the Education system so he could begin to change it. His latest venture, Grandparent Games, is highly recommended to all computer-owning grandparents whose grandchildren live in another city. For many it may even be worthwhile to get a computer just for this. Before going on that site, the associated blog may provide an interesting introduction.

While this venture caters to the pre-schooler, Roger is spearheading an online international high school curriculum, too, The project is revolutionary and caters to the needs of the real 'end user' - the child - and not some megalithic system that, like a boulder rolling downhill flattens all that is attempting to grow in its path.

VISTA (Virtual International Science & Technology Academy) can be adapted to suit many countries, even by being run in collaboration with schools and tuition centers. In fact, in environments such as ours, large tuition centers could benefit greatly by becoming involved.

If you are seriously interested in Education, as an educator or a parent, pop across to the website and familiarize yourself with the concept ... and get involved! The child you save may be your own.

Checking out who's 'blocked' you? Don't!

Click on the above image to enlarge it.

Visit this site for more details.

Absolut Joy!

You deserve a really big round of

SABEEN

§

Also, a big

THANK YOU

to

EVERYONE

who helped

make it happen.

Apnay hee paer par külhaa∂ee maarna ham say seekho

Here's what one site has to say about the Pak-YouTube Fiasco:

Pakistan removed from the Internet
Posted by Richard Stiennon
Categories: State Sponsored Hacking
Tags: YouTube Inc., Pakistan, Internet, Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

The telecom company that carries most of Pakistan’s traffic, PCCW, has found it necessary to shut Pakistan off from the Internet while they filter out the malicious routes that a Pakistani ISP, PieNet, announced earlier today. Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP’s must block access to YouTube because it was a source of blasphemous content.

I cannot let the irony pass with out commenting. A religious state, Pakistan, identifies a content provider, YouTube, as the source of blasphemous, seditious content and orders, King Canute style, that the Internet tides be stopped. A zealous ISP ignorantly decides the best way to comply with the decree is to re-route all of YouTube’s IP addresses to whatever site they thought was more appropriate. The first repercussion was that YouTube disappeared from the Internet for almost an hour. I suspect the second repercussion was that Pakistan’s Internet access crawled to a halt as all of a sudden they were handling IP requests for one of the busiest sites in the world. As of this writing YouTube has announced more granular routes so that at least in the US they supercede the routes announced by PieNet. The rest of the world is still struggling. So, while working on a fix that will filter out the spurious route announcements, PCCW has found it necessary to shut down Pakistan’s Internet access. The leadership of Pakistan just created a massive Denial of Service on their own country.

I could say: “be careful what you wish for” to those elements that object to free and open access to information and expression of ideas. But to put it in terms they might understand better: Do not anger the Internet gods or you will suffer their wrath!

------

Many many years ago Aslam Azhar - a friend I admire and respect - as head of PTV, 'allowed' the broadcast of a music show that showed a pop concert and taubah, taubah an audience in which boys and girls actually performed obscene gestures, such as sitting on their seats and waving their arms in the air, in full view of the public. The pure in the land were horrified. After all, this was no simple prank, like the abduction of political opponents, or jirga-ordered rape, or the naked parading of women on the streets by feudal enemies, or enhancing political power and personal wealth by supporting the USA's outsourced torture program whose victims were from countries including Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan, and included children as young as seven!!!

'What next?', everyone wondered, with their twin virtues of nationalism and religiosity simultaneously under threat by bared wrists.

A few days later I happened to be visiting Lahore and heard that Aslam was going to be 'put in the docks' by people during a discussion forum at Jang's office. Off I went to hear him defend his promotion of such lewd actions. I shall always remember what he said at one point, rather coolly, during the other side's display of hotness: "In years to come, if we go down the path some people are suggesting," he predicted, "we will not just be a nation that chose a different track, we will be considered - and become - a different species!"

That time, dear Aslam, is fast approaching!!!

==============================================

30 minutes later

Update and Clarification: PCCW has been identified by Richard Stiennon, above, as "The telecom company that carries most of Pakistan’s traffic". This indicates that other telecom routes may still have remained operative and Pakistan not entirely cut off. While one friend reports successfully accessing the 'Net from his Blackberry from Lahore, a techie from Pakistan has responded to Stiennon's article stating that he is being able to access not just the Internet but, surprisingly, also YouTube from his computer.

That's really confusing.

Can someone put the entire episode into a non-techie jargon and provide a link here?

The last laugh?

Just got this from a friend in Isloo:

Dear Internet Users

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (www.pta.gov.pk)has directed all ISPs of the country to block access
to www.youtube.com web site for containing blasphemous web content/movies.

The site would remain blocked till further orders from PTA. Meanwhile, Internet users can write to
youtube.com to remove the objectionable web content/movies because this removal would enable
the authorities to order un-blocking of this web site.

Best Regards

Manager
Technical Assistance Center
Micronet Broadband Pvt. Ltd.
Islamabad

Well...

A plug for zEd News

Some of you may be aware that I send out an informal (and free) education e-newsletter, kind of irregularly, to a small list of subscribers - or those recommended by subscribers (with an 'opt out' option, of course). It is heartening to note (when I receive an occasional email, from the unlikeliest of spots, referring to it) that it is also forwarded by some to their own friends .

Aimed primarily at the K-12 sector, the content, over years, has featured links to websites, book reviews, introductions to major influential educationists and their ideas - especially the more radical ones - as well as articles culled from other Ed Mags. I have sought permission to include the latter - and received it often, but not always. When the request has neither been acknowledged nor granted, but not explicitly refused, I have gone right ahead and included the pieces (with a reference to the source) and will continue to do so until a cease and desist order finds its way into my Spam Box ;-) ... an unlikely happening, given that the readership is not large enough for bigwigs to bother with.

Starting in the new year, this free mailing will now merge my standard education newsletter (usually 1-4 pages long) and its similar sister venture, that focused on education technology, into a single weekly edition under the tongue-in-cheek zEd News masthead which hopes it'll leave its mark.

The first few issues will touch upon the following topics:
• Corporate Sponsorships & Ed Institutions
• Teaching Ethics & Values
• The ID Controversy
• The New Libraries

If you are not among the recipients and wish to subscribe to it, or recommend someone interested in education who may enjoy getting it, please email me and send me the names and email addresses or pass mine to your friends.

Having an effair? (PG-13: Kids, stay out!)

Got this ad in my email today, forwarded by someone who actually installed X-SPY in his office in the USA and was advised by his lawyers that he needs to inform his 9 employees about this installation, otherwise he could be sued for all sorts of invasion of privacy cases. (Wonder if this applies to home use, too.)

X-SPY to the rescue!

Do you know who your kids chat with whenever they get on to the Internet? Or your spouse's cybersex activities? Or what sites your employees visit on the Net on your time?

Even more scary: Are your employees emailing your business secrets to your competitors? Or sending confidential data to their private email addresses for later use?

If you do worry about these issues, worry no more. X-SPY (only $69 to download) runs in stealth mode where it is not detected by the user of the computer. It captures everything from chats and instant messages to email, web sites and much more.

Some STATS for you:
· 85% of WOMEN who feel they have a cheating spouse ARE correct.
· 50% of MEN who feel they have a cheating spouse ARE correct.
· 70% of MARRIED WOMEN do not know about their spouses' affair.
· 54% of MARRIED MEN do not know about their spouses' affair.

· 86% of CHILDREN can chat online without their parents' knowledge.
· 64% of TEENS do things online they don't want their parents to know about.
· 50% of TEENS communicate online with someone they have never met.
· 30% of TEENAGED GIRLS are sexually solicited inside a chat room.
· 58% of PARENTS monitor what their child does in online chat rooms.

So, if you are the perpetrator of a corporate crime, or are having effairs (as I prefer to call them, since they may not always lead to cybersex), be on the lookout for SpyKiller - a piece of software that's sure to follow, possibly from a sister company of the X-SPY guys - making money both ways off eSuckers.

Postscript 1: The person who forwarded the ad had this to say on stats #4 & #5: "... only 30% women know, but 46% of men do. This indicates that men are more tech-savvy and use this software ;-)" ... His wife added a footnote in the email: "Being less tech-savvy also means fewer of us have 'virtual affairs' and go for the real thing, unlike stupid males! Hahaha!"

Postscript 2: Had I written the copy for the ad, I'd have used the tongue-in-cheek pricing tab to greater advantage by using this ad headline: 69 keeps you from getting screwed!

Piece! Peace!

Clipped!

While in Lahore, I wanted to write a longish post for this blog. The internet was 'down' and the only PCs (aaargh!) I had acccess to did not have MarsEdit on them. So I thought I'd start using MS Word - an application that I used to be fairly familiar with until I banished the entire MS Office from my own Macs. I must clarify that I did so because my work no longer required any of its components and not - as some of you may think - in a fit of emotional rage (although I know that, deep down, having to use it for prolonged periods could have been a long-seething factor).

Obviously, when I'd had the Office Suite on my Mac, I'd configured my preferences the way it suited me best. The first thing to be thrown away after any installation of that bloatware over the years has been those annoying lil creatures that the designers (for want of a more suitable and printable word) at Microsoft think are 'cute' ... but on the computer I'd been allocated here, the damned Clippy, something I'd successfully erased from memory, popped up again and spoilt my mood. So the long post - one about a dear old friend and part-mentor, the late Asghar Gorakhpuri - will have to wait.

Oh ... for those of you who do need the Office Suite on your Macs (or are into Masochism), the new version promises to be really cool.

Face the Book!

TechSupport 101 - Cleaning Computer Peripherals

Things are getting really dangerous these days, so I thought I'd blog about something that would not put me at risk under today's rapidly increasing laws and ordinances. Also, trying to pre-empt what gets 'banned' or becomes labeled a 'criminal' act, next, isn't easy because - so far - I have found no method in this madness. I have discovered madness in the methods, but that's another matter!

Wracking my brains for topics, I though I'd try something that would be of use to computer-users, since we have been kinda left alone, so far, by the mushtandaas. Not wanting to go too far out out on a limb - for who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men - I thought a little product review would be useful and safe. So here's one of a product I could not resist buying as soon as I saw it. (The Meanderer who was with me was skeptical - as usual - and insisted that I was buying it for the packaging, alone. That's so-o-o not true!)

What is true, however, is that the first thing that does catch your eye is the packaging: The description of the product was too intriguing for me to pass up. Good marketing, guys!

(You may need to click on the image to read the details,
if your eyesight's like mine.)

The box contains a small brush for cleaning between the keyboard keys and a bottle of fluid for spraying on to the special cloth provided.

The cloth is high-tech according to the manufacturers and comes with its own instructions.

Also supplied is a little rubber thingy, with a suction cup (the kind you use to stick things on mirrors/walls) on its behind. I am still trying to figure out a use for it. It's not a squeaky toy ... coz all it does is hiss through the tiny aperture in its nose ...

... and it looks like one of Gary Larson's cows has mutated.

The bottomline is that the cloth and liquid work. Though I am puzzled about why the liquid is included when (presumably talking about The Cloth they seem to treat as if it came from Turin) the box says that it has "Same effect after using with water."

=================

Does anyone think I've broken any laws even with this?

In the bgng wz the Wrd?

A matter being debated yesterday (Yes. People are talking about other things, too!) at a T2F table, among a group of teachers, was the spiralling "horror" of the ways in which Internet Messaging and other Social Networking tools were corrupting the English Language, especially in countries where ESL teachers and schools were already struggling hard to impart the rules of good grammar and correct spelling. "The worst is SMS'ing ...", said one one, moaning that "... many students are now writing those crazy expressions like '2 u' for 'to you' in essays." --- "Gawwwd!", groaned another, "I am running out of red ink, circling 'dat' and 'woz' and 'bcz' and '4ever'. Laughter and snorts all around.

I joined in the conversation (not uninvited, I assure you) and pointed out that this unnecessary worry about "texting" - a new word, itself, that had one teacher politely trying to cover her wince by altering it into a patronizing smile - has been going on for years. I shared with them a printed copy of an ESN article from 2003, as one example.

Many others, too, have debunked this view over the years.

I take the stance that this is an evolution in spelling and, while it seems as horrifying to us - just as current spellings would to Chaucer, or the US variants do to people educated under British systems - it poses no threat to the actual purpose of language: Communication. In fact, it furthers it.

A piece in The Guardian that opens, with the line, "It's gr8 news for skools", goes on to say:

A study comparing the punctuation and spelling of 11- and 12-year-olds who use mobile phone text messaging with another group of non-texters conducting the same written tests found no significant differences between the two. Both groups made some grammatical and spelling errors, and "text-speak" abbreviations and symbols did not find their way into the written English of youngsters used to texting.

And even the conservative TimesOnline informs us that texting teenagers are proving 'more literate than ever before'.

Here's an English teacher who uses the text messaging phenomena to advantage in class, while maintaining her view of it as being a bad thing.

While critics of the cellphone revolution say the phenomenon is destroying English, in Mrs Dawson's class, texting is used as a tool for learning Shakespeare, reports the New Zealand Herald.

"In her junior classes, the lines taken from Macbeth are transcribed into text language by students, while in other classes, students compose poetry and messages on cellphones.

Her innovative use of texting in the classroom may soon spread, as Mrs Dawson has been asked to speak about her novel study unit, which includes composition of a text, at the New Zealand Write Conference in Palmerston North in September.

Using texting as a medium in class captured the students' interest and inspired them to do better work, she said. "

The counter argument, that literature would lose out if this trend were left to grow is only relevant if what is defined as literature is a narrow band. Even the unconventional punctuation, or the lack of capitalisation, in e. e.cummings's poems still upsets many. A teacher of my acquaintance in the USA was puzzled by the "warped logic" of including of a poem by e.e. cummings in a textbook, saying that it undermined his efforts at setting down writing rules in his class. I wonder what he would think of this, if it made its way into the syllabus.



Dunno about your reaction, but I would, of course(!), suggest that students be offered the book - provided it is suitable in terms of school policy on content - as 'suggested reading' . I'd then ask to submit 2- line reviews via text messages! Sure would beat that stupid precis writing that we went through ...

E-Learn recently featured an article on the 'Story-Centered Curriculum' by Roger Schank. It was particularly amusing to see the following comment (quoted verbatim from the website). I am sure it would result in a 'conniption' for some members of the ELT group I referred to in the beginning.

(Note: The identity of the commenting teacher has been removed in my blog).

From: xxx xxx
(email)
Teacher . xxx . pakistan(Multan)
The Story-Centered Curriculum
Date: 07/07/2007 03:51:45
i just wanna say tht i have gone through one of the story of your story centered curriculum bcz of ur visit to lahore recently(18th april). i have just read this article n i cd say for sure tht this really works cz as being a teacher i still cd recall all tit bit tht i hve learnt through tht simple story activity...it was fun learning!!!! i hope one day actual learning will occur which will last for long ....

I wonder if someone can tell me whether, now that real Urdu texting (not just the Romanized version) is here, what are some of the abbreviations being used.

Errr ... (Revised!)

To process a particular request
Facebook requires me to leave my present network
although I am not subscribed to any

Urdu kee ayk masal hae:
Maeñ to kambal ko chho∂ rahaa hooñ,
kambal müjhay naheeñ chho∂ta hae!

UPDATE!
My apologies to Facebook.

I would not have attepted to join a new network
had I known of this rule:

So, dear fellow Pakistanis, see you in a fortnight!
(That is, if my Internet is warking!)

Update: The eCrime Bill Videos are ALL uploaded!

The proposed eCrime Bill is the subject of several blogs (including a couple of posts on this blog). It affects everyone. It needs your understanding and input.

This is the ~90 minute presentation that Lawyer Zahid Jamil made at T2F. It's been broken into under 30~minute chunks for convenience.

Part 1 - http://tinyurl.com/3ymfz3

Part 2 - http://tinyurl.com/3bde7e

Part 3 - http://tinyurl.com/2wfhbh

The brief follow-up one-to-one Q&As that cover a few specific situations are a good starting point, if you do not want to watch the longer videos right way - http://tinyurl.com/ynn753

Please circulate these links widely. Thanks.

T2F Q&A: CyberCrime Bill - Flaws and Dangers

Ok ... Until a permanent and larger space is found for all the stuff, I am running some clips on this post. Also, for those in Karachi who missed the session, the 2 hours or so of videos will be available on a CD for the nominal cost of Rs. 30 at T2F from next week. It's a bit large to post on the 'Net and breaking it into 10-min chunks (as now required by YouTube) is not a pleasant solution. However, I believe that the clips you see below will do more than enough to get you thinking and participating, since they deal with YOU!

Lawyer Zahid Jamil is seen responding to the questions in all of the videos hosted here.

If you are just a citizen who uses Computers and wants a law to deal with cybercrime you may find that you have no protection against such a law if it is misused.



* * Dentists




* Doctors




* Photographers/Bloggers




* Marketeers/Programmers




* Educators/Researchers




* ISPs (Does the Government think it means Inadvertent Service Providers?)




* IT Professionals and Companies that receive outsourced work




Everyone is going to be affected. So, spread the word. Write to Newspapers. Question this on TV Channels. Write to the Ministry. Apply all the pressure you can.

Download the 3 PDF files that are recommended reading.

Another Draconian Law In The Offing!

PLEASE DO YOUR BIT TO PUT A STOP TO THIS!

Death penalty proposed for cyber terrorism!
Leghari says e-crimes bill to be enacted soon!

Friday, August 24, 2007
ISLAMABAD: The Electronic Crimes Bill 2007 has already been approved in principle by the federal cabinet and will be enacted soon through an act or an ordinance.

Addressing a news conference here on Thursday, Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications, Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said under the porposed legislation the FIA would probe the e-crimes.

The minister said the e-crime law would require the internet companies to maintain their traffic data for at least six months to enable the agencies to investigate cases involving data stored by them.

Illegal interception in electronic communication like e-mail of another person will get five-year imprisonment or a fine of Rs 500,000. Whoever commits the offence of cyber terrorism and causes death of any person shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life, he added.

Leghari said anyone involved in attempt to obtain confidential information of any other through electronic device like network system or router will get up to two-year imprisonment or a fine of Rs 300,000.

An imprisonment for three years will be awarded for data damage crime like illegally manipulating the financial record or other important information of an organisation.

Similarly three-year imprisonment will be awarded in case of misuse of electronic system or electronic device in which a person develops a software or hardware with trap door for manipulation.

Persons involved in unauthorised access to codes will get three-year imprisonment, the minister said.

Such misuse of encryption and using malicious code will invite imprisonment of five years, while a person involved in cyber stalking will get seven-year imprisonment and/or a fine of Rs 300,000.

Answering a question, he said the government had followed a thorough consultative process, including study of similar laws being practiced in 42 countries.

Responding to a question, Leghari said illegal use of name of political parties for issuance of press material would also be a punishable crime.

Those of you who missed the above news report may be excused for not panicking. And those who did, too, may be excused for thinking that we certainly need to prevent the upsurge in cyber crimes, so - other than the matter of one's personal opinion on Capital Punishment - the idea and concept seem ok ... Why make a fuss?

Well --- here's what one blogger has to say after the first session on the bill was held at T2F: For two hours yesterday, Barrister Zahid Jamil scared the living daylights out of everyone who showed up at T2F for the session on the E-Crime Bill 2007. We had heard rumors about this draconian Bill but it wasn’t until all the arcane legalese was presented in “normal” language, that we actually “got it”. Read the rest, too. A post on The Lootmar Blog on the subject is well worth a read.

Breakfast at Dawn had IT industry's Omniprotestant Jehan Ara and Lawyer Zahid Jamil as guests. Watch the video (which will also going to be posted on YouTube, soon)!

Think again ... and "Be Really Scared!" (which was the theme of second session held at T2F).

"Surely, CyberStalkers should be punished - they are a menace and a danger", you say. Absolutely! But don't we need to be really clear about what is CyberStalking to know what actions would be covered by the definition? Spamming, for example, is a hideous and annoying offence, and should carry a penalty - perhaps even equal to that proposed for CyberStalking, in the opinion of some. But it is NOT CyberStalking, so it cannot (and should not) be covered by that portion of the law. It requires a separate definition and a separate clause for a charge to be correctly made.

And this lack of clarity is one of the many problems with this Bill becoming a Law (and through an Ordninace, at that)! Experience and record shows that when Laws are vague, the only ones that take advantage of the loopholes are hardened criminals and the government (many would find that redundant). Honest citizens can get entrapped into a rigmarole - on grounds of someone's political opposition or personal vendetta - for long and un-affordable periods, with great personal losses, financial and emotional, that they cannot ever recuperate ... as Faisal Chohan learnt, sadly.

The definition of CyberTerrorism - for which a death penalty has been proposed - is not just vague, it's outright wrong! Shouldn't depriving a person of his life through carelessly and stupidly put-together laws be punishable, too?

Watch this space for more news and info on this bill that threatens the freedom of everyone who uses a computer or a cellphone.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, SuperStar

One problem of being associated with T2F is that I have been hesitant to blog about the events too frequently, lest it be seen as a 'plug' for Sabeen's café-plus-mind_share_space. but I guess it's ok as long as I stick to the event and make it anecdotal and talk less of the ambience. In fact, I think I'll try and recap some of the earlier events in my next few post[s], since there's an audience outside of Karachi that may enjoy hearing about them, too.

OK. So, this one's about the recent talk by Pervez Hoodbhoy, part of a monthly series to be hosted at T2F under the title Science ka Adda (SKA from now on on this blog). You can read more about the series at the site, so lemme move on.

The space, usually laid out café-style, seats 44 ... though events have always required creating more room by moving things around. Tee-M's 60's rock evening and Saad's OpenMic night shot the audience to around 100±. But that was to be expected. It's a 'Pop' world. However, Pervez Hoodbhoy's audience surpassed both evenings. While his youthful looks still draws sighs from young girls (I heard two that night!), the majority was there for the love of the subject.

You may wish to watch a small-sized QT-based slideshow featuring that evening's guests ... or prefer to click the image above to see the crowd, made up of young and old, artists, singers, dancers, architects, writers, conservative, rebellious, religious, atheists, fundos, freethinkers, doctors and students.

Wow!

Yes, Science can be fascinating, if the issues are seen in the context of our lives, away from the technical, jargon-filled research that most of us realize is essential but find incomprehensible. Like many who attended, I am certainly looking forward to hearing others - after PH's illuminating talk (From Quarks to Humans) on the Origins of the Universe and his 'attempts' to answer a range of questions. We need to have public discussions on Science and Ethics (questions of Stem-Cell research, Genetic Manipulation, Gender Manipulation, Euthanasia, GM Foods --- all are in the news these days) and a lot more.

BTW, when I said PH's attempts at answering questions, I was in no way implying that he was unable to do so for lack of knowledge. Some - on the more specific technical areas - required more time (and, a few were answered post-talk in small groups); others - such as those grounded purely on religious dogma - require an eternity and a more tolerant society.

For those who lingered on after the event for their own friendly discussions, over coffee and snacks, there was a special treat:

The fabulous Tina Sani decided to delight her self-confessed-fan Pervez and the rest with an impromptu rendition of Rabba Sachcheya - one of my favourites. The absence of any intrusive musical accompaniment made it all the more beautiful for me. I captured it on a small handheld recorder and sent the file to her last night, seeking permission to share it on my blog. This what she sent by SMS today: "Seriously? What Fun! It's Faiz ... Let it roll!"

Thanks, Tina.
Oh, and Sheema, since you are at these evenings often, don't forget to carry ghungroos in your purse the next time :-)

If you thought blog bans were bad ...