ITGabs

Businesses in Thailand Raise Alarm Over Ownership Proposals

"BANGKOK—Foreign businesses in Thailand are raising the alarm over new proposals to prevent overseas control of joint venture firms operating in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, creating a fresh policy headache for the country’s military leaders.

Thailand’s Commerce Ministry is examining plans to prevent foreign directors from controlling joint venture firms that are majority-owned by Thai shareholders. At the moment, Thailand’s Foreign Business Act allows this to happen. The arrangement has helped buoy investments in the country for decades. In some instances, government officials have said some Thai shareholders act as nominees for foreign investors who ultimately control the business.

But in 2007, a military-appointed government attempted to outlaw the practice. And with the army effectively controlling the country again after seizing power in a coup d’état, officials are looking again at restricting foreign control of what are technically majority Thai-owned firms...."

Source: Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/articles/foreign-businesses-in-thailand-raise-alarm-over-ownership-proposals-1415616785

I tried to find something about this news in thaivisa it's seems pretty important.

I want to know your thoughts or more info about.

Since the military leaders said before that they want a Thailand to be more thai, seems a bad panorama to many.

Probably it's different in every area but Krabi immigration usually check my school, 1 or 2 times in the month.

The owner of the school told me that immigration was quite suspicious about Russians, Chinese and South Koreans, they checked everything about them the first months. Him or his right hand sometimes take us pictures in the classroom, 5 or 6 times, not sure if have something to do with immigration or because we are pretty photogenic.

The Thai test was quite difficult at that time also but now it's different, I got my first extension last week and everything was ok with immigration, they didn't ask me nothing to test my thai but they asked if someone know what is a "gik" adding that farangs usually don't know... but I answered "sem sem mianoi"

Maybe there is a pattern related to fake companies doing scam using Hong Kong and Singapore business / bank accounts while the scammers are living in Thailand

And that is why Johnny and Deemak had problems.

Since when does immigration office has a database of names? if that was the case, there would not be a need to show passport, but just a call and your status is confirmed.

I do not believe it was just random, only because this is the first report of Immigration driving around and randomly picking foreigners off the street

They have a database, every immigration officer, every hotel, car/motorbike rent help to add info into that database, and it's work very well, I was surprised, I did some queries and you can get a lot info, maybe they can get info from banks also.

Hi!
Sorry to read what happen to you Johnny

I was thinking to go Vietnam but #$ I really hate to think that Immigration will test my read/write level and forced me back to my country that is exactly the furthest country to thailand

Immigration have a very good system, just in seconds with the passport ID they can see the latest hotels that you stayed, in/outs of thailand and more, I saw it working, probably they can check thai bank balance with more access, sure this is illegal in many countries but seems that in thailand not, I was surprised to see how fast and complete were the results.

Probably they just have patterns like queries in a database that show just a green, yellow or red flag.

I am thinking that becasue in 4 years I've never been asked to go to the immigration office or show nothing, but with my first ED they asked me to show money, this was exactly at the same point that I started to use paypal to get payments, and avoid the bangkok bank for insecurity (this year bangkok bank or others banks were hacked in 3 opportunities @#$ russians hackers) plus this year was quite slow, compared with the latest ones, maybe they can track the profile based in the kind of accomodation/balance that you had?

does this make sense to you?

You should be a Forex Specialist...

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Just if you need some legal paper to show (these are approved by Stanford, Berkeley and other big ones FFA)

Hi
Has anyone got any recommendations for getting a merchant account in TL for internet payments. Preferably one where it sends me the card numbers and I enter them into an efpos terminal. How difficult is this for my thai wife to get, or me. How to go about registering a website legally, accounting and all that (ive been using Paypal for too long)! Where should I start looking? Nearly all my payments are coming from overseas, so do I necessarily have to register the business in Thailand - although i am NOT against paying income tax here, but I want to avoid overcomplicated accounting!

Also someone suggested I could take internet payments tax fee with a singapore or hongkong account all legal and above board.. anyone have any experience with that?

Please post any information or PM me if you prefer. If you are doing website stuff perhaps we can help each other out in some capacity.

Thanks

Actually there is quite good security like CageFS in CloudLinux to box jail ssh, mod_ruid2, su_exec su_php mod_fgid etc now is quite a standard and almost all the big hosting companies like dreamhost hostgator and etc offer jailed ssh and without disabled functions in the php.ini (maybe only dl extensions)

My point is that you don't need to access SSH to exploit a server, you can use shell functions in Perl, PHP and you can inclusive add it into a cron using web interface like plesk cpanel or webmin

for example look for a not maintained Wordpress sites using a TimThumb in plugins or themes or super cache, with both of them you can execute remote code, using that vulnerable sites test a symlink race exploit, almost 90% of the servers is not correctly patched, find one account that can execute shell commands,cron,ssh passwords and done, and this is only one way there are thousand of vulnerable code, sure small hosting companies will be affected, I posted here because I know a lot of people here have small companies and they do the updates with luck two times in the year.

I was hacker before, was funny (I edited my post) but this is not the right place or identity xD

This is a version to test in php (for people without ssh access)

<?php
echo `env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test" | grep vulnerable`;
?>

In very strange situations, maybe the time of your router and the time or date of your laptop is out of sync, that will create problems in the broadcast CHAP DHCP and other services depending of the router and the configurations

Maybe you HDD is dying or have a small problem

you can check doing [Windows key] + [R] and write

cmd [Enter]

in the black console write

chkdsk c: /F [Enter]

that will start to check and fix your disk (if is possible)

you will see something like this if it's ok

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
  11776 file records processed.
File verification completed.
  73 large file records processed.
  0 bad file records processed.
  0 EA records processed.
  0 reparse records processed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
  15226 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
  0 unindexed files recovered.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
  11776 file SDs/SIDs processed.
Security descriptor verification completed.
  1725 data files processed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

   2072575 KB total disk space.
   1140344 KB in 9463 files.
      3540 KB in 1727 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
     24671 KB in use by the system.
     12416 KB occupied by the log file.
    904020 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
    518143 total allocation units on disk.
    226005 allocation units available on disk.

if you see "Windows has checked the file system and found no problems."

so everything is ok

But if you got a message like Windows made some fixes or etc there was some problems but windows fixed it, sometimes some of this problems are persistent so you will need to repeat the process one time more

If you see

XXX KB in bad sectors. mean is not actually "Zero"

Your harddisk need replace, and is better to start to do backups of the important thing since your HDD is already losing data in bad sectors.

Another option could be the RAM in your laptop, win 7 x64 use 1.2 1.5 GB of RAM, to run smoth you should have 3 or 4GB

if you have just 2 GB in RAM should be better to install win 7 x86 or 32bit (uses .7 or 1GB in ram)

think that applications like Firefox or chrome with some few tabs open are already using 300 or 500 MB.

But in wherever situation you should replace your HDD for a SSD and upgrade your RAM, sure that will give some fresh air for a couple of years more.

Format is always recommended, some internal part of windows are like an accounting book that you will never be able to delete records and that will grow and grow, only the format can reset that "3540 KB in 1727 indexes." once I got more than "20.000.000 Indexes" that is equal to a very bad performance and 20GB less in your HDD in hidden indexes.

Actually my Git Bash in Windows was vulnerable too

Bash Test

env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test" | grep vulnerable

PHP Test

<?php

echo `env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test" | grep vulnerable`;

?>

In both case will show the text vulnerable if is vulnerable and nothing if is ok

There is a second patch because the first one not fix the problem entirely

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/763828-vulnerability-in-bashx2-worst-that-heartbleed/

Hi,

It's time to update linux or everything that is using bash (like git bash in windows)
Full news without jargon http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2014/09/25/companies-patching-like-crazy-to-stem-shellshock-flaw/

How to test if you are vulnerable

Shellshock CVE-2014-6271

env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "" | grep vulnerable

If you get the following, your bash is vulnerable:

vulnerable

Aftershock CVE-2014-7169 (after the first patch)

env x='() {(a)=>\' bash -c "echo date" 2>/dev/null; cat echo; rm -f echo

If you get the date, you are still vulnerable:

Fri Sep 26 18:40:39 MST 2014

I tested in x86, x64, debian, centos, ubuntu, kali no idea about Freebsd or Mac

Notice that bash in windows is vulnerable too (git bash as a example)

Don't listen to the other posters here handlez, they just haters.

Get the next plane to Thailand and forget about that ungrateful probation officer. Felonies, drugs, dui convictions, don't worry you'll find plenty of people like that here and some even end up as school teachers. That shows you how much respect you will get in thailand as the country will welcome you with open arms. So don't worry about any international warrants, your paradise awaits.

And what happen when he wants to renew his passport?

Just focus in the comments that help you, some of this old people with luck can clean their own ass without help choosing a very sad life, still living on the old times that they knew closed in their minds, Ubonjoe and Paz and many other members are very helpful, you don't need to worry about what is illegal or not here in the forum, try to get the help from your company and some help in thai immigration, some IO officers are really helpful and they can understand your situation (being married) all they want is stop real illegal workers stealing jobs from Thai people and mostly because the abuse of Chinese, Russians South Koreans and Vietnamese, all this crack down come from stuff like this.

2011 http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/484790-phuket-authorities-to-tackle-illegal-russian-korean-tour-agents/

before the crackdown start

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/727092-thai-immigration-border-insecurity-mounts-as-tourist-visa-abuse-is-targeted/

So just need to be clear that you are not incurring in any kind of illegal work and that you really have your work and your income and etc from Malaysia

You know that in Thailand or Southeast Asia in general you can expend all the rest of your life in jail or worst, just for one small drug incident?

I would try to live cheap in Mexico or Bolivia (no drugs problem for a nice backpacking life) and get the maximum contacts from US, if you are starting as "Digital Nomad" the first years are horrible, but later you will reap the harvest.

And this is not the right 'military government' to come in the middle of a visa crackdown, you need to wait to clean your status so the timing should be ok.

For what I read the MOE is not working with Immigration or with embassies and consulates 3 different organism with no communication.

your plan should be

1.- Changing your school for a good one (probably your old school is already banned, who knows??)

2.- Maybe is good time to renew your old passport

3.- Check with your new school what you really need

Some nationals are required to show fly tickets or other things depending of the embassy.

4.- Study another thing, not Thai language (is not for you), Muay Thai as a example so when the IO asks what have you learned?, you can answer with some nice kicks

5.- For the best back to Thailand by air avoid Sadao land frontier or any other frontier with problems (check in the forum)

6.- Get 20k baht in your hand, and probably more if they mess with fly tickets, bookbanks or money in another currency will not work since they will try to get some tip inside your passport (as in Sadao)

7.- Stop working illegal, back to your country, stop eating noodles in your fan room, get the Elite card and etc ...you know all those smart and constructive retiree comments LOL

8.- Be good

One of my classmates had exactly the same problem about showing 20k in sadao, he told me that they inclusive are taking pictures of you with the money open in the hand

But what he do was do the queue again in another IO box, when the IO said 'Go to the office' he say for what 'I don't need to show money or nothing with a ED I am from x country please check again' and the IO check again and stamp his passport

And Immigration office in Krabi was checking the school two days in a row, they have the order to check for Russians, Koreans and Vietnamese (probably Chinese too) are going to school, so Thai Immigration is definitely hunting illegals from these nationalities, not just visa exemptions.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/727092-thai-immigration-border-insecurity-mounts-as-tourist-visa-abuse-is-targeted/

Immigration officials have long expressed concerns that the visa runs are being abused by foreigners who are working illegally in Thailand as language teachers, restaurant owners and staff, real estate agents and tour guides.
He said immigration had received many complaints that South Koreans, Vietnamese and Russians were extending their stays through visa runs and were “stealing” jobs from Thais by working as tour guides and running restaurants.

Hi Mataleo,

You are on ED visa right? Ubonjoe told me before that with the ED visa you can get your mum as a family visit visa maybe that could be the right path to follow right now, while you check other options for you and your family.

probably after 1 year the visa situation calm down again and no more on the fly rules.

Sorry, maybe langkawi is not a good idea.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/742573-tourist-visa-holders-denied-entry-to-thailand-and-left-stranded-in-malaysia/

the main problem was in the "Sungai Kolok" frontier but they talk about "Satun" also with similar rules

It seems to be on a case by case scenario: Example, Chaeng Wattanna, last week, my friend got his 4th year extension no question asked

He had his little half Thai adorable 2 years old daughter, with him.

He was there to get 10 days because MOE was late sending the approval letter.

He purposely stood, right at the front in sight of the offices with his daughter fidgeting in his arms.

Not 5 minutes later, an officer came to ask what number he had. He just arrived so he had around 20 people before him. The officer offered him to jump the queue and my friend was promptly stamped 3 MONTHS WITHOUT PROPER PAPERS (he still had not received the MOE letter)

So get a Thai toddler when going to immigration

PS it does work at MOE too where he only had to answer 2 simple questions while others were quizzed much longer.

hahah my lovely niece (4 years) will start to have nice short vacations, actually she is practice/teaching me that vocabulary thai song

So this rule is only to give the IO the possibility to catch the people that is study or not but only asuming is Thai languague, this is no going to work for a long time, just simple studing another language or a complete different thing will be a workaround, they need to leave the tests to the MOE, why they can't work together? maybe military is not only taking control of the politics and economics maybe they want to be the new teachers as well

Good report, I hope you can get a tourist visa without issues while waiting for your new ED

That school with the 17k promo not look bad at all, my school was 28k without ED visa and 30k including visa for 200h per year, but that not include any visa fee or trip or nothing.
I guess the 2000 is for all the paper work related to the ED visa.

In penang the cost for the ED visa is 220 RM around 2200 baht

the agent 40 RM

Plus trip-accomodation and food for 3 or 4 days

Maybe just for a "visa run" go to Langkawi, Malaysia, I found Penang more like a crowded city than a island, a little India-china with people sleeping in the streets everywhere.

To go to Langkawi sure you can book something directly with an agency or you can take the ferry to surat thani, take a bus to hat yai (every hour) with minivans options, or directly to Satun or better directly to the pier 15 or 20km away from Satun bus station, from Hat Yai to Satun are minivans every hour, there are 3 ferry going to Langkawi.

I never had problems or asked nothing entering Thailand and I really like Langkawi, there are many things to do, few bars in the beach, many places to stay, waterfalls, skybridge, cable car, many trips around (Langkawi is a group of 99 islands) not so crowded, the infrastructure is better than in Thailand and a very diverse places to eat.

There two cheap backpacker areas but the taxis have a fixed price of 260 bath or more depending on the distance

http://wikitravel.org/en/Langkawi

airport with few destinations, only malaysia or singapore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langkawi_International_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations

Check too the destination by air from samui

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samui_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations

or by train with some combinations

http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm#Singapore,_Kuala_Lumpur_&_Penang_to_Ko_Samui

Krabi to Penang are also indirect ... you could just check going to BKK and several other destinations ...

But Coming soon in Krabi
Krabi Penang (begins 15 September 2014)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang_International_Airport

I thought that you really say that the Elite visa is expensive only...

Elite visa 500k per 5 year

The ED visa is just 25-30k per year I don't know where is 17k

Live in two countries Thai-Vietnam on tourist visas is a bit more expensive than live just in only one

Other options should be contact a "thai fixer" wherever that what means (search in the forum) maybe they can do something in the thai style...

Some of the stuff I'm reading here, is for real ?

yup, immigration Bangkok was around 50 days ago

Crossing Myanmar around 2 years ago