Fact Or Fiction

[mouse]

Word is going around the technical circles that Thailand will soon have the capability to check if the owner of a site, the person that uploads to that site on a regular basis and the person that request the Work Permit, are one in the same.

If this is true then:

1.) expect people without work permits to have their sites blocked as we seem to have had a rash of recently

2.) people living here for extended periods and not paying taxes anywhere to be identified

3.) some to be jailed, fined and deported due to operating illegally

The technology came from Cisco in the U.S. and I am sure that Uncle SAM wants what is his and is therefore helping in supplying the technology. The fact that they are also going after ebay sellers is just another sign that this is in the works. Just my thoughts!

[monty]

Not anytime soon.

To many ways around it, plus most websites are on shared hosting, which means that maybe a hundred websites share the same IP address.

Plus, you can use pre-paid dial-up cards, almost totally anonymous. You can have your internet account subscribed under another (Thai) person's name...You can go to an internet cafe to do your uploading or use a wifi access point. There's plenty free ones around, work from the luxury of a pub/hotel with wifi...

Plus the legality. Don't know if anybody read the article of the reporter working for Bangkokpost's database section who had his macbook stolen. He had safety software on it where after it get's stolen and gets used on the internet, you can get the IP-address from where it's being used. Took the Thai cops over a month to get the paperwork together along with a paper from a Judge ordering the Thai ISP to tell them who was behind that IP address. All was obviously way too late...

Plus, most ISp's here use proxies, meaning that all the uploads to the outside world seem to come from one single IP address. It would look like one single person might be running hundreds of websites, while in reality it will be hundreds of people, spread all over Thailand but using the same ISP!

It of course is technically possible but it would require a very high level of cooperation between the hosting companies (mostly in the US), the ISP's in Thailand, the local police force and judicial system, along with the labour department, immigration etc....

Not anytime soon I can guarantee you.

With a lot of dedication a certain uploader to a certain website can be traced, but for one single case it can take up to several weeks, even months! This is currently done for some crimes, such as hardcore porn websites being run and managed from within Thailand...

To do this on a bigger scale for the thousands of (bona-fide)websites being managed from here, just to weed out people without work permits is simply not viable...

[Temp]

Big brother has been watching for a long time already. The scary thing is that technology makes it ever more efficient. The nice thing is that more technologies are developed all the time that use heavy encryption to ensure the privacy of the people. It has always been a race and the governments around the world usually tries to obscure things and not make it a public race. I really wish more people would use heavy encryption for any and all communication unless they feel it would be ok to have a representative of the government sitting beside them every time they type something or every time they open their mouth to speak. That is what people should ask themselves: "Do I want every action or thought or statement ok'd by the government that just happens to be in power in the geographic location I just happen to be in at the moment." The more people that use heavy encryption for everything the more difficult it is to isolate and try to decipher what they think they want to know. Tired of hearing the worn out: "If you have nothing to hide then why do you worry". Unfortunately it can be a big challenge for people that only use computers without knowing to much about them to secure their communications. Things are improving though if only people wise up.

As for targetting eBay users, do you have a link? Not doing that but have been thinking a little about something similar. Oh well, if I can not do it then I guess it will have to be done in my girlfriends name.

Cheers

Temp

Edited April 15, 2007 by Temp

[sajal]

kinda scary but ill have to go with monty. I too read that article, even after the matter becoming a police case, it took them a long time to trace the IP to the physical location.

If this were true... the most vulnerable would be webmasters who manage their site(s) from a web interface... The "Big Brother" could keep a watch at people accessing/uploading to urls like http://domain.tld/admin . Tracking ftp uploads would need co-operation from the web hosts.

Frankly the whole idea sounds a little paranoid. If a farang is runing a website while staying in thailand... He would definately spend revenue earned here in LOS...

Besides... there r other options also ;-)

[kayo]

I voted "no , the author is paranoid" but maybe I should have voted the "pay the fine and carry on"

primarily, I just think the net is too massive to effectively control individuals. Or for them to even bother controlling individuals.

Every now and then, they will run down one individual, in a somewhat meagre attempt to "scare off" other people who are using the net for illegitimate purposes.

Which brings me to why I think maybe th third option in the vote.

If you are gonna do something that isn't strictly by the book, have some cash ready to pay fines/legal fees.

This applies both on the net, and in the real world.