Thailand Gets New Cyber Crime Law

[Veazer]

To me the published article in Bangkok Post implies that currently there is no valid law that forbids the use of Proxies. Can someone shed a light at the current legal situation on this (without breaking the Forum rules of voluntary self-censorship, of course)?

Sunny

I'm interested in this as well - can anyone clarify this? It doesn't make sense to me. We've got 2 possible interpretations of the law regarding prοxies:

1) use of prοxies for circumventing blocked sites is illegal, but legitimate uses remain legal. This seems to be how the law should be interpretated based on the article, but I don't see how that would be enforced with a truly secure prοxy. They would only see that the person is accessing a prοxy, then what?

2) any use of international prοxies is illegal. I can only assume they would make the 'international' clarification in the law, obviously they don't want to ban the office web sharing device, etc. This seems absurd, but it seems like the only one that could be easily enforced given the nature of a secure prοxy. As mentioned multiple times already, it's easy for an ISP to see if someone is using a prοxy.

I occasionally need to use prοxies for website testing, usually payment portals that show entirely different pages to someone using the site from thailand (ie, paypal). I need to be able to see how the page will be seen by a US user and prοxies allow me to do just that. I need to know if this would remain legal under the new law.

[A_Traveller]

Since like I assume everyone else I can find no detail on this, my assumption is that the rational definition of a 'proxy' would be a method employed to cloak your IP address {and more relevantly your location} would be deemed unacceptable and that the same technology employed to provide a VPN style link would be acceptable {by definition in this case the link has to identify itself}

Therefore I don't think it would affect corporate or even webmaster here {testing could be argued under the second definition} using such technology, but, in principal, would target those using the techniques to access Nanny Somchi'a prohibited list.

Again since the cell phone companies here don't seem to be able to manage their geo-location data or historic records, I'm doubtful that the ISP will have the capacitance {storage or intellectual} to store the connexion data in a manageable form.

Regards

PS Anyone look at this Auditor report on hi-tech functions OKMD

/edit typo & add PS//

Edited May 11, 2007 by A_Traveller

[Hobox]

So their main concern is not really fighting criminality in the Internet, but circumventing the censorship.

Shame!

Wrong. It's not their main concern. It's their only concern.

Yes for sure, but then I read this:

As far as I can tell free speech here is as good as if not better than any other country in the world these days.

This is just a cyber crime law, there for yours and others' protection, as pointed out Thailand is one of the last to enact such a law.

The brainwashing is already working

[marquess]

So their main concern is not really fighting criminality in the Internet, but circumventing the censorship.

Shame!

Wrong. It's not their main concern. It's their only concern.

Yes for sure, but then I read this:

As far as I can tell free speech here is as good as if not better than any other country in the world these days.

This is just a cyber crime law, there for yours and others' protection, as pointed out Thailand is one of the last to enact such a law.

The brainwashing is already working

No! It has been at work here for years, and is not just being reinforced!

[rainman]

Let's face the truth here for a second, which is the people who have created this new law have absolutely no idea what a "proxy" is.

We should all start complaining to True Internet, TOT, Buddy Internet, etc. about the service we get, which isn't really "internet access", but a "limited access of good-for-you websites without the bad-for-you websites".

[griser]

Looks like this ITC minister is gonna try to get Youtube to hand over the names of the creators of the videos mocking the king. Good luck buddy!

Guys, I wouldn't worry about it. this guy is a lame duck anyway, he's only got a short life span then he's outa there!

Greg

[JR Texas]

Looks like this ITC minister is gonna try to get Youtube to hand over the names of the creators of the videos mocking the king. Good luck buddy!

Guys, I wouldn't worry about it. this guy is a lame duck anyway, he's only got a short life span then he's outa there!

Greg

JR Texas: I know almost nothing about computers.......but I do know my firewall automatically hides a few digits of my IP address.......I assume this is standard for most firewalls..........does this mean I am breaking Thai law?

What purpose does this new law serve? To thwart crime? If so, what is to stop a criminal from doing illegal business out of an internet cafe where a back-trace would lead to an empty chair?

Guess the next brilliant idea will be to outlaw internet cafes........yeah.......that will be great for Thailand.

We are truly in the middle of an "information war."

The ruling elite (worldwide) want to keep the current system going, and the only way to do it is to keep the masses ignorant of reality.......so, they pass bogus laws that are designed to control the flow of information.

The mainstream mass media (worldwide)--totally controlled by a global corporate-political-military triangle of power--feeds the masses trivia and teaches them what they need to know to exploit themselves.

The predictable end result: a global army of slaves (99% of humanity) who happily toil to make the ruling elite (1% of humanity) rich beyond imagination.

The internet threatens to shatter this House of Cards into a thousand pieces...........apparently the members of the corporate-political-military power structure are getting scared that they are losing control over the flow of information.

Imagine what would happen if TRUTH actually reached the public. A joke that involves, lawyers, trees, and rope comes to mind.

[Sunny Valentine]

To me the published article in Bangkok Post implies that currently there is no valid law that forbids the use of Proxies. Can someone shed a light at the current legal situation on this (without breaking the Forum rules of voluntary self-censorship, of course)?

Sunny

I'm interested in this as well - can anyone clarify this? It doesn't make sense to me. We've got 2 possible interpretations of the law regarding prοxies:

1) use of prοxies for circumventing blocked sites is illegal, but legitimate uses remain legal. This seems to be how the law should be interpretated based on the article, but I don't see how that would be enforced with a truly secure prοxy. They would only see that the person is accessing a prοxy, then what?

2) any use of international prοxies is illegal. I can only assume they would make the 'international' clarification in the law, obviously they don't want to ban the office web sharing device, etc. This seems absurd, but it seems like the only one that could be easily enforced given the nature of a secure prοxy. As mentioned multiple times already, it's easy for an ISP to see if someone is using a prοxy.

I occasionally need to use prοxies for website testing, usually payment portals that show entirely different pages to someone using the site from thailand (ie, paypal). I need to be able to see how the page will be seen by a US user and prοxies allow me to do just that. I need to know if this would remain legal under the new law.

You raise good questions, But your assumptions are based on knowledge and logic, so the chances that the authorities here see it similar are, well, slim.

But there is another thing noone has mentioned before: This new law is not (yet) valid, it needs H.M.s approval.

TO ME THAT WOULD MEAN THAT AS OF NOW CIRCUMVENTING STUPID CENSORSHIP IS STILL LEGAL!

[Kyosuken]

JR Texas: I know almost nothing about computers.......but I do know my firewall automatically hides a few digits of my IP address.......I assume this is standard for most firewalls..........does this mean I am breaking Thai law?

Well your firewall... doesn't hide anything it's not its purpose anyway, and anything that is direct connection from your router/modem to internet shows your IP anyway : It's simple enough no IP = No Internet period. Even if your firewall has "stealth" capabilities it concerns only "holes" at the tcp/ip level, it's not going to hide your IP, just "pretend" your are not connected to attackers, your ISP will still know who you are.

What purpose does this new law serve? To thwart crime? If so, what is to stop a criminal from doing illegal business out of an internet cafe where a back-trace would lead to an empty chair?

In the case of Internet café, actually it won't back-trace at all, you can just say it comes from the Internet Café and... that's all, because 99% of them are run by non tech savy people, theses same non tech-savy people wouldn't be able to have server infrastructure that make logs of everything going out (ah this got a name by the way : Proxy), and even commercial products for managing internet café don't do that for most part... laws on privacy anyone ? and for the Internet café that does this... well it's a pain in the *ss cause it adds maintenance... for mostly nothing. Having some stats of where are going your customers may be interesting but it's useless, who gives a sh*t to where your customer goes, you aren't supposed to be the gestapo, the problem is only if they keep illegal materials on your computers but that's it. (Now if the gov wants it like that this is another story...)

Guess the next brilliant idea will be to outlaw internet cafes........yeah.......that will be great for Thailand.

We are truly in the middle of an "information war."

The ruling elite (worldwide) want to keep the current system going, and the only way to do it is to keep the masses ignorant of reality.......so, they pass bogus laws that are designed to control the flow of information.

The mainstream mass media (worldwide)--totally controlled by a global corporate-political-military triangle of power--feeds the masses trivia and teaches them what they need to know to exploit themselves.

The predictable end result: a global army of slaves (99% of humanity) who happily toil to make the ruling elite (1% of humanity) rich beyond imagination.

The internet threatens to shatter this House of Cards into a thousand pieces...........apparently the members of the corporate-political-military power structure are getting scared that they are losing control over the flow of information.

Imagine what would happen if TRUTH actually reached the public. A joke that involves, lawyers, trees, and rope comes to mind.

This is pessimistic, but i agree nonetheless, the main problem with Thailand is that the people who should be concerned don't care mainly because they are too poor to care about it. People touched really by theses dictatorial laws are a few actually, even if the numbers go to millions it is still a few. As long as the mass don't feel oppressed they won't move their *ss, and anyway why brag about something you don't have access to in the first place.

Edit: I didn't know "D amn" was a swear word as f***k Oo;

Edited May 11, 2007 by Kyosuken

[OxfordWill]

I dont know why smtp access is relevant either, but someone posted saying they thought it might be thanks to this law coming into effect or somesuch, and I was pointing out its a separate thing (most UK and US Isps are starting to block external smtp use too).

Let's get real here though, even if this law gets approved the chances of us ever hearing about it in its current form again are next to nil. It would have to be revised massively to even make sense.

[chinadarling]

Does anyone know if Thailand the first country to enact these kind of laws?

Thailand has had some form of this before now, but is hardly alone in their attempt to oversee their computer users. See many more of these, including descriptions of the degree to which this is employed in other countries:

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

---I would love to read this article but I am in China and wikpedia is blocked...lol!!!

wikipedia has a softare package to let you access them by bouncing off a server at 'home' but this would be illegal under thai law i think...comments about thailand becoming china... observant.

[taxexile]

The Information and Communication Technology Ministry re-escalated the battle against the anti-monarchy videos on Friday, saying Thai authorities would demand YouTube.com hand over the Internet addresses of those who uploaded the clips.

from todays bangkok post.

it will be interesting to see if youtube do reveal the ip details of the uploaders or not , and it begs the question of how smaller sites would react to the threat of closure or blocking should they not co-operate with government requests for identities.

there are many thai related web boards out there , some of them with little moderation , where criticism of thailand is extreme and insulting to put it mildly , if these measures take hold then it cant be too long before they come under the scrutiny of the authorities and posters of comments deemed to be insulting could be called to account.

if that is the case , then freedom of speech will be a thing of the past. hopefully it wont happen.

[pumpuiman]

Censorship pisses me off more than anything.

I'd like to literally gag the new regime with something as vile and odoriferous as what their slinging now.

Choke on it.

Pricks.

[ThaiGoon]

Wow !!!

if you read all the post untill now it really looks like this.

take a post from the news. not read it through and then start bashing away. some of the posts here sound like the old thai ladies in the market.

As for the facts. lets try and understand wht the original post is

The chief immediate effect of the new bill will be to outlaw any attempt to get around government censors to access any of the tens of thousands of sites censored for moral or political purposes, or "to damage the country".

Web sites that contain content that is ileagal or harm in any way the thai law in thailand will be blocked. it is allready done but the new bill adreeses all the issues that need to be made

The government pushed the new law by saying it hopes the bill will provide an effective legal tool to fight cyber crime, including theft of data and chatroom contacts that lead to rape.

Thailand does not have a proper bill and as such the govermant can nopt prosecute anyone untill they have a proper law.

The National Legislative Assembly approved the Cyber Crime Bill, which gives officials power to crack down effectively on hacking and internet-related crimes through harsher punishments.

good!!! and i hope that if the catch the hackers they will have the law defining they can be hung.

The bill sailed through its third reading on Wednesday by a vote of 119 to 1. It requires royal endorsement before it can be formally enacted into law.

The bill regards as a crime the intention to withhold internet protocol (IP) addresses and violators are subject to severe punishment, according to the NLA special committee assigned to scrutinise the law.

withholding IP is NOT !!! I repeat NOT!! a request from isp to disclose users. it is relating to those users who wish to overide the law by loging on using one ip and consealing it using hackers tactics pretending to be another IP. as such they overide the law by sending spam e mails publishing cencored web sites and frauding people, as well as hacking attempts.

any one using a firwall knowes that once you assert an attack from a IP you block it. as such many IP adresses have been blocked because hackers and frauds were using them.

by the way most ISP ban this habbit as it creates problems for them. but as long as it is not a law you can not enforce it.

this by the way is a crime in many other countries as well.

The IP is a unique address used to identify computer users while communicating with others on the network. However, the committee said, "ill-intentioned users" often hide or falsify their computer addresses so that they can easily carry out illegal acts and get away with them.

you understand!!!hackers are using your IP to create crimes and you get the blame

The committee believed tighter controls on IP addresses would help tackle the root cause of cyber problems.

Penalties apply to all illegal acts using the internet, including those carried out abroad and deemed to "damage the country both directly and indirectly".

and all those of you who think this is a Thai invention please look at the following web site.

Thailand is one of the last countries to have a cyber crime bill.

http://www.cybercrimelaw.net/

Finally some senses.

[Steely Dan]

The Information and Communication Technology Ministry re-escalated the battle against the anti-monarchy videos on Friday, saying Thai authorities would demand YouTube.com hand over the Internet addresses of those who uploaded the clips.

from todays bangkok post.

it will be interesting to see if youtube do reveal the ip details of the uploaders or not , and it begs the question of how smaller sites would react to the threat of closure or blocking should they not co-operate with government requests for identities.

there are many thai related web boards out there , some of them with little moderation , where criticism of thailand is extreme and insulting to put it mildly , if these measures take hold then it cant be too long before they come under the scrutiny of the authorities and posters of comments deemed to be insulting could be called to account.

if that is the case , then freedom of speech will be a thing of the past. hopefully it wont happen.

This could get interesting. So the Thai authorities ask Google to hand over the identities of those making the insulting videos. Now Google come under U.S juristiction and the U.S may have some data protection legislation. I see the prospects of extradition based on Thailands Lese Majesty laws as remote as the U.K government ever handing Salman Rushdie over to Iran. So that would leave libel and defamation under U.S laws as the only pretext for requesting the perps identities, which again would hit a brick wall considering the amount of stick George Bush gets himself.

As I stated before Thai secret agents (If they exist) armed with radioactive Som Tam may be the only course of action open to them.

[Rtwo]

Wow !!!

if you read all the post untill now it really looks like this.

take a post from the news. not read it through and then start bashing away. some of the posts here sound like the old thai ladies in the market.

As for the facts. lets try and understand wht the original post is

The chief immediate effect of the new bill will be to outlaw any attempt to get around government censors to access any of the tens of thousands of sites censored for moral or political purposes, or "to damage the country".

Web sites that contain content that is ileagal or harm in any way the thai law in thailand will be blocked. it is allready done but the new bill adreeses all the issues that need to be made

The government pushed the new law by saying it hopes the bill will provide an effective legal tool to fight cyber crime, including theft of data and chatroom contacts that lead to rape.

Thailand does not have a proper bill and as such the govermant can nopt prosecute anyone untill they have a proper law.

The National Legislative Assembly approved the Cyber Crime Bill, which gives officials power to crack down effectively on hacking and internet-related crimes through harsher punishments.

good!!! and i hope that if the catch the hackers they will have the law defining they can be hung.

The bill sailed through its third reading on Wednesday by a vote of 119 to 1. It requires royal endorsement before it can be formally enacted into law.

The bill regards as a crime the intention to withhold internet protocol (IP) addresses and violators are subject to severe punishment, according to the NLA special committee assigned to scrutinise the law.

withholding IP is NOT !!! I repeat NOT!! a request from isp to disclose users. it is relating to those users who wish to overide the law by loging on using one ip and consealing it using hackers tactics pretending to be another IP. as such they overide the law by sending spam e mails publishing cencored web sites and frauding people, as well as hacking attempts.

any one using a firwall knowes that once you assert an attack from a IP you block it. as such many IP adresses have been blocked because hackers and frauds were using them.

by the way most ISP ban this habbit as it creates problems for them. but as long as it is not a law you can not enforce it.

this by the way is a crime in many other countries as well.

The IP is a unique address used to identify computer users while communicating with others on the network. However, the committee said, "ill-intentioned users" often hide or falsify their computer addresses so that they can easily carry out illegal acts and get away with them.

you understand!!!hackers are using your IP to create crimes and you get the blame

The committee believed tighter controls on IP addresses would help tackle the root cause of cyber problems.

Penalties apply to all illegal acts using the internet, including those carried out abroad and deemed to "damage the country both directly and indirectly".

and all those of you who think this is a Thai invention please look at the following web site.

Thailand is one of the last countries to have a cyber crime bill.

http://www.cybercrimelaw.net/

Finally some senses.

Well you could have fooled me.

All proxies are equal but some are more equal than others. (with apologises but very gratefull thanks to George Orwell, Animal Farm)

[Robski]

All I see still is me, me, me. What about the people of Thailand and those individuals brave enough to stand up against authoritarian rule?

These are the people that are going to be affected, not westerners watching youtube or torrenting adult entertainment.

[Losangels]

All I see still is me, me, me. What about the people of Thailand and those individuals brave enough to stand up against authoritarian rule?

These are the people that are going to be affected, not westerners watching youtube or torrenting adult entertainment.

Many Thais are bought up to respect and obey authority no matter what.

Plus who wants to be looking down a barrrel of a gun or a M16.

[asiaworld]

i think most of the posters aren't young, and as we know history repeats itself , So Myanmar/Burma here we come , soon we might see more people jumping fence in the opposite direction

U've been warned , wait just few more years

[stateman]

Can someone please tell me this new Thailand law is another weird April 1st joke? --

I suspect not...

But seriously - regardless if this law will be enforced or not - has George given some thought to how he will respond when a Thailand court orders him to release private registration information about a member on ThaiVisa.com site? --

It is one thing for George (ThaiVisa.com) to be threatened with legal action, but it something else when a court of Thailand "orders" George to release private information - or else be in contempt of court.

I am not a lawyer, but I know that that being in contempt of court is not a good thing. In fact, you can end up being arrested and serving jail time for being in contempt of court.

Would George be a martyr and go to jail to protect the private information about members on this site!? Come on - I think George is more practical than that.

My guess is George will buckle and release confidential member information to the court when ordered by a Thailand court to do so. My guess he is a law-abiding man and will follow the law of the land (Thailand).

I would be interested to know what George thinks about this question.

The answer from George could affect all of us on this board, although we are just nice guys trying to get along and post nice comments about the leaders of Thailand -- right?

---

The ISP I used to work for in the US had a standing policy to fully cooperate with the authorities. That means anytime there was a request coming in for any member info, it was given.

In fact the ISP had a very close working relationship with the 'authorities'! Due to the amount of hacking attempts on the company sites, the company routinely sent info found about hackers to the authorities, and need their favor to help with the missing links. It was a two-way cooperation.

I expect the Thai ISPs to be the same.

Using proxies should be a good way for a user to do it. But I understand that using proxy servers for illegal activities is by itself a crime! Seems like they had someone knowledgeable help in the draft.

Even if the current draft were not bad enough, it will be in time. Given the human nature, it will just be a matter of time before a leader has something to cover up, who will make sure the law has enough teeth to create a real censorship. This law is Bad omen!

[Kyosuken]

But <deleted>, a proxy is used for "WEB" http/https access... only to look at websites period, hackers aren't going to use them to deface a website or should i say they aren't going to rely on that only it's weak. Best technique to put down a website will be through DDOS attacks, getting in a corporate through a weak/poorly secured computer and doing some evil in that. Or for general public scipt kiddies with worms and social engineering (phishing comes to mind).

What this "law" does is mainly to prevent people to think as they wish (and thus prevent them to access content they want to look at) period. Proxy is "illegal" because it allows people to get arround the god like filter that 'protects' the so called innocent youth of the country. Real hackers don't give a da_mn about proxies they are so much ways to do evil, proxies are peanuts.

[Robski]

As has been said above, this is about tightening control over restricted websites and making the by-passing of these controls punishable, deterrent enough for most Thai's I would think. As a Westerner you would have to be making some pretty loud noises against the establishment or doing something highly dubious to attract their attention.

They can't monitor everyone, but make people live in fear and those people will monitor themselves.

Those that don't comply will be easier then to identify and target.l

It is about keeping the Thai masses ignorant of the plight of Thailand and seeing unfavorable comparisons between themselves and the relative freedoms of it's neighbours.

It is about targetting individuals that are in opposition to authoritarian rule, by restricting their internet access and communication, perhaps even taking away their liberty.

Remove all dissent and retain power.

This is not about personal freedom for Westerners that we regard so highly and protect so vehemently.

This is about freedom of speech and ideas in Thailand and for Thai people, and an ideological war against the population by a myopic establishment desperate to retain their position.

[wintermute]

This is about freedom of speech and ideas in Thailand and for Thai people, and an ideological war against the population by a myopic establishment desperate to retain their position.

Quite truthfully it's none of our business. We may criticize their policies but in the end it hurts Thai people much more than it will ever effect us. If Thailand were to go down the road of Burma we could all just pick up and leave. It's frustrating to see so much ignorance in this society when it comes to basic human freedoms but I believe some people genuinely believe that they must live under yoke and chain. That's what they have been raised to believe and who are we to tell them otherwise? Honestly, this is why a large portion of Asia is limited despite its potential. The culture is an incredible barrier to overcome and those that directly benefit from it will not relinquish control anytime soon.

[Robski]

Absolutely right.

This is a period where Thai's could become more politically savvy and aspire to better standards.

There is a young, transient population that is moving to the industrial and commercial centres of Bangkok and central Thailand, away from the rural life and the traditional restrictions of their forefathers.

It is amongst this young population where the seeds of change could bear fruit.

Restricting the internet from internal communication, international opinion and the misdeads of the elite may slow down or even halt the desire for change.

The anti foreigner sentiment promoted by the Thai establishment, eg; work permits for teachers, property and business rights, are also part of this process of restricting the flow of ideas to Thai's, TEFL teachers not only bring English language to Thai's so that they may communicate more effectively with the outside world, but they also bring ideals of justice and liberty, of aspirations to a better life.

It would seem that the Thai establishment prefers the Chinese model.

Edited May 12, 2007 by Robski

[roamer]

This latest story from todays Bangkok Post demonstrates again how the responsible minister is probably less tech savvy than the average Issan rice farmer. He lives in another world.

Government demands YouTube reveal user identity

BangkokPost.com, Agencies

The latest development came on Friday, just as the kerfuffle over the Internet videos appeared to be dying down and headed for a mutual resolution after YouTube.com began removing insulting videos and the government said it would reopen the site to all Thai visitors.

The Information and Communication Technology Ministry re-escalated the battle against the anti-monarchy videos on Friday, saying Thai authorities would demand YouTube.com hand over the Internet addresses of those who uploaded the clips.

The number of clips insulting the monarch has mushroomed after news spread around the world that Thailand had banned the popular site.

As of Friday night at 9 p.m. Thailand time, several of the insulting clips had disappeared from the YouTube.com site. But many others remained. All of the videos were available up until Friday afternoon Thailand time.

Now, ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom says authorities wanted to charge those who posted the mocking video clips with lese majeste, the crime of offending a monarch, which is punishable by up to15 years imprisonment.

"The police will ask for information from the company to file criminal charges against them," he said on Friday.

Mr Sitthichai did not say what might happen if YouTube refuses to hand over the information. A decision by YouTube or its owners to give such information to the Thai government would earn Thailand and Mr Sitthichai a firestorm of criticism across the Internet, and by civil rights groups around the world.

Even if YouTube or Google were to roll over and give the government the IP addresses, it would take more work to track down the actual people involved.

As of now, no one knows where the uploaders of the insulting videos live. IP addresses can be traced to an Internet company, which then would have to be compelled to match the Internet Protocol address to a specific user. There is little chance that a foreign court would allow such an invasion of privacy, but a Thai Internet provider would probably turn over such information in a case of insulting the monarchy.

Mr Sitthichai issued the threat to demand IP addresses two days after Google, which owns YouTube.com, informed the ministry that it would remove controversial video clips from the website. In turn, the ministry cancelled plans to try to launch a cirminal suit against Google at the Bangkok Criminal Court on Friday.

Mr Sitthichai said the ministry would unblock the YouTube website "immediately" - when all the clips were gone.

But there is great uncertainty over whether the videos will be removed. The text of the letter to Mr Sitthichai from Google vice president Kent Walker has been released, and Mr Walker said at least two of the videos cited by a Thai complaint would stay as they did not break lese majeste laws.

"They appear to be political comments that are critical of both the government and the conduct of foreigners," the letter said.

"Because they are political in nature, and not intended insults of His Majesty, we do not see a basis for blocking these videos," said the letter.

As of Friday at 4:30 p.m. Thailand time, all or most of the offensive clips were still on the YouTube.com site, according to informants able to access the website. And the government's attempt to block the site also remained in place.

The site was blocked in Thailand since early April when a clip mocking the King was posted to the website.

[Hobox]

As I am finally leaving this country after 8 years of abuse and insults I am going to let "ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom" know that you can insult him as a person. I will not let the most revered person in Thailand get the blame for the total incompetence of "ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom".

Please just make a smiley of "ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom"!

[patsfangr]

This is about freedom of speech and ideas in Thailand and for Thai people, and an ideological war against the population by a myopic establishment desperate to retain their position.

Quite truthfully it's none of our business. We may criticize their policies but in the end it hurts Thai people much more than it will ever effect us. If Thailand were to go down the road of Burma we could all just pick up and leave. It's frustrating to see so much ignorance in this society when it comes to basic human freedoms but I believe some people genuinely believe that they must live under yoke and chain. That's what they have been raised to believe and who are we to tell them otherwise? Honestly, this is why a large portion of Asia is limited despite its potential. The culture is an incredible barrier to overcome and those that directly benefit from it will not relinquish control anytime soon.

Excellent posts by both of you. Both were thoughtful and thought provoking. As I read 'wintermute's' comments, with which I strongly agree, I drifted off subject to wonder about the evolution of freedom (perhaps a good title for separate thread on this?). Why is it that the concept of freedom differs so greatly among the various cultures of the world? Why are countries like the USA, and many European countries, so dedicated to individual freedoms that they are willing to fight to the death to defend them; while many, if not most, Asian, and many Arab cultures will bow dutifully to whatever small group arises to take control, whether dictators, Communists, or "ruling class"?

What is it that makes democracy the preferred, even essential, form of government for so many Western cultures; yet makes it so difficult to introduce or flourish in most Eastern cultures? How many countries have been "freed" from dictators, or other oppressive and abusive forms of government by Western powers; given the tools for a democratic government; and quickly fallen back under some other oppressive, non-democratic form of rule?

What is it that ingited the fires that burn within us for individual freedom, and why is there apparently no such catalyst in the hearts and minds of so many other cultures?

Interesting questions to which I certainly have no definitive answer. Any informed opinions out there?

[Oleg_Rus]

I think good portable browser on USB memory stick (encrypted access) will do the trick. + any hidemyA*s socket. and good luck with cyber crime.

truly, as Rainman sad - most of free pr*xy suck, some - are so called "honey-pots" made for idiots, who want to hide, by local law enforcement agency.

I think the subject of definition of cybercrime went the same abyss as the subject of work.

Everybody has their own opinion, but none actually knows what are they about.

I think the law was written by some old chap who asked his "wannabee hacker" nephew about cyber crime, and who recently bought a book in bookstore about hackers. So, ignore it, use good browser, don't type passwords in Internet cafe - and good luck.

[Robski]

In answer to patsfangr.

Perhaps the answer lays in the English civil war, the French revolution and the American war of independance.

For more than two hundred years western society has been based on the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

These are ideals fostered by business to free them from the yoke of feudalism, with an added benefit that it also meant a filtering down of these ideals to the general populace, a very long process though as equal rights is still a concept that people in the west are fighting for.

Liberalism itself is a double edged sword, although it gives the means for self expression and emancipation for the individual it also allows a lack of culpability and an unregulated society.

With technology and foreign influence in Thailand bringing information of western ideals to the Thai population, the Thai establishment finds itself at a crossroads in it's society, where the only solution they can see is to tighten control or lose their grip altogether.

As to the question of which is better, Western or Asian society, Liberal or Authoritarian, I am at a loss.

I think in Thai and Chinese society people are taught to give up their personal wealth and ambition for the sake of the family and of the state, it is an admirable philosophy, but when that philosophy is abused by the establishment to have unquestioned free reign to gain their own personal wealth and ambition it is despicable and the society is corrupt.

I think many people in Thailand can see this already, but are either too afraid to speak out or are unable to organise effectively.

Edited May 13, 2007 by Robski

[wintermute]

As to the question of which is better, Western or Asian society, Liberal or Authoritarian, I am at a loss.

I believe that modern western society has come into maturity faster than Asia. Simply put the feudalism and cultural introversion of many asian societies stifles education, creativity, progress, and growth. It's no mystery why western civilization has progressed much faster economically and militarily in the past 500 years than any other. Liberalism and the period of enlightenment had a lot to do with it and that's all built on Greek philosophical principles.

Right now Asia is struggling with identity issues because western influence is shaping its progress. Even China's authoritarianism has been challenged by free thinking individuals who see the west as an example of civilization. I believe these issues will naturally resolve themselves through education and more contact with the western world.