Malaysia Websites hacked but not whacked after threatened; time to build secured websites!

Tweet

 

Warning: The graphic with Anonymous’ threat that was posted online.

Two hackers disrupt 51 Malaysian government Websites, and 40 others

A woman browses the Internet at a cyber cafe in Kuala Lumpur. (File photo)

By LIAU Y-SING AND NILUKSI KOSWANAGE   REUTERS KUALA LUMPUR Thursday, 16 June 2011

Fifty-one Malaysian government Websites were hacked into overnight but no personal or financial data was compromised, government officials said on Thursday, as the nation became the latest target of a cyber-war waged by online activists.

The Southeast Asian country has a vibrant Internet culture that has gained a mass following in an environment where the mainstream media is tightly controlled.

The government has in the past charged bloggers with sedition, often detaining suspects for long periods without trial.

In the attacks, 91 websites were hit including 51 government Websites, the industry regulator, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, said on Thursday.

Access to 76 of the 91 Websites attacked since shortly before midnight on Wednesday had been recovered, it said.

The attacks followed a warning by Internet vigilante group Anonymous, which said it would attack the government’s official portal to punish it for censoring WikiLeaks, the Website that aims to expose governments and corporations by leaking secret documents.

“Most government-related Websites are (now) accessible to the public and have either not been affected by the service outages or have recovered from the attacks,” the commission said.

It did not name the sites which were attacked but targets included the government’s online portal http:www.malaysia.gov.my, and the Web pages of the fire and emergency services department www.bomba.gov.my and the land public transport commission www.spad.gov.my.

Malaysian police chief Ismail Omar told Reuters no personal or financial data had so far been stolen but the authorities were trying to determine the extent of the attacks.

It was not immediately clear if the attacks were launched by Anonymous or other hackers.

Anonymous is a grouping of global activists lobbying for Internet freedom who frequently try to shut down the Websites of businesses and other organizations that they oppose.

The activists gained prominence when they temporarily crippled the websites of MasterCard and Paypal that cut off financial services to WikiLeaks.

A spate of cyber attacks on multinational firms and institutions, from the US Central Intelligence Agency to Citigroup to the International Monetary Fund, has raised concerns that governments and the private sector may struggle to defend themselves against hackers.

In an earlier Internet posting, Anonymous said Malaysia’s censorship of films and television shows and its blocking of file-sharing Websites amounted to a denial of human rights.

The communication commission last week banned 10 file-sharing sites and ordered Internet service providers such as Telekom Malaysia and Maxis to block access.

The restrictions have outraged ordinary Malaysians, and several people took to Twitter to express support for the cyber-attacks.

“Now to count how many sites have gotten whacked so far,” said a tweet posted by Rhyden. “I knew the government’s IT defence team was pathetic.”

(Additional reporting by Razak Ahmad; Editing by Nick Macfie)

IT defence team pathetic

The activists gained prominence when they temporarily crippled the websites of MasterCard and Paypal that cut off financial services to WikiLeaks.

A spate of cyber attacks on multinational firms and institutions, from the US Central Intelligence Agency to Citigroup to the International Monetary Fund, has raised concerns that governments and the private sector may struggle to defend themselves against hackers.

In an earlier Internet posting, Anonymous said Malaysia’s censorship of films and television shows and its blocking of file-sharing websites amounted to a denial of human rights.

The communication commission last week banned 10 file-sharing sites and ordered Internet service providers such as Telekom Malaysia and Maxis to block access.

The restrictions have outraged ordinary Malaysians, and several people took to Twitter on Thursday to express support for the cyber attacks.

“Now to count how many sites have gotten whacked so far,” said a tweet posted by Rhyden. “I knew the government’s IT defence team was pathetic.”

The country has a vibrant Internet culture that has gained a mass following in an environment where the mainstream media is tightly controlled. The government has in the past charged bloggers with sedition, often detaining suspects for long periods without trial.

Websites hacked before deadline set by hacker group

Update by By SUBASHINI SELVARATNAM bytz@thestar.com.my, Thu June 16, 2011

PETALING JAYA: Local websites have been hacked ahead of the deadline set by a foreign-based hacker group, Anonymous, that said it would attack the Malaysian Government portal at 3.30am today.

On the micro-blogging site Twitter yesterday evening, there were reports that 27 sites in total had been hacked.

But these were not named and there was no confirmation from the authorities as to the accuracy of the tweets.

Among the sites known to have been hacked was the Sabah Tourism website, www.sabahtourism.com. The defaced site was spotted early yesterday by the chief executive of a company that organises security conferences.

“A portion of the website was deleted when I saw it,” said Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, who heads Hack In The Box (M) Sdn Bhd. “I had just returned from an overseas trip.”

The Sabah Tourism website has since gone offline.

F-Secure Corporation (M) Sdn Bhd, a computer security software company, corroborated Dhillon's account. Goh Su Gim, its security adviser for Asia, said the Sabah Tourism site was compromised.

“Worse still, the data from 392 user accounts were stolen from the site and released to the public,” he said.
The data that was posted online were e-mail addresses and passwords.

On the webpage where the hackers posted the data, they claimed they had the details of more than 3,400 users from the Sabah Tourism site, but they were only exposing the 392.

The hackers also claimed to be Anonymous members and that they meant no harm, and only wanted to show the vulnerability of this site.

According to Dhillon, the www.tourmalaysia.com.my site was also hacked and defaced yesterday. He had checked the site after viewing the hacked Sabah Tourism website. It was defaced with words that included “Deface by Kambeng Merah: Credit to DarkJawa.”

Another website hacked was www.cidb.gov.my, which belongs to the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB).

It was defaced with a long message that scolded the Government for censoring the Internet. However, a while later, the site was back to normal.

Dhillion said he believed these sites may not have been hacked by Anonymous.

“The hacker group is into co-ordinated attacks and keeps to its word when it comes to launching its attacks,” he said. “These are likely independent hackers taking advantage of the publicity.”

CyberSecurity Malaysia, responsible for the nation's borders in cyberspace, confirmed that several websites were hacked. But it declined to say how many and which were the sites.

“At present, we are not able to elaborate further,” said Lt Col (Rtd) Datuk Husin Jazri, chief executive officer of CyberSecurity.

He said rectification works were being conducted by the relevant authorities to address the situation.

Anonymous had threatened to hack the www.malaysia.gov.my portal to protest against the Government's censorship of the Internet and because Malaysia had blocked 10 filesharing sites.

These sites were among the most visited by Malaysians to illegally download movies.

Related Story:

Tackling cyber piracy needs careful planning; Hackers mainly locals
Hackers, not all hack for the heck of it! Who are the anonymous hackers? Beware of Seduction!
 Cops probing website hackings

Foreign-based hacker group plans to strike websites

PETALING JAYA: A hacker group has threatened to attack the www.malaysia.gov.my website.

The group, which calls itself Anonymous, will launch the attack at 3.30am Wednesday and has named it “Operation Malaysia.”

It posted the threat in a graphic on the website i.imgur.com/PTFWh.png Tuesday.

Several local hackers, when contacted said at minimum the government portal would be defaced and at worse it would be brought down.

But they said the worst would be that the hackers pry personal, credit card or financial data from a government website, or an e-payment concessionaire such as MyEG.

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the F-Secure Corporation a computer security software company based in Helsinki, Finland tweeted about the threat at 4.42am Malaysian time yesterday.

Several hours later, Anonymous announced its reasons for wanting to attack the government portal, which were posted in an open letter that started with “Greetings, Malaysia ...” on a website and in a video on YouTube.

It said it was acting against what it claimed were various acts of censorship by the Malaysian Government and also because of the recent move to block file-sharing sites in Malaysia.

Anonymous also accused the Government of censoring films and TV shows, and for restricting the Internet which it said was a basic human right.

“We fear that if you make further decisions to take away human freedom, we are obligated to act fast and have no mercy,” the group said in its statement.

On YouTube, a video featured a digitally-generated voice that read out the group's message.
There had been an uptick in such “hacktivism” in recent weeks, where hacker groups targeted various organisations for political purposes.

Recently, the hacker group launched attacks on Turkish Government websites for alleged Internet censorship. Following that incident, Turkey arrested 32 people, suspected to be Anonymous members.
Related Stories:
Tackling cyber piracy needs careful planning; Hackers mainly locals
Hackers, not all hack for the heck of it! Who are the anonymous hackers? Beware of Seduction!
Cops tracing source of hacker video message
RIM wants another file-sharing site blocked

Time to build better – and secure – websites

Star Says..........

CYBERSPACE can be a worrisome place for nations and everyone else because there are no physical borders to block. Anywhere really is everywhere in the vast World Wide Web.

A hacker who is physically on the other side of the planet can at the same time be as near as the computer next to you, or even on your own computer, on the Internet.

So it is disconcerting to read about websites, especially those belonging to the Government, being compromised. This just rams the message home – i.e. distance is no safety factor.

It’s even worse to learn about these sites getting hacked almost as soon as they’re launched, like as the 1Malaysia Pengguna Bijak (1MPB) portal was recently. And before that, the portal had gone down just after it went online.

Some of these government websites were easily hacked due to poor construction – such errors being the equivalent of leaving the back door to your home ajar in the real world.

Malaysia has already been plagued by several embarrassing incidents – involving what could be a dearth of construction skills, a widespread tidak apa attitude or, more disappointing, attempts to cheat – where parts of prominent buildings collapsed.

It seems that even in cyberspace, Malaysia cannot get away from such incidents. Case in point: the 1MPB portal going down because it had 3.5 million hits instead of the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 after its launch.

Wouldn’t that be like saying a new bridge collapsed because the construction company thought only 300,000 to 400,000 vehicles would cross it on the first few days, when 3.5 million actually showed up?

Ridiculous, right? Poor planning, too. That excuse would not hold up in the real world, but it seems to be frequently used and accepted by some when it comes to cyberspace matters.

Especially painful is that it cost the taxpayers RM1.4mil to build the 1MPB portal. For that amount of money, we expect an equally huge amount of skilled programming work and very strong network security.

Instead, several vulnerabilities in the coding of the portal were exploited, and the hackers were able to extract usernames, e-mail addresses, encrypted passwords and other information, which could be used for identity-theft activities.

Which brings up the question of how vulnerable the other portals and websites are. What if hackers breach really important sites like that of the Inland Revenue Board? Or that of the Employees Provident Fund? It’s one thing to hack into a site and deface it, quite another if the public loses money or personal data from such attacks.

So, are our portals and websites up to scratch? We are about to find out. And soon, because a hacker group has said that it will hack into malaysia.gov.my, the official portal of the Malaysian Government, at 3.30am tomorrow.

The group, named Anonymous, said it would hack the portal because the telecommunications industry watchdog in Malaysia – the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission – had ordered several file-sharing websites to be blocked by local Internet Service Providers, among other reasons.

If the site does get hacked, we will bounce back. But we hope that it will also result in a wake-up call for Malaysia’s portals and websites that security shouldn’t be taken for granted and has to be built from the ground up.

If there isn’t one, there should be unified strategy and specifications for existing and future government portals and websites, which the developers must adhere to. The owners of these websites must also ensure that all the requirements are met, and that there are regular upgrades and security patches.

Sadly, this initiative will likely come after the disaster. But then again, Malaysia seems able to learn its lessons only after a calamity hits.

Global military dominance becoming unaffordable

Tweet

Midweek by BUNN NAGARA

Both ‘Britannia’ and the Western alliance are losing the means to perpetuate military-political hegemony worldwide.



BRITAIN was once a proud maritime power, with a foremost Royal Navy that policed a global empire on which “the sun never set.”

These days the British Navy has trouble trying to pin down a single Third World country with a tottering regime: Libya. This incompatibility between present Western capacities and current intentions is, however, greater than any disjuncture with past glories.

This week Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, Britain’s First Sea Lord, announced that the Royal Navy would not be able to sustain the current campaign against Libya for more than six months. He also noted that the decline is in both equipment inventory and, consequently, morale.

Britain’s Strategic Defence and Security Review last year had cut 10,000 jobs in the Navy and Royal Air Force, and consigned the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the frigate HMS Cumberland and the once-iconic Harrier jets to the storeroom or junkyard.

As the Libya military campaign suddenly loomed, the Cumberland was diverted there to help in evacuating British nationals. Yet for Downing Street, Britain remains a leading military power with the world’s fourth-largest defence budget.



Evidently like much of Europe, Britain’s lack of appetite for global patrolling work is not totally in sync with US interventionist moves. The “pole positions” occupied by Britain and France over Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya helps to conceal the incongruity, but not for long.

When US Defence Secretary Robert Gates reportedly blasted unnamed Nato partners in Brussels last week for not contributing their share, he ridiculed some for running out of ammunition at critical times in laying siege to a country. The Royal Navy now needs to purchase more Cruise missiles from the US after firing some of them.

The US provides more than 75% of Nato’s budget, with Gates wondering aloud whether this major contribution and Nato itself could be sustained. All of this has come at a time of budget squeezes, after Osama bin Laden’s death and a Cold War which ended 20 years ago.

Washington has been lobbying its European partners in Nato to raise their military commitment, much of it in vain. It is not that the latter do not share US concerns about global instability, but rather they prefer political, diplomatic, economic and social solutions rather than inordinately military ones.

After Iraq, the US has waded into Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya while straining to get stuck into Syria. Its challenge is to get a sizeable number of allies to go along to a significant degree.

For much of the world outside Washington, a propensity for unilateral military intervention abroad links these various armed adventures. It is not a popular indulgence, not even when the spectre of international terrorism is invoked as the alternative to inaction.

If the continued role of global policeman today seems dated, it is even more surreal given emerging major powers such as those in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). These are all fast-growing major economies, besides Russia and China being permanent members of the UNSC with veto power.

This week both Moscow and Beijing boycotted a UNSC meeting called by the Western powers to discuss a proposed resolution against Syria. The other BRICS countries are also unhappy with the prospect of further war against another oil-rich Muslim country.

Even in Western circles there is strong reluctance to rely on more military power. Germany, Europe’s leading economy and a major Nato partner, is still unconvinced by the campaign against Libya.

But if the interests of the military-industrial complex are any guide, efforts will continue towards war. Officially there are six major US military bases in Afghanistan, but on the ground US and other foreign forces are stationed at some 400 bases in the country.

Although the Obama White House is supposed to comply with its pullout schedule in Afghanistan, secret talks with Kabul are continuing over the actual outcome. There are reports that US forces may well remain in Afghanistan for decades after the 2014 complete pullout date.

On the surface the issue is a resurgent Taliban and their terror connections, but strategically Afgha­nistan is critically located in Central Asia next door to China, Pakistan and Iran. So long as it remains in that position, which it will, the great powers will play their “games” while the locals will fight a war to resist them.

Afghanistan meanwhile is pressing for better terms in a draft agreement that would reflect its sense of sovereignty. Whether that would work is another question.

China, Russia Could Make U.S. Stealth Tech Obsolete

Tweet



By David Axe, Wired News


It’s been a pillar of the U.S. military’s approach to high-tech warfare for decades. And now, it could become obsolete in just a few years.

Stealth technology — which today gives U.S. jets the nearly unparalleled ability to slip past hostile radar — may soon be unable to keep American aircraft cloaked. That’s the potentially startling conclusion of a new report from Barry Watts, a former member of the Pentagon’s crystal-ball-gazing Office of Net Assessment and current analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.

“The advantages of stealth … may be eroded by advances in sensors and surface-to-air missile systems, especially for manned strike platforms operating inside defended airspace,” Watts cautions in his 43-page report The Maturing Revolution in Military Affairs (.pdf), published last week.

That could come as a big shock to the U.S. Air Force, which has bet its future on radar-dodging technology, to the tune of half-a-trillion dollars over the next 30 years. The Navy, on the other hand, might have reason to say, “I told you so.”

That is, if Watts’ prediction comes true — and that’s a big “if,” the analyst admits.

“In recent years there has been speculation that ongoing advances in radar detection and tracking will, in the near future, obviate the ability of all-aspect, low-observable aircraft such as the B-2, F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, aka JSF, to survive inside denied airspace,” Watts writes, referring to America’s stealth bombers and fighter jets.



Stealth-killing advances include VHF and UHF radars being developed by Russia and China, and a “passive-detection” system devised by Czech researchers. The latter “uses radar, television, cellular phone and other available signals of opportunity reflected off stealthy aircraft to find and track them,” Watts explains.

These new detection systems could reverse a 30-year trend that has seen the U.S. Air Force gain an increasing advantage over enemy defenses. That phenomenon began with the introduction of the F-117 stealth fighter in the late 1980s, followed by the addition of the stealthy B-2 (pictured) in the ’90s and, more recently, the F-22.

So far, the Air Force has only ever fielded a few hundred stealth aircraft, requiring it to constantly upgrade some nonstealthy fighters. But the flying branch plans to purchase more than 1,700 F-35s (at more than $100 million a pop) from Lockheed Martin in coming decades, plus up to 100 new stealth bombers. In that sense, the stealth era is only now truly dawning — just as effective counter-measures are nearly ready, Watts points out.

In that sense, the Air Force’s stealth gamble could turn into very, very long odds.

Comparatively, the Navy has played it safe. At the same time the Air Force was investing its research and development dollars in stealth, the Navy has taken a different approach to defeating enemy defenses. Where the Air Force plans to slip past radars, the Navy means to jam them with electronic noisemakers or destroy them with radar-seeking missiles. That’s why the only radar-killing planes in the Pentagon inventory belong to the Navy — and why, until the forthcoming F-35C, the Navy has never bought a stealth fighter.

Nowhere is that philosophical difference more apparent than in the Pentagon’s on-again, off-again effort to develop jet-powered killer drones. The Navy’s X-47 drone, built by Northrop, is minimally stealthy. Boeing’s Phantom Ray, intended mostly for Air Force programs, is arguably as stealthy as an F-35 in certain scenarios.

There’s still a chance the Air Force’s bet on stealth could pay off, Watts writes. That largely depends on two capabilities planned for the F-35.

First, there’s “the JSF’s sensor suite and computational power,” which Watts explains “can be easily upgraded over time due to the plane’s open avionics architecture, giv[ing] the F-35 an ability to adjust its flight path in real time in response to pop-up threats, something neither the F-117 nor the B-2 have been able to do.”

Second, the F-35’s radar, a so-called “electronically scanned array,” could in theory be used to jam an enemy radar or even slip malicious software code into its control system.

Neither of these capabilities is actually a form of stealth, per se. Rather, they would complement the F-35’s ability to absorb or deflect radar waves. Described uncharitably, the Air Force has had to add nonstealthy skills to its stealth fighters, just to help them survive.

Watts doesn’t address one other way the Air Force could preserve its stealth advantage: by speeding up the development of drone aircraft — which, by virtue of their smaller size, have the potential to be much stealthier than any manned aircraft.

It’s also worth noting that America’s biggest rivals don’t doubt the continuing relevance of stealthy planes. Russia and China have both unveiled new stealth-fighter prototypes in the last two years.

The way Watts describes it, the “end of stealth” is just one of the many big changes that could occur in near-future warfare — big emphasis on “could.” “The honest answer to the question about how fundamentally war’s conduct will change — and how soon — remains: It depends.”

Photo: B-2 stealth bomber (U.S. Air Force)
Newscribe : get free news in real time 

America’s Entrepreneurial Innovation Needs Help

Tweet

Martin Zwilling Startup Professional's Musings

                                    Image via Wikipedia The innovation engine that powered the U.S. economy over the last century seems to be slowing down and dying, threatening not only local opportunities, but the economies all over the world. The $30 billion trade surplus in advanced technology products that America enjoyed just one decade ago has now become a $56 billion deficit.

More and more people, like Henry R. Nothhaft, in his new book “Great Again: Revitalizing America’s Entrepreneurial Leadership” are already calling these last ten years the “Lost Decade.” Nothhaft has put together a challenging but small list of things we have to do to revitalize our innovation leadership, and I’m supportive:

1. Liberate entrepreneurs from regulatory shackles. Startups in the U.S. face the highest combined federal and state tax rates in the world. At 39%, it’s more than 50% higher than the European Union countries average of 25.5%. Rates around the world are still going down, while U.S. rates have remained fixed for the last ten years. In addition, due to Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations, accounting costs have gone up an estimated four times for all businesses, and 2008-2009 represented the worst IPO market in forty years. We need a regulatory regime that nurtures startups, rather than penalizing them like giant corporations.  
2. Fix the patent office to keep up with the backlog. Since 1992, Congress has diverted nearly $1 billion in applicant-paid fees already earned by the USPTO to other uses (like the 2010 census), leaving the patent office unable to deal with the threefold increase in patent applications over the last 20 years. As of January 2011, there are a staggering 1.2 million applications awaiting approval, and more than half have never had an initial review, which really hurts startups. The average total fees for obtaining a patent are now way up to $38,000. In most cases, no patent means no financing, no new products, no new jobs, and no new industries for tomorrow.
3. Offer meaningful incentives to bring back high-tech manufacturing. In the last ten years alone, more than one-third of America’s largest factories have shut down. That’s 42,400 factories, including 15 semiconductor plants, and 12 million lost jobs. We now produce only 14% of the world’s supply of semiconductors, and even less of other things. Both China and Taiwan now provide a 5 year, zero-tax holiday, for semiconductor manufacturers, followed by 5 years at rates as low as 5%. Germany, Ireland, Israel, and most other non-Asian nations also provide major tax incentives, and huge R&D tax credits. We need to make a strong manufacturing base a national priority.
4. Ease immigration rules to turn brain drain to a brain gain. Studies show that foreign immigrants who enter on H-1B visas make a greater innovation and scientific contribution to the nation, by patenting at double the rate of native-born Americans, and publishing more highly-cited engineering articles. In fact, between 1995 and 2005, these same immigrants founded over 50 percent of the venture-backed technology companies in Silicon Valley, and are some of the key venture capitalists there as well. The evidence is that immigrants don’t take jobs, they create them by the millions.
5. More programs to support basic science and research. Over the past decade, there has been an exodus of scientific and technical expertise from the DoD (Dept of Defense) and academic community, with basic research dropping from a high of 26% in the 1960’s budget to only 12% of their budget today.

Government should learn from private industry and invest research funds just like a venture capitalist invests startup capital. It should invest in people and teams first of all, and let startup entrepreneurs take the fruits of that research and build from it a better tomorrow.

It’s time for us to get back to the basics of fostering innovation. I agree with Nothhaft that the answer is neither the “big government” of the radical left nor the “no government” of the radical right – it’s the “smart government” of the common-sense middle. Startups can be our silver bullet to kick-start our economy and innovation, so let’s give them some help, and be great again.

Newscribe : get free news in real time

New mutations from dad or mum? Speed of human mutation revealed in new family genetic research

Tweet

60 new mutations in each of us: Speed of human mutation revealed in new family genetic research

Each one of us receives approximately 60 new mutations in our genome from our parents. This striking value is reported in the first-ever direct measure of new mutations coming from mother and father in whole human genomes published today.

For the first time, researchers have been able to answer the questions: how many new mutations does a child have and did most of them come from mum or dad? The researchers measured directly the numbers of mutations in two families, using whole genome sequences from the 1000 Genomes Project. The results also reveal that human genomes, like all genomes, are changed by the forces of mutation: our DNA is altered by differences in its code from that of our parents. Mutations that occur in sperm or egg cells will be 'new' mutations not seen in our parents.

Although most of our variety comes from reshuffling of genes from our parents, new mutations are the ultimate source from which new variation is drawn. Finding new mutations is extremely technically challenging as, on average, only 1 in every 100 million letters of DNA is altered each generation.

Previous measures of the mutation rate in humans has either averaged across both sexes or measured over several generations. There has been no measure of the new mutations passed from a specific parent to a child among multiple individuals or families.

"We human geneticists have theorised that mutation rates might be different between the sexes or between people," explains Dr Matt Hurles, Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who co-led the study with scientists at Montreal and Boston, "We know now that, in some families, most mutations might arise from the mother, in others most will arise from the father. This is a surprise: many people expected that in all families most mutations would come from the father, due to the additional number of times that the genome needs to be copied to make a sperm, as opposed to an egg."



Professor Philip Awadalla,who also co-led the project and is at University of Montreal explained: "Today, we have been able to test previous theories through new developments in experimental technologies and our analytical algorithms. This has allowed us to find these new mutations, which are like very small needles in a very large haystack."

The unexpected findings came from a careful study of two families consisting of both parents and one child. The researchers looked for new mutations present in the DNA from the children that were absent from their parents' genomes. They looked at almost 6000 possible mutations in the genome sequences.
They sorted the mutations into those that occurred during the production of sperm or eggs of the parents and those that may have occurred during the life of the child: it is the mutation rate in sperm or eggs that is important in evolution. Remarkably, in one family 92 per cent of the mutations derived from the father, whereas in the other family only 36 per cent were from the father.

This fascinating result had not been anticipated, and it raises as many questions as it answers. In each case, the team looked at a single child and so cannot tell from this first study whether the variation in numbers of new mutations is the result of differences in mutation processes between parents, or differences between individual sperm and eggs within a parent.

Using the new techniques and algorithms, the team can look at more families to answer these new riddles, and address such issues as the impact of parental age and different environment exposures on rates of new mutations, which might concern any would-be parent.

Equally remarkably, the number of mutations passed on from a parent to a child varied between parents by as much as tenfold. A person with a high natural mutation rate might be at greater risk of misdiagnosis of a genetic disease because the samples used for diagnosis might contain mutations that are not present in other cells in their body: most of their cells would be unaffected.

More information: Conrad DF et al. (2011) Variation in genome-wide mutation rates within and between human families. Nature Genetics, published online 12 June 2011. doi:1038/ng.856

Provided by Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (news : web)

Newscribe : get free news in real time

Malaysian taking office in London instead of Kuala Lumpur

Tweet

Malaysian set to take up duties as RICS president in London

By LIZ LEE lizlee@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: A Malaysian elected as the first non-British president of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) will conduct his duties from the heart of the British political powerhouse in London.

Ong See Lian, who will head the prestigious RICS for the 2011-2012 session, will move into an office in the centre of Parliament Square, overlooking the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, on July 4.

The 60-year-old quantity surveyor from Petaling Jaya, who beat off opposition to win the post in March, will live in a flat at Vauxhall, South London, with his wife Cheah Yoke Ling.



“It is a modest office, more functional than lavish, but I think my window has the best view of London.

• Full story in The Star today. 

Niceties of Obedient Wives Club (OWC), Obedient Servants of colonial masters, cont...

Tweet

FB users urged to support anti-OWC drive

By ISABELLE LAI  isabellelai@thestar.com.my 

PETALING JAYA: “Please save my mummy.”

Facebook users can choose this slogan among five variants to voice their concern over a drive by the so-called Obedient Wives Club (OWC) to get women to be subservient to their husbands.

The man behind the anti-OWC campaign, Matthew Ong, said those who wanted to show their support needed to change their profile pictures to the wallpaper of the Facebook campaign, which featured five slogans, including “Please save my mummy”.

The other variants are “Please save my wife/daughter/girlfriend/yourself”.

Ong's attempt to debunk the OWC drive followed recent statements by leaders of the controversial club that social ills, such as prostitution, domestic abuse and human trafficking, were allegedly caused by wives who were not obedient to their husbands and had failed to sexually satisfy them.

The club gathered international headlines last week for its message that wives needed to obey and serve their husbands in every way, including being “better than a first-class prostitute” in bed.

Ong urged more Facebook users to join the group “We Do Not Want Sexist Nonsense From Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd”, which currently has 3,824 members.

A happy man, a happy home

The Obedient Wives Club hopes that Malaysians can give them a chance to prove their noble aspirations.

THE first thing you see when you walk into the office of the now infamous Obedient Wives Club (OBW) in Rawang, Selangor, is a huge double bed covered with a velvety red bedspread.

In that situation, how does one keep “bordello”, “prostitutes” and “service” from popping to mind?
Noticing our discomfort, the club's national director Fauziah Ariffin gives a small laugh.

“The reporters who came this morning straight away asked us if this is for the sex lessons in our workshop!” shares the slight woman jovially before adding, on a more serious note, “That is how everything has been twisted out of proportion.”

She quickly tries to set things right.

“Sex workshops are not on the agenda for the club; it is haram!”

What they will have, she states, are motivational talks, counselling sessions and discussions among their 1,000 members.

“Of course, we welcome anyone to join,” she enthuses.

The newly-launched wives club catapulted to notoriety around the world recently when its vice-president Dr Rohaya Mohamed said the secret to a happy family and subsequently the solution to all of society's ills is a happy man at home, which can be achieved if women served their husbands like “first-class prostitutes”.

The outrage the remark has incurred is not surprising. Was the remark based on facts? Definitely, avows Fauziah.

“You just need to open the newspaper or watch the news on TV: there are so many sex-related social problems rape, incest, prostitution and sex trafficking.”

Men will not be committing these crimes if they are sexually satisfied at home, she stresses.

“The key to make a man gentle and loving is a first-class loving wife an obedient wife. When the wife is obedient, the husband will be happy and gentle. They will not look elsewhere for the loving they need.”
And like simple economics, cutting off the “demand” for the illegal “sex” will cut the supply.

“The authorities have come up with a lot of solutions and conducted various raids or operations to nip these social problems, but they still exist. The solution we are proposing is one that is guaranteed to work, as it is backed by the Quran,” she explains.

Committee member Siti Maznah Mohamed Taufik tries another argument to demonstrate how a sexually frustrated man can cause violence in society.

“Just yesterday, there was a story about a man who hit his wife with a lesung (pounding stone) because she refused to have lunch with him. Do you believe that? It does not make sense. Just because of lunch, a man would hit his wife until she is hospitalised? I'm sure it is because she did not give him any the night before. That's why he was furious with her.”

For “obedient” wives, Fauziah and Maznah are outspoken and frank about their belief. People have a misconception that they are meek women who are anti-career and anti-education, they say.

“We were all working professionals; I was an accountant and she was an engineer. We were both educated in Australia,” says Fauziah, pointing to Maznah.

“So we have been exposed and we know how difficult it is to balance work and marriage.”
Now, she says, they are businesswomen for Global Ikhwan Sdn Bhd, the corporation that runs the OWC, and travel around the world five to seven times a year.

How do they find time to practise what they preach then? “We become obedient wives when we meet our husband. You can say that absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Maznah quips.

She adds that they are constantly learning and reminding themselves about how to become obedient. Many working women, however, are content to neglect their wifely duties, she says.

“With housework, we can get help from maids, our children or family. But with sex, who can help? And if we go back to the time of Adam and Eve, that is the real responsibility of women (to fulfil the sexual needs of men) but many women are neglecting that responsibility, so men have to pay thousands of ringgit just to satisfy their sexual needs.”

And that is where the whole idea of the first-class prostitute service originated, explains Fauziah.

“That is what the statement means you need to be as skilful as a first-class prostitute and give more. It is not about the person, it is the service your appearance, the way you speak to your husband, the way you understand your husband. And it is not just in bed but in everything a wife has to be the best she can. ”
She laments the way her vice-president's words have been misconstrued.

“We are not equating a wife to a prostitute. A wife provides love and affection which a prostitute doesn't,” says Fauziah.

“We wanted to say that a good wife needs to be like a bidadari (an angel), but how many of us have met an angel? It will be difficult for people to relate to it.

“But mention prostitutes, and everyone will be able to visualise and understand the concept.”

Another question emerges: how do they know what first-class service from “elite” prostitutes is like?
“I know because I read about it in magazines and books. For example, I've read many thrillers of how KGB female spies are trained to use their sexuality to seduce men. We just want the service, not to be like the person. Those who read a lot will know what we mean,” shares Fauziah.

They may not look like your typical sex pots but the two women do come across as warm and affectionate.

Malaysians, especially Malaysian Muslims, are hypocritical when it comes to sex, laments Fauziah.

“They act all prudish and don't want to talk about sex. When they get older, the women start distancing themselves from their husband while many sleep in separate bedrooms when scientifically it has been proven that men have sexual needs until they die. That is why we have many cases of grandfathers raping their grandchildren.”

She, however, refutes the notion that the club is unfairly putting the blame on women.
“Men are responsible too. We have never denied that. But the root of the problem is that women are not fulfilling their responsibility to the men.

“If we go back to the Quran, you can see that God says women play a big role in shaping society but to do that they need to be good wives in the whole sense. Men and women are not created equal but women today do not understand that. Instead, they keep demanding that men understand them and fulfil all their wishes.”

The way she explains it, it is indeed a case of “men are from Mars and women are from Venus”.

“Men have only one desire, which is for women, while women have nine desires for a new handbag, new shoes and many more. That is how God created us, and there is a gap of understanding between the sexes.

“That is why women are required to be obedient, so that they can bridge the gap between them and their husband,” says Fauziah.

“Women today, however, feel that it is the men who should understand them and fulfil all their needs,” Maznah interjects.

They believe that is the main reason why society is in a mess (huru hara): because women are demanding for equality in work and marriage.

Fauziah is not worried about young girls getting the wrong message about sex.

“We have children too. If the girls are good and have enough religious education, they will not misunderstand our message and stray from the right path. The basis of our belief is to love and be fearful of God. No religion in the world asks their believers to disobey their husbands,” she says.

As for the effect all the sex talk is having on their image as Muslim women, both Maznah and Fauziah are not too concerned either.

As Maznah puts it, “In Islam, we believe that God created women for men. Sex is natural. If you look at the Quran, there are a lot of references to sex.

“God even promised sexual pleasure from beautiful bidadari in heaven for those who are good. So are you saying that God is sex-crazed or obscene?”

Is sex the only happy factor in marriage?

By HARIATI AZIZAN sunday@thestar.com.my

AFTER more than a decade of marriage, 40-something Susan* and her husband are still hot in between the sheets. However, all the action in bed is cooling off her feelings for her husband.

“I am tired all the time but he is just insatiable,” she confides.

Outside the bedroom, the two management-level professionals hardly communicate, unless there are problems with their children, or huge bills to settle.

Worse, she says, both are addicted to their smartphones. “When we are together, our attention is on our phone reading updates and e-mail or just trying out new Apps.”

Although divorce is not on their minds, Susan admits that the romance is missing from their relationship.

Paul Jambunathan, a consultant clinical psychologist at Sunway Medical Centre, says lack of communication between husband and wife is the main cause of extra-marital affairs and divorces.

“The problem starts when the husband and wife start living on different planets and stop sharing their emotions or stop talking about something other than their children, bills and other domestic problems,” says Jambunathan, who is also a senior lecturer at Monash University Malaysia.

In a relationship, there are many variables because it involves two personalities or personas, he says.

“The two personas interact verbally and non-verbally. One of the most important issues in interaction is intimacy. Unfortunately, we have been relating intimacy to sex and equating sex only to sexual intercourse.

What I am trying to say is that while sex is integral to a happy marriage, we need to define what sex is. Is it only intercourse?”

As he explains, sex is the sexuality expressed between two people and there is a wide spectrum of sexual behaviour.

“If you have feelings for someone, even touching and holding hands will already make you sexually excited. When you later get married and build on that love you have intercourse, sleep together, talk and spend more time together a different kind of sexual intimacy is built.”

Hence, Jambunathan, who has more than 25 years' experience as a consultant, is vexed by the comments made by the Obedient Wives Club (OWC), which suggested that to keep a man from straying from his marriage, the wife needs to please him in bed like a “first-class prostitute”.

“When couples in trouble seek my advice, they tell me that intercourse and sleeping in the same room do not necessarily help (mend their relationship). Sometimes it even creates complications.”

He stresses that it should not be about intercourse but making love.

“Love is not intercourse as people often equate it to; intercourse is a personal, committed and intricate intimacy but it does not last very long. Usually one hour after the act, the feeling is gone.”

Health research consultant Siti Norazah Zulkifli agrees, saying that sex will not sustain a marriage if there are other major problems.

“Sex, no matter how good, is not the only thing that keeps a marriage happy. Couples choose to marry for various reasons love, attraction (physical and mental), companionship, economics, social expectations, offspring ... Sex is only one reason.

“In tribal cultures, for example, land ownership or the number of cows he or she owns may be a factor. Actually, economics may well be a consideration in modern marriages too, and how important one factor is over another depends on the individual.”

Once married, and especially over time, she says, other factors will contribute towards maintaining happiness in marriage.

This includes whether they meet each other's expectations, how they cope with stressful events and their level of commitment to their marriage, compromises each has to make for the other, whether they “grow apart” as individuals and their marital values.

“Not everyone subscribes to monogamy, for example,” she says. Siti Norazah nonetheless concedes that in the literature on what makes happy marriages, sex does predominate as a topic of discussion.

“It may seem that most marriages break up because of some sexual issue (notably, sexually unsatisfied husbands). We should be aware, however, that sometimes what is expressed as a sexual problem has its roots in something else, such as failed expectations. For example, if a person feels resentment towards his or her spouse, it will affect his or her sexual desire to that spouse.”

Some people, perhaps men more so, associate sex with love, she points out.

“Some men feel that his wife doesn't love him if she rejects his sexual advances. Equally, a wife would feel the same way if her husband doesn't want to make love to her. In sum, an individual's sexual development is complex, beginning from a young age, and becomes intrinsic to his or her personality.”

Siti Norazah makes an interesting point, highlighting that most of the studies on marriage and sexual attitudes are based on Western ideals.

“We should recognise that people have different sexual attitudes and sex drives. How they were brought up, sexual norms in their society and culture, exposure to external social influences (for example living abroad or the media), their personality, their sex hormone levels (testosterone, notably) and other factors influence how important sex is to them and how they express their sexual needs.”

Still, she feels that in conservative and chauvinistic cultures, men may not want their wife to be sexually aggressive or “act like a prostitute”.

She opines that the OWC prostitute statement will create a gender bias one that will compound the attitude that there are two types of women the ones they will marry and the ones with whom they will have fun (have sex with) but never marry.

“Conversely, girls may be brought up to repress their sexual desire so the message that their husband's happiness depends on her sexual performance puts the blame on her should there be any marital problem.

“For a married couple, it is not sex per se but sexual incompatibility that could breed resentment or dissatisfaction and cause marital problems such as adultery and divorce.”

According to consultant psychologist Valerie Jaques, a study she conducted a number of years ago showed that one of the most significant factors for high marital satisfaction is when there is a greater awareness and accurate perception of the needs of a marriage partner.

“So when the husband is aware of the wife and perceives her needs accurately by effective communication and vice-versa then there is high marital satisfaction.”

She highlights that it is not just intercourse that reflects how good a marriage is, but rather the intimate and mutual sex in the relationship.

“Very often, if one party is upset or hurt with the other and there is a strain in the relationship, there is lack of sexual intimacy in the marriage. This is different from just having sex to fulfil a need,” she shares.

More importantly, stresses Jaques, although sex is one of the many important elements that make up a marriage, it definitely does not mean that marriage is a legal means for a man to rape his wife. Neither should the wife allow the husband to take advantage of her for his needs.

“Many women are made to believe that they do not have rights in their marriage and that only the husband's rights are to be met,” she says.

Jambunathan agrees that a man does not have the right to demand for sex without consideration of the woman's needs and wants.

“He cannot say I want it now, so give it to me. The woman is an equal partner in the relationship and she has a right to decide the level of intimacy and the platform of the relationship.”

He also disputes the belief that men's biological make-up makes them sexual at all ages and that they have high sexual needs until they die.

“As you get older, your body gets older and your biology will not allow you to have intercourse,” he says, highlighting that half of heart patients are men, and that “many cannot get it up because of their medication”.

However, attitude may come into play and corrupt emotions where the emotions are twisted “will make you think you must have intercourse at any age 60, 70, 80 regardless of your partner's wants”, he says.

* Not real name

Related Posts:

Wives Club (OWC) to offer sex lessons

Signing off for the niceties of colonial masters, obedient servants, wives ...