Screenshots: Server hosting, overseas

I am still reflecting on what Content Forum Honorary Secretary Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek of TM Net told the Complaints Bureau August 21, that websites and weblogs hosted overseas will not face problems like what Screenshots has been dragged into now. This blog, a Malaysian brand, is currently hosted in the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) while the penembak curi are having a fun time roaming free elsewhere.

It is interesting to note that, in Malaysia, even the owners of pro-Abdullah/anti-Mahathir sites have to resort to anonymity and host their servers overseas -- and overseas can mean two-way traffic in a global perspective.

Two examples are machai.net and malaysiatomorrow.net.

Traceroute: Machai.net... A Pro-Abdullah/Anti-Mahathir website anonymously hosted in San Diego, California, USA

Traceroute: Malaysiatomorrow.net... A Pro-Abdullah/Anti-Mahathir website anonymously hosted in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

The owners utilised anonymised domain name registrar services to mask their digital trails.

On the other hand, owners of pro-Hezbollah websites will find Malaysia a haven to host their servers here.

A good example is ghaliboun.net, which is hosted at Telekom Malaysia.

Traceroute: Ghaliboun.net..A Pro-Hezbollah website anonymously hosted in Cyberjaya, Malaysia

Meanwhile, there are home-grown websites, like Malaysiakini and this weblog, which chose to reside and host their servers in Malaysia out of patriotic reasons. The only thing is we don't get any guarantee for harassment-free treatment that is now enjoyed, de facto, by the three websites I showcased above.

Food for thought for Deputy Minister in charge of Communications, Shaziman Abu Mansor, who said yesterday:

“It is difficult for the Government if we were to regulate Internet users because they can easily register in other countries.

Shaziman said it was up to bloggers to use their own discretion when disseminating information on the Internet.

“We cannot control them. If in the old days we used to have Wild Wild West, now we have Wild Wild Web.

“Wild Wild Web are bloggers who hide and shoot but are afraid to come out in the open for confrontation,” he said.

“If they are truly gentlemen and responsible (for what they blogged), they should show themselves.”

And food for thought for Bapak K-Ekonomi Malaysia, if we had one.

Comments

the untouchables

Posted by: IImran | August 23, 2006 09:27 AM

sdr jeff, memang sungguh menyedihkan kerana bapak2 menteri kita tak tahu akan hal2 yang sdr jeff debatkan di sini. sepatutnya, sdr jeff diberi tugas sebagai penasihat kepada mereka.

jua kepada bapak k-ekonomi kita, pak lah yang tercinta. kenapa sdr jeff berkata "if we had one"? apa gelaran yang diberi oleh menteri jamaluddin jarjis minggu lepas(sila lihat rockybru.blogspot.com) kepada PM kita sebagai "bapa k" tidak diiktiraf kah?

Posted by: lubok melayu | August 23, 2006 09:42 AM

"Kumpulan pengendali laman forum (blog) yang berselindung di sebalik nama samaran dicabar untuk tampil ke hadapan dan berhujah secara terbuka tentang isu semasa." - Utusan, 23/08/2006

Syed Hamid Albar was ruined.
Shahrir Samad was ruined.
Mustapha Mohammed was ruined.
Khaled Nordin was ruined.
Ex-Selangor MB cancelled his attendance at last minutes.
Nazri Aziz 'ran' at the eleventh hour at one session, and ruined in another place.
(Is that all?)

They even banned Q&A from their 'meet the UMNO members' sessions.

Now they want to hold debate aaa? Suddenly got balls, don't they?

Answer Tun Dr Mahathir 4 questions first laaa!

Posted by: IImran | August 23, 2006 10:01 AM

Quote : "Wild Wild Web are bloggers who hide and shoot but are afraid to come out in the open for confrontation"

Yeah, a huge contrast compare to disgusting politikus that not afraid to fart from their mouth.

Posted by: moo_t | August 23, 2006 11:15 AM

Jeff,the logical choice would be have your website hosted overseas. I wont be surprised if action is taken against you for being a law abiding Malaysian who wants to show that world that we are truly a first world country who can accept criticism. You just can't fight the third world adminstrations in this modern internet age. Jeff ,Can You? I bet you are fighting a losing battle.

Posted by: Elvis | August 23, 2006 12:39 PM

Between the choice of

1. A blind patriot.

2. An intelligent dissident patriot.

I think I will pick number 2. What's the use if you get silenced for being number 1 unless being a martyr is in one of the objectives. :D

Besides, why should I waste money hosting in Malaysia where the fees are more expensive and bandwidth are crap and more expensive in cyberjaya? Bandwidth is a luxury in Malaysia's net infrastructure so they are not at economies of scale pricing compared to what you get overseas.

And you've experienced yourself how they lump all the servers into the same room and worms/trojans propagate so fast it clogged up the main line where everyone's server is dependent on for bandwidth.

This happens because there're too many servers running pirated versions of Windows Server with updates turned off to avoid piracy detection by MS. (Pirate servers can't download latest security patches anyway)

If you host it overseas at least they have stricter rules about not allowing pirate OS (which tend to not able to get security patches) infest their network infrastructure for hosting.

Posted by: Copernicus | August 23, 2006 12:51 PM

out of the political context above, businesses whose livelihood depend on the web tend want to host overseas because:

1. not susceptible to policy changes, impositions, due to political climate, "etc".

2. economics. in my case, we get 1300% better bandwidth allocated (and better flexibility for spikes, automated!), 350% more storage given and far superior processing power on servers for the same amount of money spent hosting in reputedly the best datacenter in the country vs overseas.

3. peering, which translates to user experience, aka revenue. try accessing any site hosted in cyberjaya from the US or HK between 9am-6pm. we have lost business due to the lag and insecurity of prospective clients from the slow, at times inaccessible, site.

this is from personal experience. others may be luckier :)

Posted by: ishsal | August 23, 2006 03:09 PM

It seems that only non government oganizations register in Malaysia.

DAP website comes from the US (Fastservers)

UMNO YOUTH is so patriotic that they are hosted in the US as well by Internad.

Posted by: Albert | August 23, 2006 07:26 PM

Correction....
Some name server error.
UMNO Youth is hosted by TM-NET (StreamyX)
Sorry for the error

Posted by: Albert | August 23, 2006 08:35 PM